Jazz

Jazz dancing is very popular today. There are actually two different types of jazz. There is traditional jazz and modern jazz.



Traditional
jazz in the United States was a mix between European and African
dancing styles combined in the 1900s. A jazz band usually would have a
jazz dancer of a tap dancer on stage with the band dancing. This
resulted in many new styles of dance such as:

• the Charleston 
• Boogie Woogie
• Jitterbug
• Swing 

Traditional jazz has the traditional leaps and turns
and body movement were important with this type of dance. Traditional
jazz has some movements like ballet, but a person's body "flows" instead
of being precise and "board-like." Jazz was created by primarily the
black community so they could still do their African chants. In the
1920's, white Americans took a liking to it. This lead to jazz being
played/danced everywhere.



Modern jazz uses ballet style
just like traditional jazz. Also, modern jazz uses street dancing.
Modern jazz came about in the 1950's. Some of the "inventors" of modern
jazz are Jake Cole, Katherina Dunham, and Bob Fosse. Modern jazz is a
mix between Caribbean and Latin American dancing. This type of dace
started Broadway dancing.