Latest / Making The Impact - A Dance Competition Podcast / Keeping Jazz Dance Alive - In Studio and On Stage

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Keeping Jazz Dance Alive - In Studio and On Stage · Making The Impact - A Dance Competition Podcast

0:07
SPEAKER_06: Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the table at a dance competition?
0:10
SPEAKER_06: Exactly what are the judges looking for anyway?
0:13
SPEAKER_06: This is Making the Impact, a Dance Competition Podcast.
0:16
SPEAKER_06: Each week, we'll cover a different topic related to the world of competitive dance from the perspective of the judges behind the table.
0:23
SPEAKER_06: Jazz dance is and has always been an extension of the music, culture, and climate of a particular time.
0:29
SPEAKER_06: If that's true, why does it seem to be dying out today?
0:32
SPEAKER_06: In this episode of Making the Impact a Dance Competition Podcast, we sit down with jazz dance specialists Mary Roberts and Terrell Mitchell to dig deep on the current state of jazz dance in the competitive world and bring you some juicy tips for spicing up your jazz class.
0:48
SPEAKER_04: Hey everybody, it's Courtney Ortiz, and welcome to this week's episode of Making the Impact a Dance Competition Podcast.
0:54
SPEAKER_04: I'm your host, and I'm here with my co-host, Leslie Mueller.
0:58
SPEAKER_04: Good morning, evening, afternoon, everybody.
1:01
SPEAKER_04: Yes, and happy December.
1:03
SPEAKER_04: We are here today and we are so, so, so pumped to talk about all things jazz dance.
1:10
SPEAKER_04: And we have some spectacular guests that are here joining us today that know a thing or two about jazz.
1:15
SPEAKER_04: So we're gonna dive deep into this discussion that is so needed and necessary in the industry right now.
1:20
SPEAKER_04: But before we do that, we just want to give a huge shout out to everyone who's been listening and tuning in to season two of the podcast.
1:27
SPEAKER_04: We've had such success and all of the episode topics have been so much fun to do and make possible.
1:32
SPEAKER_04: And shout out to all of our guests who have joined us.
1:35
SPEAKER_04: If you haven't had a chance to listen to some of our previous episodes, we have some really great ones that are super educational and inspiring.
1:42
SPEAKER_04: We even have discussions on what to expect for the upcoming competition season, which I know a lot of people are curious to know how we're leading into that.
1:49
SPEAKER_04: Uh it's gonna be very different in 2021, but we kind of talked about that and gave some predictions as to what it's going to look like.
1:55
SPEAKER_04: We even just had a really great spotlight feature with Maud Arnold that you can go check out now.
2:01
SPEAKER_04: So definitely give a listen.
2:03
SPEAKER_04: And uh we have some really other great topics coming your way.
2:06
SPEAKER_04: So head over to your favorite podcast platform, press subscribe, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Podcast, Spotify, wherever you love to listen to podcasts.
2:17
SPEAKER_04: Make sure you hit that subscribe button so you can get weekly updates every Thursday throughout the dance season.
2:22
SPEAKER_04: So if you've been with us since season two, you've noticed that we have a lot more fabulous sponsors.
2:28
SPEAKER_04: We have so many sponsors this season, which we could we're so grateful for, and we couldn't do the podcast without their support.
2:34
SPEAKER_04: So we want to give a shout out to the sponsors.
2:36
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2:40
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2:44
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2:52
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2:55
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3:01
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3:06
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3:15
SPEAKER_06: Thanks, Dance Costumes by Urzua.
3:17
SPEAKER_06: Thanks for supporting us this season.
3:19
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3:23
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3:27
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3:35
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3:36
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3:41
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3:48
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3:52
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4:00
SPEAKER_04: Yay, thank you so much to our two sponsors of this week's episode.
4:04
SPEAKER_04: We love you guys.
4:05
SPEAKER_04: Thanks for the support.
4:07
SPEAKER_04: All right, it's time to jump into this episode.
4:09
SPEAKER_04: I'm so, so, so excited to introduce our two guests who are joining us today to talk all things jazz dance.
4:15
SPEAKER_04: They are experts in this field, 100%.
4:18
SPEAKER_04: And this discussion is going to be so fantastic.
4:21
SPEAKER_04: I can't wait to jump in.
4:23
SPEAKER_04: So, first up, I would love to introduce a guest that you may remember from season one of the podcast.
4:31
SPEAKER_04: Season one, episode 10, Why Technique Will Never Go Out of Style.
4:35
SPEAKER_04: The Jazz Master, oh, Mistress, Master Master, Mistress, yeah.
4:39
SPEAKER_04: Mistress.
4:40
SPEAKER_04: The jazz mistress herself, Miss Mary Roberts, is back on the pod.
4:44
SPEAKER_04: Hello, hello.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: Hello, ladies.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me back on board.
4:49
SPEAKER_04: Of course.
4:49
SPEAKER_04: I knew when we had you on last season when we were talking about technique and you were bringing so many jazz references into that podcast that when we had our jazz episode, I was like, Mary's back.
5:00
SPEAKER_04: We gotta have her number one 100%.
5:02
SPEAKER_04: Yes, yes, yes.
5:04
SPEAKER_04: So please feel free to share with the new listeners out there and remind everyone who's returning a little bit about who you are, where you're based, any career credits you'd like to share, and what you're currently working on now.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh yes.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: So hi, I'm Mary Roberts.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: And I am typically working within the cruise line industry as a director and choreographer.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: So currently I am waiting, anticipatingly, for cruise line industry to come back.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: But in the meantime, I'm continuing to share my love of dance with the Young Actors Theater here in Tallahassee, Florida, where I'm based, and Sharon Davis School of Dance.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: And I'm actually really loving to be back involved with uh the direct education of younger dancers.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: And it's just, it's really cool to just continue, right?
5:50
SPEAKER_00: To just keep going.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: And I'm also part of National Dance Educators Organization and the Bridge Dance Project, helping to make sure that uh all of these young dancers get information and resources that could help them have a whether it's a healthy career as a dancer or just a healthy life as a human being.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: So, yep, I'm based in Tallahassee, Florida right now and really happy to be here.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
6:15
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, thank you, Mary.
6:17
SPEAKER_04: We're so happy to have you back.
6:19
SPEAKER_04: All right, and our next guest is a new guest.
6:22
SPEAKER_04: And this guest is actually not on the IDA judges roster.
6:25
SPEAKER_04: So we're bringing in some new voices to the pod, which is so exciting.
6:29
SPEAKER_04: And I am a big fan of this teacher and educator.
6:34
SPEAKER_04: I discovered him on Facebook, actually, in our lovely dance forums that many dance teachers are involved in.
6:40
SPEAKER_04: And he would post such fabulous videos of his jazz progressions across the floor.
6:45
SPEAKER_04: And I've just been admiring him from afar.
6:48
SPEAKER_04: So I've reached out and said, You need to join us for our jazz episode.
6:51
SPEAKER_04: And he said, absolutely.
6:53
SPEAKER_04: So I can't wait to welcome the jazz master, Terrell Mitchell, to the podcast.
6:59
SPEAKER_04: Welcome.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: Hi guys, thanks for having me.
7:02
SPEAKER_01: Super excited to be here.
7:03
SPEAKER_01: I love jazz.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: All things jazz.
7:05
SPEAKER_04: Yay! We love jazz too.
7:07
SPEAKER_04: And we're so happy to have you.
7:08
SPEAKER_04: So thank you for joining us.
7:10
SPEAKER_04: And since you are new to the pod, if you wouldn't mind sharing with everyone a little bit about who you are, where you're based, career credits, and uh what you're working on.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: So uh originally uh Morgantown, West Virginia, so pretty small.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: All right.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: And then I went to Point Park University in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
7:28
SPEAKER_01: And I've been in Houston, Texas for the last 12 years.
7:31
SPEAKER_01: I danced for seven years with a contemporary jazz company.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: From there, I became a director at a competitive studio and was predominantly the jazz teacher while directing it.
7:41
SPEAKER_01: And then since stepping down, I have joined Dupree Dance Convention and I've been touring with them for the last seven seasons, I believe.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: And then just guest teaching a lot.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: I do have uh two home studios here in Houston where I just teach one day a week and just jazz.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of nice just to go in and only uh focus on the training aspect and I don't do recital dances or anything.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: So it's just training classes.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's kind of nice.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, currently I've been fortunate enough to uh still continue guest teaching and choreographing during the craziness.
8:13
SPEAKER_01: So I still, yeah, just going crazy with that and trying to keep as innovative as possible, especially right now.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: While it's you know, times are like what's going on with dance.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, just keeping it celebratory.
8:25
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, nice.
8:26
SPEAKER_04: Awesome.
8:27
SPEAKER_04: Well, we are so grateful for you both to join us and share your knowledge all about jazz dance today.
8:32
SPEAKER_04: So thanks so much for joining.
8:34
SPEAKER_06: So we are we are running out of blogs to talk about that we've had over this past couple of years because we've had so many episodes, but we do have a blog to pull out from the roster of all of our blogs from 2017 called Getting Jazzy with It.
8:49
SPEAKER_06: So if you listen to this and you want a little bit more perspective on different topics about jazz dance, check that out at Impact Dance Adjudicators.com/slash Judges blog and you can get jazzy with it.
9:00
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, get jazzy with it.
9:01
SPEAKER_04: And another exciting feature that we've just incorporated into the Judges blog is we now are converting every podcast episode into a blog post as well.
9:10
SPEAKER_04: So that's another exciting thing.
9:12
SPEAKER_04: So if you want to, you know, go read essentially a synopsis of what happened during this episode and then maybe want to tune into the episode, you now have an opportunity to do that once our episode's release.
9:22
SPEAKER_04: So head over to our judges blog at impactdanceeducators.com and read some more of our articles.
9:29
SPEAKER_06: Well, let's dive right on in, my friends.
9:32
SPEAKER_06: If there was a theme song, you know, to the jazz episode, I would use let's get soaking wet because like who will who doesn't want to see that on a jazz competition stage?
9:41
SPEAKER_06: So let's get soaking wet with jazz dance.
9:43
SPEAKER_06: I would love to hear just each of you individually.
9:46
SPEAKER_06: Tell me about your first, like early on in your in your dancing career, what was your first exposure to jazz?
9:51
SPEAKER_06: What was jazz dance?
9:52
SPEAKER_06: Was it your favorite?
9:53
SPEAKER_06: Was it your least favorite?
9:54
SPEAKER_06: You know, were you exposed to it at all?
9:56
SPEAKER_06: Give me kind of the rundown of of your history with jazz.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: I was trained as a competitive dancer, so I had, you know, classical jazz classes, but it didn't really spark for me until I had class with um Frank Hatchett.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: So it was it was super, super classic, which was 10 times harder than how I had been training.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, this is I thought we were doing jazz.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: So to get deeper into the elements of isolations and all of that and understanding the the quality of how you conducted yourself, how you walked into the room and it was it was a how it was more of a lifestyle then.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: So I'm like as a kid looking back, going like, holy bananas, this is great.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: So I would say, yeah, my first major eye-opening jazz experience was class with Frank Hatchett.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: Since then, it's like I I want that incorporation throughout my whole training.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: So I sought out more opportunities to train like that.
10:52
SPEAKER_06: So it's kind of kind of nice, yeah.
10:54
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, what a legend, Frank Hatchet.
10:56
SPEAKER_06: Oh my goodness.
10:57
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that's that's amazing.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: Still love me some vop.
11:02
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
11:02
SPEAKER_02: Right?
11:03
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh my gosh.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: So my my early experience was at Flex Dance in Sarasota, Florida, also a competition dance studio, right?
11:11
SPEAKER_00: We did Dance Masters of America.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: But the cool thing with being at Flex was that Jenny Hendry had performed on Broadway, had been a choreographer, and she and her husband, and she actually trained her husband, and he became so good that he was then teaching as well.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: They taught very specific.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: It was a very classic, codified jazz class with all of the elements in it.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: And we even had to start writing out what we did in warm-up.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: So it was to add this like academic value that I didn't know as a young person would influence me for the rest of my life.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: Right.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: So then you fast forward, and I went to a fine arts uh performing arts school where we didn't have so much jazz as we had.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: Um we actually had West African and we had some of those other elements that were then built in and guest teachers like Cornelius Carter coming over from University of Alabama and teaching us Ailey works.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: So then, you know, like very different from per se like the studio environment that I grew up taking jazz in and then being open to jazz from like a modern base, you know, like from this other base completely, and then going to Oklahoma City University, you know, which is all about American dance forms and how jazz dance so highly influences everything that we do in the entertainment industry.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: So I don't like it's almost like as a dancer, I've never known life without jazz dance.
12:30
unknown: Yeah.
12:31
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, that's so true because we we like st we typically start with jazz when we're starting dance.
12:37
SPEAKER_04: It it's it's like a ballet jazz combo class.
12:40
SPEAKER_04: We're getting introduced to some of the very, very like beginner basics of what jazz is.
12:47
SPEAKER_04: Even a bald change, I mean a weight shift, something as as hard it it seems simple, but that is hard.
12:53
SPEAKER_04: And we're learning that from the very wee ages of four, five years old.
12:58
SPEAKER_04: We're trying to learn a chasse step.
13:00
SPEAKER_04: You know, we start with jazz.
13:02
SPEAKER_04: It's and it I again, I I agree, Mary, with you.
13:04
SPEAKER_04: I feel like it's always kind of been with me.
13:06
SPEAKER_04: And and I think maybe it's because that was one of the first styles that was introduced to me at the very beginning of our little dance careers.
13:14
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
13:14
SPEAKER_06: And I think it's important, Mary.
13:16
SPEAKER_06: You said something that kind of sparked a thought of, you know, jazz dance influences almost everything we do in American entertainment industry.
13:23
SPEAKER_06: But jazz dance also influences human beings.
13:27
SPEAKER_06: And human beings influence jazz dance.
13:29
SPEAKER_06: And when you think about, you know, how children want to move and how people want to move, we don't naturally want to move in first position ballet en bas.
13:39
SPEAKER_06: That's not a natural way to move, but a a shoulder roll or a contraction, like human beings do those things, you know.
13:45
SPEAKER_06: So I think that's that's one of my favorite parts of jazz is, you know, once you if you wanted to divorce like the academic, like let's learn the technique of this from it, it's it's a very human way of moving.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: I always tell my students, my younger students, to make sure grandma can connect to you from the audience when it's something as simple as a shoulder roll or isolations or something like that, you know.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: Oh, totally.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: And with that idea of it being human motion, I was actually just to sort of like prepare my mind, like, okay, like be back in like, you know, jazz dance mental state, right?
14:18
SPEAKER_00: I was going back and listening to some of the Jacob Pillows talks where Melanie George, you know, is talking about jazz dance.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: And then she had it was her and Camille Brown and Monsel Durden and talking about jazz as culture, you know, that jazz dance rec, you know, it mirrors, resembles, but then also creates culture.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: And jazz dance meets us wherever we are.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: So, Terrell, 100%, like make it something that like grandma recognizes that grandma connects with, right?
14:47
SPEAKER_00: It's so human, it's so right now.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: And we sometimes get a little caught up in like, you know, term jazz dance, but like back in the day, jazz, like jazz was now, right?
14:59
SPEAKER_00: It was like a term used for for now.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: So I I love that, and I'll always love that about jazz dance, that it's it's human, it's real, it's us as we are, you know, now, and so it continues to evolve with us.
15:12
SPEAKER_04: I just watched the documentary, Uprooted.
15:14
SPEAKER_04: It's a jazz dance documentary, and it is so well done.
15:18
SPEAKER_04: And so many of these things that we just talked about were mentioned in this documentary.
15:22
SPEAKER_04: And I I would highly recommend every single listener who is listening, every single dancer who is over the age of 13, even younger if you'd like, to watch this because it really does dive into the history of jazz dance and where it's evolved from.
15:39
SPEAKER_04: And I just love the fact that we kind of have already touched on so many things.
15:43
SPEAKER_04: Is such a natural movement quality that is ingrained in us.
15:47
SPEAKER_04: And it was for me, it was even eye-opening watching it, watching the documentary to kind of just see how jazz has evolved throughout the years and where it really started from and who kind of initiated some of these movement styles that we know so well today.
16:02
SPEAKER_04: It's really inspiring.
16:03
SPEAKER_04: So definitely go check that out.
16:04
SPEAKER_04: And with that being said, I'd love to hear some of your guys' favorite dance jazz dance pioneers, because that was something that was very uh discussed heavily in the uprooted documentary.
16:16
SPEAKER_04: And it was an interesting perspective because a lot of people have different visions as to who really created jazz dance and who got the credit for for creating jazz dance.
16:27
SPEAKER_04: And I'm just curious to hear like who are your go-to's, who are your your pioneer favorites in in the jazz world?
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Good lord.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: It's so hard to figure out like who your pioneers are per se, because it comes from so many avenues.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: When I was at OCU, I had such a direct lineage with Giordano, you know, and so that that like Liz Ryder, uh, Lynn Kramer, you know, were those were like my main teachers.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: But then on the other side, like He Choose, who has the raised dance company out in Oklahoma and the different avenues that they brought.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: But then as you dig further and you get to know more, like the more that I've gotten into social dance forms, then obviously I've got to pay full tribute to like Frankie Manning and Norma Miller.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Right.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: And Norma Miller, yes.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: I just made my jazz classes watch Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, right, in Hellsapappen and making sure that they see it so that they understand that while maybe what they've received within a studio environment is one way of going about teaching jazz dance, that there's this long-term lineage that I want them to be uh proud of how they continue that line and continue it forward.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: And also, I want to say that every cruise ship cast that I teach, I make them go check out Charlie Atkins for creating the concept of vocal choreography.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: So when you look at those like Motown groups and like the way that they get like the little everything goes along with the lyrics.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: So when I'm teaching singers choreography, I have to try to put myself into a singer mindset.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Right.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: When I go back to this idea of what did Charlie Atkins as a tapper bring to the table, then it's that intrinsic level of rhythm.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: So I think, yeah, those, those would be like my quick pioneers.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: I can't even name them all.
18:15
SPEAKER_06: I'm so glad you brought up Norma Miller and the Whitey's Lindy Hoppers.
18:20
SPEAKER_06: I knew a teeny weeny bit about them from Professor Robert Reed, who was one of our tap professors when I was at Oklahoma City University.
18:27
SPEAKER_06: Rest in peace, go in rhythm, sir.
18:29
SPEAKER_06: But we had our our generation of OCU people had that kind of connection with the tap history, which goes in hand with Lindy Hopping and jazz as well.
18:39
SPEAKER_06: But I was lucky enough to meet Norma Miller, who at the time, when I met her at the dancewear store I worked at in New York City, was probably 87, 88.
18:48
SPEAKER_06: And she came in and I just kept looking at her.
18:51
SPEAKER_06: I was like, this is someone.
18:52
SPEAKER_06: This isn't just some random lady who needs a pair of ballet shoes.
18:56
SPEAKER_06: This somebody, she is somebody.
18:57
SPEAKER_06: So I said, I'm sorry.
18:58
SPEAKER_06: Like, do you do I know you?
19:00
SPEAKER_06: And she said, Well, I'm Norma Miller, and I was in Whitey's Lindy Hoppers.
19:03
SPEAKER_06: And I just my mind was blown because she was so, she was at that time, I think this was at least five years ago.
19:10
SPEAKER_06: So she was still teaching.
19:12
SPEAKER_06: Wow.
19:12
SPEAKER_06: She was still swinging, and she had a Facebook page at the time.
19:16
SPEAKER_06: So we took a picture together.
19:18
SPEAKER_06: I got to speak with her.
19:19
SPEAKER_06: I started following her on Facebook.
19:21
SPEAKER_06: And she was so big on just people, people don't know what that generation contributed to what we do now as jazz dancers.
19:30
SPEAKER_06: And like you said, Mary, it feels kind of far away from, you know, Pada Boo, Ray, Step Bot Ma, whatever.
19:36
SPEAKER_06: Because it's not that, but but we pull from that kind of rhythm all the time.
19:41
SPEAKER_06: And so we will link to this also in the show notes.
19:43
SPEAKER_06: But check out Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, check out Hells of Poppin for some just death-defying work because they were pretty awesome back back in the 30s and 40s.
19:54
SPEAKER_01: My generation at Point Park University was definitely heavily influenced by the Giordano technique.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: But what stuck out to me the most, what my body absorbed so much was Dunham technique.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: So Kathleen Dunham.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: And it was just something that I was, I don't know, I was so mentally focused on.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I gotta get my body to really identify and understand.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: And fortunately, you know, we had everything from uh Giordano de Luigi to to Dunham.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: And it was all taught so different, differently.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: It I don't know, it's I want to say uh Dunham Technique definitely uh changed my life in getting that understanding of how we're moving our hips, how we're celebrating the movement.
20:40
SPEAKER_01: And that's when that's what stuck with me the most is jazz being such a celebratory thing.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: And I I mean, I miss that.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to get kids to understand like this is celebratory.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: You walk in celebrating the fact that you're getting ready to to move your hips.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: Like this is gonna, this is gonna be fun.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: I remember I remember Ron Hudson, the professor I had.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: He his passion for it was, I mean, he would come up, put his hands on your hips, and literally just make sure you're actually feeling it.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, no, I feel the consistent beat until it literally was ingrained in my soul and how I how I had to like actually let go.
21:17
SPEAKER_01: So aside, you know, aside from all the amazing people that you know Mayor Roberts had had said, I I really think too, yeah, just the class, oh, they're a little more commercialized now, I think, because you hear them a lot, especially in you know the newer college programs.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I think that that was my first main introduction of like, okay, this is this is how my body naturally wants to move when it comes to jazz dance.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: So I'm all about incorporating African jazz as much as possible.
21:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
21:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
21:48
SPEAKER_03: I I love that.
21:49
SPEAKER_04: And and I think what's so what's so interesting about like the jazz pioneers, it it's and I'm glad we're discussing this as well.
21:57
SPEAKER_04: But I think it's kind of unique and cool.
22:00
SPEAKER_04: To kind of hear each generation's new pioneer because when I know, like, if we're going back and kind of to the the first question you asked, Leslie, about like what who was the first person that kind of like sparked your interest in jazz?
22:14
SPEAKER_04: I feel like I mean, like I mentioned before, for me personally, I remember taking jazz class my entire life and things coming very naturally as far as how how my body moved and interpreted the music in that in that style way better than ballet for me.
22:29
SPEAKER_04: I mean ballet and me.
22:31
SPEAKER_04: Oof, I struggled through that.
22:33
SPEAKER_04: But jazz just came so natural.
22:35
SPEAKER_04: And I remember I went to like a dance convention when I was like nine or ten.
22:40
SPEAKER_04: And that was before, you know, back in the we're talking back in the day a little bit for right now, over 20 years ago.
22:46
SPEAKER_04: Dance conventions weren't really a th a thing.
22:48
SPEAKER_04: They they were very new.
22:49
SPEAKER_04: I think I I can't remember exactly which one I was at, but Ray Leaper inspired me.
22:54
SPEAKER_04: And you know, he's obviously like a newer generation pioneer in a sense, but that was like at me, little nine-year-old Courtney, having my first class with Ray Leaper, who we all know now in the convention scene.
23:06
SPEAKER_04: It was a different style than it kind of felt more West Coast jazz than I'm and I grew up on the East Coast, so it was different for me.
23:13
SPEAKER_04: And I I was inspired by that.
23:15
SPEAKER_04: We had a handful of New York City guest teachers come into the studio a lot.
23:19
SPEAKER_04: That was bringing a different style.
23:21
SPEAKER_04: And then as I advanced into my professional career, I was never really introduced to Bob Fossey and Jerome Robbins until I became a professional dancer.
23:32
SPEAKER_04: But in the studio setting, we would do dances that were inspired by them, but we weren't really studying the technique of it.
23:40
SPEAKER_04: And I think it was so exciting to be able to do that style.
23:45
SPEAKER_04: I think for me and as and as well, I also gravitate towards Giordano.
23:49
SPEAKER_04: But any style of jazz that has that ballet heavy background is something that kind of I gravitate towards, which I feel like is very much the Jerome Robbins, which is very much the Giordano.
24:00
SPEAKER_04: And then I mean, how can you not love Bob Fossey?
24:03
SPEAKER_04: I mean, come on, like the style of it is just so different and so it feels like you're kind of like breaking all the rules in jazz with his work, and it's it's so hard.
24:13
SPEAKER_04: So every dancer, please go like watch.
24:15
SPEAKER_04: We'll have to put so many like links in the show notes to like click and watch just so many fun different styles of jazz that we're talking about right now because there's so many variations.
24:24
SPEAKER_06: And I would guess that that probably for all of us, many of our teachers were probably likely somehow inspired by Giordano, because that's that's a pretty big name.
24:35
SPEAKER_06: I mean, I think you can point to Giordano for a lot of things in the dance studio world.
24:39
SPEAKER_06: Now, the you know, the the commentators and uprooted would probably argue against that for general jazz just across the board.
24:47
SPEAKER_06: But like when we're talking competitive dance studio, you know, we we study dance from the age three to 18 in a studio setting.
24:53
SPEAKER_06: I would I would venture to guess Giordano is one of the bigger influences on what that movement looks like and where it comes from.
25:00
SPEAKER_06: So in terms of movement, so you know, I think people are always in the competitive world.
25:05
SPEAKER_06: We've talked about this so many times.
25:07
SPEAKER_06: Everything is fusion, everything is fusion.
25:10
SPEAKER_06: What is A, B, C?
25:11
SPEAKER_06: What is black and white?
25:12
SPEAKER_06: What is jazz?
25:12
SPEAKER_06: What is contemporary?
25:13
SPEAKER_06: Nobody knows anymore.
25:15
SPEAKER_06: Can we give some some clarity, please?
25:19
SPEAKER_06: To because what is jazz dance?
25:24
SPEAKER_06: What do we want in a jazz dance?
25:26
SPEAKER_06: Because I have ideas of what I want to see, and I know that may be different for other people, but like, you know, across the board, jazz dance, go.
25:33
SPEAKER_04: What are your go-to jazz steps?
25:35
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I was potaboureet.
25:37
unknown: Yeah.
25:37
SPEAKER_06: Oh, Tarrell, hold on.
25:39
SPEAKER_06: Wait.
25:39
SPEAKER_06: We must talk about the pot de bureau, please.
25:41
SPEAKER_06: Your def your deposition on pot of bureau.
25:44
SPEAKER_04: Tell us, Tyrell.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: To be clear, in classical jazz technique is what we're talking about.
25:50
SPEAKER_01: In my opinion, there shouldn't be one class where there's not a pot de bureau exercise.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: It it needs to be, it needs to be the norm.
25:56
SPEAKER_01: And that I think that is why we have these fusions is that there is no sense of normalcy.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: There is no, you know, I tell my kid older kids now, I was like, you struggle at pivot turns, but at six, you were amazing at them because you literally were so sharp at like pivoting and shifting your weight.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: So I, you know, I think that elements of pot of arrays and then pot of archernels and changing your directions and all of that and adding a jump into it, adding a pirouette into it.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: It's a puzzle.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: It's a puzzle.
26:27
SPEAKER_01: So, but it's allows you to transition.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: It allows you to move, it allows you to add stylization to it.
26:34
SPEAKER_01: So to me, that is one thing that if you've taken my class before, you know, oh, there's gonna be a very challenging pot of a ray combination.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: Yes, which we've seen on Facebook.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: Which, you know, and hopefully you're not gonna get it the first time, which is okay.
26:49
SPEAKER_01: And then guess what?
26:50
SPEAKER_01: You don't get to do it again because next week we're either moving on or we're doing another, you know.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: Right.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: So it's that's a that's a stepslash phrase that is a must for me when it comes to jazz training.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: What do you got, Mary?
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, I was gonna say, uh, like Jack Cole uh was somebody that really there were early people who for sort of futzed around with the the term jazz dance, right?
27:12
SPEAKER_00: And so I think that he he had called it something along the lines of like urban funk jazz, which would have fit for his time.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: Like he's trying to figure out like what what is the thing or like urban, urban folk dance or something.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: Like there was something else that he did that sort that he was trying to separate it where jazz was going from where jazz had been, right?
27:30
SPEAKER_00: And I try to, when I think about like specific steps, one thing that was brought up at the Jazz Dance Educators Conference was the idea of colonialization within the terms that we use within our classes.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: And so with my students, depending on how I'm approaching jazz dance, I because I also teach hip-hop.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: So like if I'm teaching hip hop and we're getting into top rockin', then I'm talking about rock steps.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about, you know, a triple step or, you know, like I call them different names.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: And the purpose being that, you know, if kids have taken ballet and then they're taking like my classic jazz class and I give them a pot of array, they're gonna go out it in a similar way that they would in ballet, right?
28:12
SPEAKER_00: But yay, if I give them a triple step and it stays grounded and low and flat footed and we come out of it, then it helps them to differentiate style and technique based on verbiage.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: So if I'm doing neutral foot stretching, I won't call it ton duos.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: I'll say, like, you know, stretch your foot, bend your knee, stretch your foot, bend your knee.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: And so then for kids that don't have ballet, that haven't had access to those French terms, they know what bending the knee means.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, they might not know what a plie means.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: So then in that way, I'm I'm trying to provide better access to the style and technique that also helps it to connect back to the roots of it, you know, from our American vernacular, you know, forms in a way that doesn't, there's no bias against, you know, any style of jazz dance that's out there.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: And I think that when we look at competition dance, we have to admit that competition dance has its own vocabulary.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, it right, it has its own language.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: And so there's not, it's it doesn't have to be this is good, this is bad, this is wrong, this is right.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: It's that these are different jazz dance forms within different environments taught by different people in a different capacity.
29:24
SPEAKER_01: And I I love that you said that.
29:26
SPEAKER_01: I love, I mean, moving here to Houston, I had to learn that when I'm demonstrating or when I'm saying something, it gets the educational aspect is that you I'm saying this, this, this, this, and this all for the same step.
29:39
SPEAKER_01: You know, so that yeah, because like you said, the access to it is limited for a lot of people.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: And it's something as simple as like people calling a Shane Jete a Calypso.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: Right.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: When I heard that for the first time, I was like, a what?
29:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: So I'll say like a Shane Couper jete or a Shane Jete, or if you call it a Calypso, a Calypso.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, I say that all in the Yeah.
29:58
SPEAKER_06: I think that's that's so important.
30:00
SPEAKER_06: We'll probably have a podcast on that as well with access and you know, hierarchies of learning and things like that.
30:06
SPEAKER_06: But, you know, that's very similar in tap too, because like a plie is a plie is a plie.
30:12
SPEAKER_06: But, you know, certain steps in jazz are different things in different regions and based on who you learned it from.
30:17
SPEAKER_06: And so I do I do the same thing, Terrell, and I say, you know, is it a we're gonna do a Shene Coupe jete?
30:22
SPEAKER_06: We're gonna do a Sene Jete, we're gonna do a Calypso, you know?
30:26
SPEAKER_06: And and I we I grew up with calypso, then I went to college and learned Shene Jete, and then looked at the ballet book and I was like, oh, actually, there's three things going on here, Shene Coupe, Jete, dang.
30:36
SPEAKER_06: But calypso is so much easier, so this is what we're gonna do, you know.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: And that's really where it is.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: It's like we are um we're finding those easier routes, yeah.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: Which as teachers, that's like Mary said, we have to make sure that we're still doing, giving, and saying it all.
30:51
SPEAKER_01: And I think that goes back to like identifying what steps are, you know, classic element, classic steps, and because kids want the quickest way.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: They sure do.
31:01
SPEAKER_01: You know, to humans want the quickest way.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: Humans, yeah.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: So it's and it's very much I love to see a kid fail in class because it's exciting once they get it.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no, let's let's celebrate how you're gonna recover from this failure.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: I I use I use the word all the time, and I'm trying to make it less of a scary word.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: So I'm always like, oh no, that was you failed at that.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna change that.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna live with that.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: Right.
31:26
SPEAKER_06: So that's not the end.
31:28
SPEAKER_06: Right, right.
31:29
SPEAKER_06: That's great.
31:29
SPEAKER_06: I love that.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: Previously, I was teaching a jazz combination in October to Jeepers Creepers.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: And so they had they had some suit, like we were doing a bit of swaying, and so we were, we did some susy cues, and then they had to jump over the log.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: And they were so nervous to fail at it.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to only do it right the first time.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, no, get the leg further out.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, watch, this is the worst that's going to happen.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: And I tripped on my own leg and fell all the way to the floor, and they went, and I was like, and I'm okay.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: Right.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: And so then it encouraged them to be a bit more risk-taking.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: And then they're like, oh, that feels amazing.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, doesn't it?
32:07
SPEAKER_00: You know, so I love that encouragement.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Like, please fail.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Like, here's try, try things, take a risk, do things.
32:14
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I I love everything that you that you all have said in regards to like our expectations for jazz in in 2020, you know, what we look for as jazz teachers while we're teaching jazz.
32:28
SPEAKER_04: I agree, Terrell, a pot de beret is my best friend, and I feel like that that kids these days do not even know what that is.
32:34
SPEAKER_04: And it's so unfortunate.
32:35
SPEAKER_04: And I'm just giving I'm just sending a shout out and a request to every jazz teacher that may be listening.
32:41
SPEAKER_04: Please incorporate pot de berets into your class more than ever.
32:44
SPEAKER_04: All kinds of pot de bureets.
32:46
SPEAKER_04: Directional changes, please.
32:48
SPEAKER_04: Yes, a plie is a plie, is a plie, like Leslie says, which I love you always say that.
32:53
SPEAKER_04: And but I also really love this perspective, Mary, of using different language for different genres.
32:59
SPEAKER_04: Because to me, I didn't, and I feel like my background is very ballet-based in jazz.
33:05
SPEAKER_04: So every single step was a tombe coupe jatte or a pas de bureau, but how we might approach it in ballet.
33:14
SPEAKER_04: And you know, like that was such a light bulb for me that you just said that.
33:17
SPEAKER_04: Because when I say pas de bureau in a guest class, I'm getting a pulled up perfect ballet pât bureau.
33:23
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, no, no, no, y'all, you need to be in your plie.
33:26
SPEAKER_04: Like, where is the groundedness that we find in jazz?
33:29
SPEAKER_04: That transition is hard for a lot of dancers to understand.
33:32
SPEAKER_04: How do I bring the ballet technique into jazz, but incorporate the style and the grounded movement?
33:38
SPEAKER_04: And that's what I'm always looking for is every time I teach, I'm like, why is your leg straight?
33:42
SPEAKER_04: It is a plie.
33:43
SPEAKER_04: Do you see my leg straight?
33:45
SPEAKER_04: No, use your plie.
33:46
SPEAKER_04: Like you should be in the deepest plie, unless I said that's a straight leg or four starch, even.
33:52
SPEAKER_04: Where's the four starch?
33:53
SPEAKER_04: Like, these are the things that I miss in jazz class.
33:57
SPEAKER_04: We need to know when we're grounded and strong and sharp.
34:00
SPEAKER_04: And then we need to know when we hit a picture and flow out of it.
34:03
SPEAKER_04: And the dynamics.
34:04
SPEAKER_04: The dynamics and the stylistic quality is missing.
34:07
SPEAKER_04: I feel like a lot of times when I teach, it's like I'm watching a lyrical dancer or a contemporary dancer attempt to do jazz dance.
34:13
SPEAKER_04: And I'm just like, come on, guys, like we have to know how to shift gears a little bit more and be inspired and pull those favorite things from your favorite genre, whatever that may be.
34:23
SPEAKER_04: But we need to know how to, you know, be a little bit more versatile.
34:27
SPEAKER_04: Versatile.
34:27
SPEAKER_04: So that's what I'm looking for.
34:28
SPEAKER_06: And I think even, you know, if we're taking it down for my teachers out there who are teaching beginner jazz to younger children, you know, I anytime I judge, if I have the ability to give a special award, I am always looking for my jazz basic special award.
34:43
SPEAKER_06: Because if I don't see in your six, seven, eight-year-old jazz class, step, touch, grapevine, Lindy, pivot turn, kickball change, single pirouette, you know, some kind of polycentric situation, hip movements that are not just bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce.
34:57
SPEAKER_06: I'm really cute.
34:58
SPEAKER_06: Like that is what I'm looking for.
35:00
SPEAKER_06: All of those things are attainable for that age.
35:03
SPEAKER_06: Even if you're dancing one day a week, those steps are attainable, and those steps are what I'm looking to see.
35:08
SPEAKER_06: And what I end up seeing is shake my booty side to side, be really cute, come over here, stretch my leg, and there's my dance.
35:17
SPEAKER_06: And it's three minutes long and you've done it 15 times.
35:21
SPEAKER_04: And you know what the other issue is that you just that that I just thought of when you were saying that is there's also the flip side of all of those steps that you just named are basic jazz dance steps that every child should know by the time that they are seven or eight years old.
35:34
SPEAKER_04: If you have a solo on stage at eight years old, you should be knowing how to do those things.
35:39
SPEAKER_04: But when the kids try to do a pot bureau or any sort of weight transfer or directional change, they struggle with it, but they can do like a double leg catch turn.
35:50
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, what's going on?
35:51
SPEAKER_04: What has happened to basic motor skills?
35:53
SPEAKER_04: Like we we're we're advancing too far with the tricks too quick with some of these dancers these days because that's what everyone thinks is that's all that matters.
36:02
SPEAKER_04: But what matters to me as a judge and me as a teacher is you better know how to do a pivot turn.
36:07
SPEAKER_04: You better know how to do a pot beret.
36:09
SPEAKER_04: And if you can't do that, but you can do it a double A catch turn, I don't care.
36:12
unknown: Right.
36:13
SPEAKER_04: I don't care about your double A catch turn because you need to know how to, those are transitional steps that are going that you're going to need to know how to do in all styles.
36:21
SPEAKER_04: So we have to like make sure we're starting from the ground up and that will hopefully be there when you're 15.
36:26
SPEAKER_06: Like Courtney's choreography, there's all that stuff in Courtney's choreography.
36:30
SPEAKER_06: It's very stylized and it's very interesting.
36:33
SPEAKER_06: And there's always a weird count or a weird pause or something that tricks you.
36:38
SPEAKER_06: But but when you look at it, it's like, oh no, I recognize that step.
36:41
SPEAKER_06: I recognize that step.
36:42
SPEAKER_06: And then here's her leg once because it's impressive once, but the rest of it's there.
36:47
SPEAKER_06: It's jazz.
36:48
SPEAKER_06: And so that's also something that I'm looking for as a judge is that, okay, like, you know, when I see that studio that comes out with these jazz basic, you know, divas when they're seven, their high schoolers are doing the exact same thing, but they've layered on all those other things that make a great jazz dancer.
37:06
SPEAKER_06: So competition people out there, we've just told you how to win.
37:11
SPEAKER_06: You're welcome.
37:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I a lot of the things I feel like I say, and I say this like on a critique T, uh, I'll say, you know, I want more, I want more jazz vocabulary.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
37:23
SPEAKER_01: And and that way it's it's hopefully enticing the choreographer or the teacher to really dive deep.
37:29
SPEAKER_01: You shaking your hips right to left isn't enough.
37:32
SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's not enough.
37:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:34
SPEAKER_01: So that's why I always say, like, I'd love to see you incorporate more jazz vocabulary for this, you know, eight-year-old.
37:40
SPEAKER_01: And it just it there's ways to do it.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: I think as teachers, especially the younger the teachers get, you feel obligated to conform to what's uh what's current.
37:51
SPEAKER_01: I always say keep it classical and innovative.
37:54
SPEAKER_01: You know, you want the kids to feel like they're still up there, but you still have to make sure that they're prepared for everything, or else it will bite you in the butt.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: It will.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh, my intermediate dancers, I learned, you know, at the beginning of the season that they already got their triple pirouettes in their leaps and turns class, and that's what they're doing.
38:11
SPEAKER_01: Great.
38:12
SPEAKER_01: But they can't do a single pirouette and hold it for eight counts on Passe Relevant at the end in my jazz class.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not putting a triple pirouette in the combination.
38:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:21
SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe I'll go for a double, but we're not we're gonna focus on that because if you're not landing in Posse Releve, you're not finishing the pirouette.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: You've stepped out of it.
38:28
SPEAKER_01: You've, you know, you didn't finish the execution element out of it.
38:32
SPEAKER_01: And getting dancers to really understand that is crazy.
38:38
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39:26
SPEAKER_04: And now let's get back to the show.
39:30
SPEAKER_04: I have a quick question now that we're talking about jazz pirouettes.
39:33
SPEAKER_06: Ooh, ooh, I'm so ready for this question.
39:36
SPEAKER_04: Okay, first question is Should the back heel in your jazz pirouette preparation be up or down?
39:44
SPEAKER_04: Go.
39:44
unknown: Oh.
39:46
SPEAKER_01: Mary, you go first.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: Deepest lunge ever, full 90 degrees.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: Like not even joking.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: Just 90 degrees.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: That front knee is at a perfect 90 degrees, the heel is flat on the floor, the foot is in an absolute perfect neutral.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: The back heel is lifted.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: Why?
40:01
SPEAKER_00: Because the back heel is angling directly towards the ground, giving you a 90 degree angle, and then your ankle's at an 90 degree angle, depending on the flexibility of your like the dorsiflexion in your ankle.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: Just yes.
40:11
SPEAKER_01: Well, this is an ongoing.
40:13
SPEAKER_01: I have a close friend who I have a I have a close friend who's like back heel down and trains her dancers.
40:20
SPEAKER_06: Literally how.
40:21
SPEAKER_01: And her dancers can peer away.
40:24
SPEAKER_01: So I say that.
40:25
SPEAKER_01: I see it.
40:26
SPEAKER_01: However, my question to her was could you imagine how much easier it would be for them if their weight was either centered or slightly over that front leg?
40:36
SPEAKER_01: Right.
40:36
SPEAKER_01: I'm six foot two.
40:38
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't imagine getting my entire body over a supporting leg with a back heel flat on the floor.
40:43
SPEAKER_06: Oh, no way.
40:44
SPEAKER_06: How do you even get your back heel flat in parallel?
40:47
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, like I'm asking you, is that possible?
40:51
SPEAKER_01: I don't.
40:52
SPEAKER_06: I don't.
40:53
SPEAKER_01: So for me, you know, I got to a point where like I promise myself I'll never fall out of a triple pirouette.
41:00
SPEAKER_01: So from that preparation, I almost feel like my back knee is touching the floor.
41:05
SPEAKER_01: That's how deep I'm lunging and lifting that heel.
41:08
SPEAKER_01: So now I have to do exercises because I'll get I'll get a dancer who is deep in that fourth position lunge.
41:13
SPEAKER_01: Well, at least trying to attempt to break it down.
41:15
SPEAKER_04: She got up out of the chair and she is trying to do a back heel down.
41:20
SPEAKER_05: I physically, I would have to be this is my lunge to get my back heel on the floor.
41:24
SPEAKER_05: You see, this is how I can't do it.
41:26
SPEAKER_05: I can't wait.
41:27
SPEAKER_01: I call it a wing in a prayer.
41:33
SPEAKER_06: I mean, unless you're trying to back heel, which nobody wants that either.
41:36
SPEAKER_06: So that's challenging.
41:37
SPEAKER_04: Well, that's the other thing.
41:38
SPEAKER_04: So so here's to all of our podcast listeners.
41:42
SPEAKER_04: So Leslie just tried to do the back heel down.
41:44
SPEAKER_04: It's not possible.
41:45
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
41:46
SPEAKER_04: So props to every dancer who's figured out how to pirouette with that back heel down.
41:50
SPEAKER_04: But we want to let you know that we prefer the back heel up, and it's going to be a lot easier for you to turn even more.
41:56
SPEAKER_04: You'll probably get an extra rotation out of it if you just lift that back heel.
41:59
SPEAKER_04: So that's the first, the first thing.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: It's the mechanics of it, right?
42:03
SPEAKER_00: So when like when both knees are moving in parallel, you can do um, I love the term from jolly with Urban Bushwoman.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: She calls it bone hugging.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: And so you're literally thinking about the bones lining up and squeezing in towards the center.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: So when that back knee, the nothing has to twist or turn with the back knee.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: It simply shoots straight forward and your rotation then comes from your shoulders.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: So you take out the variables versus in a ballet pirouette prep, yeah, you can have the turned out that back foot is down.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: But then when you think about the spiral motion that happens, that leg is then picking up directly.
42:37
SPEAKER_00: And again, it removes the variables for a ballet pirouette and for a jazz pirouette when you're going to go into a neutral position.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you it's the mechanics of it.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: It's the dynamics of how the anatomical structure of the body works, right?
42:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:51
SPEAKER_01: Could you imagine doing a ball change triple pirouette with a back heel down now?
42:55
SPEAKER_01: Like a quick, like a quick ball change.
42:58
SPEAKER_01: There's no way to transfer your weight to where it needs to be.
43:01
SPEAKER_01: Something will sacrifice.
43:03
SPEAKER_06: My Achilles will sacrifice.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
43:06
SPEAKER_01: So that's why I say I I literally tell my students, and this is like my go-to line, it's you know, it's non-negotiable.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: Your back heel is going to be up.
43:14
SPEAKER_01: Here is why.
43:15
SPEAKER_01: Right.
43:15
SPEAKER_01: This, this, or this will sacrifice.
43:17
SPEAKER_01: So instead of just telling them, like, you're not going to do that because I say so.
43:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:22
SPEAKER_01: I try to get them to understand these are at least three reasons why we're going to do it this way and why I don't want you to do it this way.
43:30
SPEAKER_01: And I've seen it.
43:31
SPEAKER_01: I've seen it on stage.
43:32
SPEAKER_01: And I've seen a dancer, you know, execute a beautiful double pirouette with a back heel down.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: And then I asked, like, what were the mechanics of what you just felt?
43:39
SPEAKER_01: Where did you have to hike a little bit?
43:41
SPEAKER_01: Where did you have to push a little extra when you shouldn't have had to push that hard for a double pirouette?
43:46
SPEAKER_04: Right.
43:46
SPEAKER_04: I'm also curious now to hear each of your preferred landings for a jazz pirouette.
43:53
SPEAKER_04: How do you prefer for the dancers to finish?
43:56
SPEAKER_04: I personally like a suspension at the time.
44:00
SPEAKER_04: Of whatever amount of pirouettes you're doing, highest passe, stop on a dime, and then I lower straight down into a parallel sixth position from passe and in a plie.
44:10
SPEAKER_04: And then I continue on with whatever I'm working on.
44:12
SPEAKER_04: But I've seen a lot of different variations in the past few years, and I'm curious to hear like what your teaching style is for the proper jazz landing when you're when you're kind of drilling pirouettes in class and things like that.
44:22
SPEAKER_01: I tell my students they should be able to make a cup of coffee before they come down off of passe relevant.
44:28
SPEAKER_01: Love that.
44:28
SPEAKER_01: Like take a sip of tea.
44:30
SPEAKER_01: I need you to have, like, I need you to stay up there.
44:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, it's like that oh my gosh moment with the eyebrow raise when they finally do the revolution and they end in passe relevant.
44:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, that's that's not, it shouldn't be luck.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: It should not be luck.
44:46
SPEAKER_01: There are ways to make that happen.
44:48
SPEAKER_01: I know for cleaning purposes, a lot of people are like to snap out to like a parallel second position.
44:53
SPEAKER_03: That's what I want to put here because I've seen that a lot.
44:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, stop that.
44:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't love it.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: Or, or, you know, or I'll say this, train it otherwise.
45:03
SPEAKER_01: But if you have to do it in choreography to keep it clean, totally understandable, but at least trade, you know, train that.
45:09
SPEAKER_01: I say ending in passe releve.
45:12
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
45:12
SPEAKER_01: The control, I always add six counts.
45:15
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, to like you said, to really come down to that sixth position so that they have to fight.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: And I always say fall on your face before you fall out of a pirouette.
45:24
SPEAKER_01: And that way it's like that.
45:25
SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna hop, I want to see you at least fighting to get back up there and finish versus the settled, you know, oh, I fell out of it.
45:34
SPEAKER_01: Yes, you did.
45:34
SPEAKER_01: Are you disappointed in yourself?
45:36
SPEAKER_01: Let's let's change, let's change that.
45:39
SPEAKER_01: Let's let's find a way to be proud of ourselves.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: Okay, for sure.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: I want I want dancers to be able to have that suspension, but I also teach spot turns, just like that low classic jazz spot turn, right?
45:52
SPEAKER_00: And the reason that I teach different styles of turns is one, so that you don't ever have a specific habit from one kind of turn.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: But I also want them to understand that a turn, any step is no better than a previous step.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: It is all democratic.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: They are all important.
46:10
SPEAKER_00: So when they think that a turn is the end-all be-all of that particular moment in the dance, I'm like, no, it's not.
46:17
SPEAKER_00: What do you do after the turn?
46:18
SPEAKER_00: Could you do a leap out of the turn?
46:20
SPEAKER_00: Could you go down to the floor?
46:21
SPEAKER_00: Could you go into a partnering moment?
46:23
SPEAKER_00: Could you like you should be able to do almost any step directly out of that turn?
46:30
SPEAKER_00: So let's class, you know, let's find the suspension and the technical components that you need for your body to achieve the turn to its fullest extent, but then you should also then be achieving a pot of bureau to its fullest realized potential so that no one thing is more important than the next thing.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: So I love making dancers.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I want to hear you like, I want to hear angels sing at the end of your turn because you don't know what's gonna happen next.
47:01
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, and sometimes I make them sing because you know, you get you get that resonation through the body with the voice.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I've had dancers, they get to the end of it and they're like, oh right, yeah.
47:14
SPEAKER_00: So I just I don't want them to train for it to always be a double pay out to the side, bam.
47:20
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, then what if you're not gonna do that?
47:22
SPEAKER_00: What if your choreography is something totally different?
47:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
47:25
SPEAKER_01: I love when the night or you know, the eight, nine-year-olds have that eyebrow raise and they feel real cute at the end of it.
47:31
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm like, that yes, that that feeling that you just had, that's what you want to strive for.
47:36
SPEAKER_01: It feels good.
47:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:37
SPEAKER_01: So I have a question related to that regarding possess.
47:41
SPEAKER_01: Do you guys teach or prefer kids to keep it in place while they're pirouetting or doing pirouettes?
47:48
SPEAKER_01: Or do you prefer them to keep moving it up?
47:51
SPEAKER_06: Ideally pulling it up if they can.
47:53
SPEAKER_06: Yes.
47:54
SPEAKER_04: I I always I always use like a corkscrew like vision for the kids to think as you're rotating, you don't want to let the passe drop.
48:03
SPEAKER_04: You want to keep pulling it in rotation, like oppositional force.
48:06
SPEAKER_04: And you know, the releve is getting higher as we turn, and so is the passe, and so is your chest.
48:12
SPEAKER_04: Everything is getting longer, like laffy taffy.
48:14
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, because you see so many times when you do the more rotations you do, it's like kids get so excited.
48:19
SPEAKER_04: Oh my god, I nailed my quad.
48:20
SPEAKER_04: Well, your passe was in practically coupe.
48:22
SPEAKER_04: So and your releve was non-existent.
48:24
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
48:25
SPEAKER_04: That doesn't count.
48:25
SPEAKER_04: We have to make sure that we are getting the passe up.
48:28
SPEAKER_04: The technique doesn't fall with the amount of rotations that we do.
48:31
SPEAKER_04: So I say above the knee, no lower for passe, and it should be continuously thinking up, up, up the whole time.
48:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think it's the difference between spinning versus turning, too, right?
48:43
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
48:43
SPEAKER_00: Spinning spinning is one thing, and that's totally fine.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, we do need to see the difference between somebody just spinning versus somebody activating a turn and engaging through the turn.
48:55
SPEAKER_00: So for sure, like the, I don't know, everything should just be engaged.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: Like just continue to use the hamstring, right?
49:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:02
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
49:02
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
49:03
SPEAKER_01: I so I would say for our, you know, teachers and uh teachers and educators that are teaching the babies, I think the the norm is to get the passe there and hold it because that's already a hard shape.
49:17
SPEAKER_01: So what I've, you know, a lot of the feedback I've been giving, you know, when I'm seeing really, you know, five, five to seven-year-old jazz dances, I'll say on my critique tapes.
49:28
SPEAKER_01: I encourage you to do passe exercises instead of holding passe.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: So you get, you know, get to that passe, have them lift it up one, two, three, lower down five, six, seven, eight, so that they're already learning at that age that it's an engaged, you know, it's to pass.
49:42
SPEAKER_01: So it's it's an engaged movement.
49:44
SPEAKER_01: But I think they're trying to find the picture aspect of it and what it looks like.
49:49
SPEAKER_01: So then it, you know, gets there.
49:51
SPEAKER_01: I tell dancers if you're doing three pirouettes, you have three lifts of a passe after you've already gotten above the le above the knee.
49:57
SPEAKER_01: You know, 16 pirouettes, 16 lifts of the passe, your supporting leg should be on fire and your hamstring should be on fire.
50:04
SPEAKER_01: Like you should feel that oppositional force the entire time.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: So I think starting at that younger age and getting teachers to focus more on the the activation in exercises versus just what the picture looks like is super important.
50:20
SPEAKER_01: And I think that we need to go back to that idea a little bit more.
50:24
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
50:24
SPEAKER_06: Back to basics, y'all.
50:26
SPEAKER_01: Back to yeah, back to basics.
50:28
SPEAKER_06: And at least and and always, even as we get older, you know, nothing is static.
50:33
SPEAKER_06: Everything is always alive and moving and, you know, engaged while we're moving.
50:37
SPEAKER_06: So even just the idea of shifting our our teaching philosophy of like, okay, we're gonna make this picture.
50:43
SPEAKER_06: Like that have haven't we all said that to a four-year-old?
50:46
SPEAKER_06: We're gonna make this picture, we're gonna make this picture.
50:48
SPEAKER_06: And that maybe isn't way, maybe the language does need to be different because we shouldn't ever just be frozen, like unless we're doing the freeze dance.
50:55
SPEAKER_06: But yeah, in a passe, it's it's a moving position.
50:58
SPEAKER_06: It's not a static position.
51:00
SPEAKER_06: So that's a really, really good point.
51:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think if pictures are choreography now.
51:05
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, yeah, as opposed to training.
51:08
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, run over there, hit a pose.
51:10
SPEAKER_06: Run over there, hit a post, put your leg in the air.
51:12
SPEAKER_06: I mean, we could talk about that all day.
51:13
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
51:14
SPEAKER_00: And I was actually gonna go back to like, you know, part of the earlier conversation that we were having about, you know, what are what are the basics, what are those things.
51:20
SPEAKER_00: And uh regardless of what style of dance I'm, you know, I'm teaching, whether currently like between jazz and hip-hop, they both have, I'm like, you know, you need to know what the rhythm of the music is.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: Like the rhythm continues to go, which means that you're continuing to stay activated and engaged with the music.
51:36
SPEAKER_00: So, like, I want you to be able to find your own personal groove.
51:40
SPEAKER_00: And that's where footwork comes in, right?
51:43
SPEAKER_00: Like that's you're literally connecting through the floor, through your feet to whatever the music is.
51:49
SPEAKER_00: And then, Leslie, to go back to what you're saying, like those polyrhythms then show up in other parts of the body.
51:55
SPEAKER_00: But I think sometimes like as we get into a certain level of trying to codify things to make it, I don't know, easier to teach or, you know, easier to consume within the studio environment.
52:08
SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes that emphasis on the tricks because there is a, yes, it's a success, no, it did not succeed, there's a real black and white to it versus rhythm and groove is all subjective, but and yet there's something beautifully perfect when a dancer knows exactly where they are and they know exactly how they're connecting to the music and the rhythm.
52:32
SPEAKER_00: And then regardless of what turn, triple step, Hadou Ray, rock step, ball change, jump, leap, down to the floor, boom.
52:42
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you're doing is fully connected and engaged.
52:47
SPEAKER_00: And we're never just getting bored in between tricks.
52:50
SPEAKER_00: And so I, you know, I think tricks are beautiful.
52:53
SPEAKER_00: Like going back to Lindy's, uh Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, right?
52:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, oh my gosh, I have done some of that partnering.
53:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, those aerial heights, right?
53:03
SPEAKER_00: Like stomping at the Savoy, those aerial heights.
53:06
SPEAKER_00: And it's a beautiful thing, and it's such a successful feat for the human body to be capable of doing those things.
53:12
SPEAKER_00: But at no point were those dancers ever disengaged between those heightened moments.
53:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
53:19
SPEAKER_01: Do you think a lot of that comes from the warm-up aspects?
53:23
SPEAKER_00: I do.
53:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I still warm my kids up, so I'm engaging them to find the rhythm to find.
53:30
SPEAKER_01: So warm-up, if you might disagree with me, but warmup is no longer danced, in my opinion.
53:36
SPEAKER_01: Kids aren't dancing them.
53:37
SPEAKER_01: They're doing them right when I do a lateral stretch.
53:40
SPEAKER_01: I am literally dancing living my best life.
53:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
53:43
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm engaging more.
53:45
SPEAKER_01: So that warmup already feels kind of like a combination.
53:48
SPEAKER_01: It's difficult.
53:49
SPEAKER_01: You're not quite getting the step.
53:51
SPEAKER_01: You're forced to wake up your brain and be engaged with the teacher because you're not quite getting it.
53:55
SPEAKER_01: And I change my, I vary mine up often for that reason.
53:59
SPEAKER_01: But I feel like that groove aspect in jazz, even when it comes to something like hip isolations, it's just, it's just another thing.
54:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no, my eyes are rolling.
54:08
SPEAKER_01: I'm living my living my life.
54:11
SPEAKER_01: And that comes too.
54:12
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't use popular songs that kids would know.
54:16
SPEAKER_01: And I also know, too, and this is happening with younger teachers too.
54:20
SPEAKER_01: It's like, all right, go in, guys, go start stretching.
54:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no, no, no.
54:23
SPEAKER_01: This is how you walk in the door is important to me.
54:26
SPEAKER_01: So if you have that energy of like, nope, I need we gotta do it again.
54:29
SPEAKER_01: Go back out, try it again.
54:30
SPEAKER_01: You know, and it imagine especially coming in.
54:33
SPEAKER_01: I'll walk in with my backpack and I'm like, you ready?
54:35
SPEAKER_01: Music on, and I'm like full out right away.
54:38
SPEAKER_01: And that's you have to be.
54:39
SPEAKER_01: So I feel like if that becomes the norm, they start to find that groove a little bit easier.
54:45
SPEAKER_01: And it becomes confident in that groove, you know, a lunge.
54:48
SPEAKER_01: You can't just sit in a lunge and then be in it.
54:50
SPEAKER_01: Like this is there's an activity you're pulling through the spine there, you know, and you're finding that like inner fire within the musicality and the movement.
54:59
SPEAKER_04: I think that a lot of studios these days, especially with depending on how many class studio spaces they have, how long your class is, I feel like that they're skipping warm-up.
55:07
SPEAKER_04: And it just depends on the studio atmosphere and where your class is based at in your night of classes.
55:12
SPEAKER_04: If you've already been dancing beforehand, if you had ballet before, you're walking into your 45-minute jazz class.
55:17
SPEAKER_04: Like for us as educators, I want to give you at least a 30-minute warm-up.
55:21
SPEAKER_04: At least I don't even have that option sometimes in studio settings because it's like, here's my 45-minute class.
55:26
SPEAKER_04: If I give you, you know, your 30-minute warm-up, then we have what, 15 minutes across the floor?
55:30
SPEAKER_04: And if that's every week, then I feel like I'm never progressing them into like the actual jazz vocabulary and progressions, which another thing is as I feel like I'm gonna just briefly talk about this.
55:40
SPEAKER_04: I'm glad, Mary, that you brought up musicality because I think that's a huge element of jazz dance.
55:44
SPEAKER_04: I think that we should be guiding off the music and letting that inspire us and move us.
55:48
SPEAKER_04: And I feel like I see so many beautiful contemporary dancers have stunning musicality and then they get to jazz and they don't know what they're doing.
55:54
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, you need to just because you're dancing to the lyrics in contemporary doesn't mean you can do the same in jazz.
55:59
SPEAKER_04: You just have to add the dynamics and the style to it.
56:02
SPEAKER_04: And then also counting is extremely important in jazz class, which comes from tap class.
56:06
SPEAKER_04: So take tap class.
56:08
SPEAKER_04: So that's that's the first thing.
56:09
SPEAKER_04: First thing is have a list of things.
56:12
SPEAKER_04: The next is Tyrrell, I love that you talked about isolations.
56:15
SPEAKER_04: And another reason why I feel like, you know, warm-up is sometimes thrown out the window for jazz.
56:20
SPEAKER_04: I bet you there's a lot of dancers who have never even had a proper jazz warmup before with isolations, because when I see them attempt isolations in choreography, they're moving multiple parts of their body instead of isolating that part of the body.
56:33
SPEAKER_04: And it's probably because they were never taught in isolation properly or done that at warmup.
56:37
SPEAKER_04: So that's another issue is you know, we need to teach that properly, incorporate that that comes from warm-up.
56:43
SPEAKER_04: And then my final question as I'm wrapping this up, and this is actually for you guys, is why do we feel like, and I kind of hinted at it a little bit, but why do we feel like we're seeing less and less of authentic jazz dance in the competitive dance world or at least being brought to the competitive dance stage?
56:59
SPEAKER_04: It might be happening in the studio, but why do we feel like it's kind of getting overtaken or other styles are overtaking jazz and jazz is kind of like dwindling away.
57:09
SPEAKER_06: I feel like it is because of all those things you just said, because it feels like this is not my opinion, but to some people, it feels like too much work.
57:19
SPEAKER_06: That's a lot of things you just said, you know, that we have to cut that we're expected.
57:23
SPEAKER_06: If you're gonna teach a good jazz class, it needs to be an hour and a half long.
57:27
SPEAKER_06: You need to have a 45-minute warm-up.
57:29
SPEAKER_06: You need to not work on choreography for recital or for the, you know, competition in that class.
57:34
SPEAKER_06: It needs to be as serious as your hour and a half ballet class, where every week we can hit a mark and, you know, move forward in the progressions.
57:43
SPEAKER_06: And contemporary, the way that we see contemporary on a competition stage, not speaking of, you know, professional contemporary work, is much more attainable because a lot of what we see is run over here and stretch your leg and run over here and make a picture and run over here and do a lift.
58:00
SPEAKER_06: There is way less, you know, codified black and white correct technique to contemporary, and that feels like a shortcut and it feels like it is easier to achieve.
58:11
SPEAKER_01: For me, I think it's um there's a fear and authenticity.
58:15
SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, I can piggyback off of it being a lot of work.
58:19
SPEAKER_01: My motto as a teacher is that I need to exhaust my already exhausted self.
58:23
SPEAKER_01: It's important.
58:24
SPEAKER_01: It's important because I'm gonna walk away feeling a little bit more rewarded if I gave them every ounce of everything that I could have.
58:31
SPEAKER_01: And also because it's hard, I feel like what's happening is you're getting panels of judges who aren't allowing themselves to be open-minded to all, and they're in that, oh, I love contemporary, or even I love contemporary jazz.
58:46
SPEAKER_01: And so when you get a classic jazz routine, the idea of dated comes to your mind.
58:52
SPEAKER_01: And I as a guest choreographer, when I want to do something that would be quote unquote dated, it terrifies the studio.
58:59
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I feel the same way.
58:59
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, it's not gonna do well, do well.
59:01
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, at some point we're gonna have to sacrifice it not doing well.
59:04
SPEAKER_04: And is that the point of this guest choreography?
59:07
SPEAKER_04: We had this discussion the other day in a guest choreography topic, but is that the point?
59:11
SPEAKER_04: Is it just about that because it's not gonna do well, or is it because we're going to expose those dancers to a new style?
59:16
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
59:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
59:18
SPEAKER_01: I think I just the fear and authenticity is holding a lot of teachers back from allowing that to be a norm.
59:25
SPEAKER_01: Jazz should be a normal thing you see on a competition stage, you know, and fine, multiple styles of it.
59:32
SPEAKER_01: I love it, please give it all.
59:34
SPEAKER_01: But it should not be, I should not see a solo, you know, a teen senior solo category of 500 dancers with 75 to 100 being jazz.
59:46
SPEAKER_01: Like you have to bring back that versatility.
59:48
SPEAKER_01: If you're not, if you're only doing versatility in studio and you're not allowing them to perform in a versatile manner, it's not sticking in studio.
59:57
SPEAKER_01: It's not sticking.
59:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_00: There, there are things that are they're difficult about jazz dance for sure.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, having the education, the training, the technique, even just like one, you know, specific form of jazz dance.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_00: Like you grew up taking it, you have an instructor that you very much trust and you have a lot of faith in that what they gave you was an like, as you were saying, Terrell, like the the fear and authenticity, right?
1:00:20
SPEAKER_00: That people have like that imposter syndrome, like, oh my gosh, maybe I'm not really set to be teaching jazz dance.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_00: There's something that's so that's also within this where you we've got all these local studios, right, that are inspiring and creating passion and dance at the local level.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_00: And I applaud every single one of them for doing what they can do, right?
1:00:42
SPEAKER_00: Like use what you can or start where you are, use what you can, uh, use what you have and do what you can.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_00: And that's one of my favorite philosophies, right?
1:00:50
SPEAKER_00: And but then with that, you do have to continue to educate yourself on these forms in a in a way that honors the legitimacy, the, the background, the roots of the form.
1:01:03
SPEAKER_00: And I think, especially like after having gone through my master's and sort of having it like, oh, jazz dance is in a real form.
1:01:10
SPEAKER_00: I was like, wait, I'm so sorry.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that because I've been a jazz dance er for, you know, a couple of decades now, and I didn't realize what I was doing wasn't real.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_00: But I think that part of the reason is that it's easier to shove jazz dance off to the side than deal with it as its difficult history.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_00: But jazz dance history has the exact same history as the United States of America.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_00: So if we're gonna come to terms with the fact that dance, dance is not just a combination, dance is a culture.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_00: And so when we're teaching it, we're also teaching these elements of the culture.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_00: And not that everybody's gonna sit down and have a lesson in the history of it, but each one of us here today sprinkles in those moments of history.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, we sprinkle in who we've met, when we've met them, what they gave us, you know, how that translates through my body, what part of physical history did I pull from that person and then transition and translate to somebody else's body and then they continue it.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_00: And so, while sure we can say that it's it's difficult, is it any difficult than more difficult than learning anything else?
1:02:19
SPEAKER_00: Accountants have to stay up with current state and federal laws for being accountants.
1:02:24
SPEAKER_00: So don't we as dance educators also need to continue to dig deeper and and find, I don't know, either the old or the new and innovative, so that we stay current with what's happening.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_00: And when contemporary is the go-to, it also devalues contemporary dance because contemporary has a rich history and rich lineage of its own that is widely diverse, and so is jazz dance.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_00: So why don't we see it more often?
1:02:55
SPEAKER_00: I think because people are uncomfortable.
1:02:58
SPEAKER_00: But let's be honest, dancing in general makes me uncomfortable.
1:03:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, all the time, every single day, it's the most difficult thing I ever tried to do, and yet it was the one thing I said that I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
1:03:10
SPEAKER_00: So let's get uncomfortable, let's dig deep, let's find what it is that matters to us and be passionate about it, and passionately fail, and then equally as passionately succeed.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_04: I pretty much agree with with all of you.
1:03:21
SPEAKER_04: I I feel like it's it's a mixture of all of those things as to why jazz is like leaving the scene.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_04: And I think that it has a lot to do with what people think will win.
1:03:31
SPEAKER_04: Uh like you kind of briefly mentioned, Terrell, I feel like that people are afraid to bring back classic jazz.
1:03:36
SPEAKER_04: And I think on a previous episode we talked about how refreshing it is to see refresh classic jazz on stage because we don't see it anymore.
1:03:44
SPEAKER_04: When everything just turns into contemporary central, it's like, oh, this is a breath of fresh air when you bring actual jazz technique to the stage and I'll remember that dance more than the next contemporary dance down the street.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_04: So I agree with you, Leslie.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_04: I feel like that it's easier to get through a contemporary dance because there's less it's more forgiving.
1:04:04
SPEAKER_04: You can disguise things easier.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_04: You can jazz is you can't really like hide style.
1:04:10
SPEAKER_04: Like if you don't have style, then you're you're, you know, you just don't have it.
1:04:15
SPEAKER_04: You don't have it.
1:04:16
SPEAKER_04: Like and that's what jazz is all about.
1:04:18
SPEAKER_04: You have to have style, you have to have dynamics, you have to have a confidence about you.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_04: Another thing that's worth mentioning, and and they actually talked about this in the documentary, Uprooted, they mentioned how jazz is the style that is going to get you work in the industry.
1:04:33
SPEAKER_04: You need to know how to be a jazz dancer if you want to be a professional dancer.
1:04:38
SPEAKER_04: You might think that you're the best contemporary dancer that anyone's ever seen, and you may be.
1:04:42
SPEAKER_04: But if you go into a jazz audition for a TV show, you're gonna epically fail if you don't know how to jazz dance.
1:04:47
SPEAKER_04: And you can, you know, you might be a great soloist, but you're never gonna be a soloist in the real world.
1:04:53
SPEAKER_04: So you have to make sure that you know how to have dynamics and style because every single one of us on this podcast have been professional dancers or currently are and have done jazz probably the majority of it in our career, regardless of what the job was, whether it was Broadway, whether it was cruise ships, whether it was a TV commercial, it doesn't matter what it is.
1:05:12
SPEAKER_04: You're pulling from that jazz training, not contemporary most often.
1:05:15
SPEAKER_04: So we have to make sure, and and I'm obviously speaking more towards to the dancers who do want to pursue this and are thinking of it.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_04: You know, you just have to make sure that you are really taking jazz serious because it will get you work.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_04: So we could talk about this for another hour.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_04: I I wish we could.
1:05:31
SPEAKER_04: I know.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_06: There's like things I'm like, we didn't talk about this, this, this, this, but that's fine.
1:05:35
SPEAKER_04: Just so we'll do Jazz 2.0 next season.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_04: I know we've said that we're gonna do so many 2.0 conversations.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_04: We have to.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_04: Well, this was so great.
1:05:43
SPEAKER_04: And you guys are so knowledgeable and educated, and and your perspectives are just so good.
1:05:48
SPEAKER_04: It's been fabulous talking with you both and sharing your passion for jazz with us.
1:05:52
SPEAKER_04: So thank you for joining us on the podcast.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_04: And uh how we usually like to lead out episodes is to have our guests have any final thoughts and just share any uh, you know, words of advice or things you'd like to just like leave on the floor to finish out the episode.
1:06:08
SPEAKER_00: I will go back to my favorite quote: start where you are, use what you have, and do what you can.
1:06:13
SPEAKER_01: And I will end with don't let fear hold you back from continuing your dance education, no matter how old you are.
1:06:19
SPEAKER_01: There's something you can still learn or refresh.
1:06:22
SPEAKER_01: So find those, you know, podcasts, find those seminars, find anything that can keep you, you know, invigorated, invigorated and ready to go.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_01: Just keep going, keep training.
1:06:33
SPEAKER_01: Even if it's just mentally and it's not necessarily physically anymore.
1:06:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, keep growing and learning as an educator.
1:06:41
SPEAKER_04: Thanks so much for joining us for this week's episode All About Bad Dance.
1:06:45
SPEAKER_04: You can find our guests on social media.
1:06:47
SPEAKER_04: Mary Roberts at Miss Mary Roberts and Terrell Mitchell at T Mitchell237.
1:06:53
SPEAKER_06: Make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and the new Amazon Podcast so you don't miss out on our upcoming episodes releasing every Thursday throughout the dance season.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_04: Guess what, listeners?
1:07:05
SPEAKER_04: We are so excited to share an exciting partnership with our sponsor, Dance Costumes by Urzua.
1:07:11
SPEAKER_04: Launching on December 15th is their brand new Making the Impact Dancewear line.
1:07:16
SPEAKER_04: Inspired by our podcast and IBA, Dance Costumes by Urzua has created a fun, colorful, and stylish dancewear line that we can't wait for you to see.
1:07:26
SPEAKER_04: Be sure to check out their entire line of dancewear and custom costumes on their website now at DanceCostumesByerzua.com and order yours today.
1:07:35
SPEAKER_04: And speaking of making the impact, we have actually just launched our brand new merch store on IDA's website.
1:07:42
SPEAKER_04: Now you can let everyone know that you are making the impact everywhere you go.
1:07:46
SPEAKER_04: From t-shirts to crew necks, we have a variety of styles and colors to pick your favorite vibe.
1:07:51
SPEAKER_04: We even have new IDA virtual competition t-shirts for our contestants, as well as some adorable Making the Impact enamel pins to add to your favorite jacket.
1:08:00
SPEAKER_04: Check out all of our fun designs and purchase some stocking stuffers now to support IDA and rep our brand at Impact Dance Adjudicators.com slash merch.
1:08:09
SPEAKER_06: Season two is in full swing with new topics, amazing interviews, and great advice.
1:08:14
SPEAKER_06: Coming up in the next few weeks, topics include the role of race in dance, age appropriateness at competition, and the December issue of QA with Courtney.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_04: Thanks so much for joining us.
1:08:24
SPEAKER_04: Until next time, keep dancing.