Uprooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance (2020) - full transcript

[Moncel Durden]

All right. So, I want y'all
to think about something.

Think to yourself,

what is the first sound,

song, rhythmic structure

that I can remember?

You're hearing

the heartbeat.

You are getting rhythm.

You get accustomed

to sounds



and the rhythm patterns
of those sounds.

And so you are
passing down information.

Before you're even here,
that memory

is coming from

mother to child.

So, we're getting
this information

and we're growing up with it

and it just makes sense.

We might not
be able to explain it,

but that way of

moving a body,

this is how the people

in my community move.

So when I start dancing,



I'm right there with you.

You don't have to teach me
how to do a dance.

It's in my blood.

It's in my community.

I just do it.

[Debbie Allen] I view dance

as the original art form.

Man was standing his feet

upon the planet,

leaping, spinning.

Before we could write,

before we could even talk,

we were dancing.

[Saleemah Knight] Jazz dance,

it's the way that we live,

breathe, and speak

on a daily basis.

It's a conversation.

It's about seeing
the people around you

and really feeling,

with empathy,

who those people are

and understanding

how you relate to them

through movement.

[Melanie George] If jazz is

about humanity, and it is,

there are

infinite ways of being,

and we should be allowed
to move through

all of those spaces

and claim jazz.

The one thing that
I ask of every single person

when they're working

with this material is,

say where you got
this stuff from,

and if you're not sure,

investigate
and do the research.

In the same way
that no one owns jazz,

no one's
really making up anything

that didn't come from someplace.

A part of why our history

is not understood

is because we
don't attribute

and we don't call back
to what came before.

We are always steeped in,

like, now and there.

Like, what's beyond?

The history allowed us

to get to now,

so it's our responsibility

to the form

to attribute
where stuff comes from.

[Julie Andrews' "Le Jazz Hot"]

♪ About 20 years ago ♪

♪ Way down in

New Orleans ♪

♪ A group of fellas ♪

♪ Found a new

kind of music ♪

♪ And they decided

To call it ♪

♪ Jazz ♪

♪ Oh, baby, won't

you play me ♪

♪ Le Jazz Hot maybe ♪

♪ And don't ever

let it end ♪

♪ I tell you, friend ♪

♪ It's really something
To hear ♪

People all over the world
love jazz dance.

They just don't realize

that they love jazz dance.

It is very hard
to define what jazz is.

But then when you see it,
you see it.

Liz Thompson used to say,

"Jazz dance

is dance's bastard child."

And if I can't say that

on camera,

jazz dance is the illegitimate
child of dance.

♪ Oh, so baby ♪

♪ Le Jazz Hot may be ♪

[George] I don't know what's

more American than jazz.

Enslaved culture,

migratory culture,

indigenous culture

can be found in jazz.

It's such a hodge-podge,

a ragout of lots of different things

that came into the pot.

And so,

in that very American way,

we sort of steal from

everybody and find something new.

When people speak,

they tend to lie about things

and dance is honest.

It's all the backgrounds of everybody

and it's really

what they feel

in their heart and their soul.

Jazz has a heartbeat

and a rhythm

that makes people move

very differently

from any other dance form.

Jazz is inspired

by the rituals, the rhythms,

the sounds, the earth,

the community.

What was happening with

dance, with jazz, dance, and music

here in this country

was actually mirroring what was happening

in the country historically, politically.

Jazz is always political

because it's imagining

a future that we could share.

And how great
could that be?

♪ Oh, before ♪

♪ It's time ♪

♪ I got nothing ♪

[Durden] The culture of dance

is deeply embedded

in Afro-diasporic people,

deeply embedded.

We dance even

if there's no performance.

It's just in us to dance.

It's emotionally freeing.

It's how we deal
with day-to-day life.

It's how we express
our self through joy,

through sorrow,

through pain.

♪ I went ♪

♪ Went in the valley ♪

[Lindsay Guarino] You can't dismiss

the way that racism

has impacted jazz dance.

The greatest misfortune

that I see today
in jazz dance

is that a lot of the times
the roots aren't acknowledged,

and a lot of people

don't even know that

the movement they're doing

is stemming from that place.

The atrocities that a lot

of our ancestors had to face,

they put into their dance,

into their music.

They expressed

themselves and released their tension

and their stress

through their art.

If they didn't have

these outlets, man,

I don't know

if they would've survived.

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ My soul... ♪

[Knight] We never start

African or Latin history at slavery.

We start before that. So we
look at what was going on

in those countries

or on those continents

before it was

interrupted.

So, when we're looking at

the lineage of jazz dance,

we take the Juba and the Shika
dances of the Nigerian peoples

and we bring that
to the United States

by way of
the transatlantic slave trade.

[DeFrantz] That's part of
what the Middle Passage did

that's quite different
than how the dances

might have developed
on the continent

because there's
so tiny room

for Black Americans

to maneuver socially

that the embodied movement

that becomes jazz

takes on that much more

potential, possibility, urgency.

[Knight] So we arrive here

and we've got
this automatic sense

of percussiveness in the body

and how important that became

when you're also
thinking about a group of people

whose cultural practices

were taken away from them.

Now you're just who you are
as a person,

devoid of what

your once identity was

in your original country.

[Michael Blake]
For slaves,

their dance and their music

was all they owned for themselves.

[Dr. George Faison] It

could reach the hypnotic

level of releasing them

to that other place

where they weren't slaves,

where they...

they were free.

[Jason Samuels Smith]

The Slave Act of 1739

wouldn't allow Africans

to use drums

and the reason was the revolt

that was organized

in this year was organized

by playing drums.

They communicated
with each other

with different rhythms.

And so, after that,

if any African was caught

playing drums,

their hands were cut off.

So, this rhythm and this music,

this spirit

was then redistributed

throughout the body.

Juba is a social dance

that started on the plantation.

What they did was use

their bodies to make the sounds

and to still communicate with
each other

and really continue

that community.

[DeFrantz] So, Patting Juba
Almost immediately

sets a standard for jazz as

this exploration of rhythm

and playful fun but also

a political possibility.

So, information can be shared

through how the rhythm

is disrupted or arranged.

[Smith] And that grew

into more social dances

where you entertain the idea

of being elevated,

of being white, of mimicking

European court dances.

So, that's where the cakewalk

evolved from.

The cakewalk was a dance

done on plantations

where the Africans

who were enslaved at the time

would literally make fun

of their masters.

They would present themselves
and their partner,

and they would be dressed
in a certain way.

And so, Africans would

create these dances

to mimic and

imitate them.

[Camille Brown] It was

a way for the enslaved Africans

to resist and in the moment

of oppression,

they found a

way to release

and to find humor and joy.

[DeFrantz] The cakewalk
is the foundation

for all of
Broadway dancing

and thus, the foundation
for jazz.

The cakewalk

is the originary moment

where something
new is produced

by this American experiment,

if you will.

But also this way that

Black Americans are disavowed

and pushed to this place

where creativity

is aligned with

political possibility.

Black Americans

had zero possibilities

for professional life.

We have our first forms

of occupations

around minstrel shows.

So, the foundational avenues

of employment

that lead to jazz

dance are tied

up in this history

of denigration

and of flattening

the complex social

and political lives of a

really diverse group of people

into two-dimensional

stereotypes.

The traits of

jazz dance are

variations and rhythmic

patterns,

because when you think

of jazz, jazz moves.

It speeds up, it slows down,

it has a variation.

So, it's not just one thing.

And what jazz is, is

it took this African

predisposition to

syncopate, if you will,

to overlay a rhythm

different from this ground rhythm.

And it made the rhythmic life

of jazz dancing

filled with surprises.

I think one of the key

tenets of jazz is improvisation.

Without you bringing

your own interpretation of it,

it's not jazz.

[Graciela Danielle] You are
not up here like in ballet.

You are down there.

You are digging on the ground.

That power, that passion,

that sex.

What else is

there in life?

[Siegenfeld] The great

significant trait is polyrhythm.

Meaning there's a beat going on,

the boom, boom, boom,

boom, boom,

boom, boom, boom, boom.

You know, if that just keeps

going on and keeps going on,

we're gonna fall asleep.

But what the jazz people

did was individuated against it.

Come on.

Come on. Come on.

[Knight] The Harlem
Renaissance, we look at it

as the African-American
enlightenment movement

in the United States.

Circa the 1920s,

you've got music,

dance, philosophers,

writers.

All doing great things

at the same time.

And during this time

there was a very big racial divide.

But in New York,
There were white bodies

that were really

interested in being a part of the movement.

[Allen] Black America

was setting the trend,

then like

we are now.

The Savoy Ballroom

in New York

was one of the first places

where they could not stop whites

from coming and having

this wonderful socialization

with Blacks over dance.

It was unheard of,

but you couldn't stop it,

it was just so hot up

in that ballroom.

[jazz music playing]

[Siegenfeld] The
Savoy Ballroom,

it was the very first

integrated public space

in the United States.

The dancing
was so extreme

that they had to replace

the floor every three years.

[Knight] And it would just be
people dancing

to classical jazz music,

doing swing dances,

jitterbug, Lindy Hop,

all the dances that you imagine
when you think about

the origins of jazz dance.

[Brown] There is a dance,
there is a social dance

that comes from the

community, that lives in the heart.

It's in your blood,
It's in your spirit.

It's that vernacular dance
that was homegrown

that comes right
out of the streets

and it's infectious,

it's joyful,

and it relates and connects

to what's happening socially,

politically,

culturally, at any given time period.

[Karen Hubbard] These
social dances evolved

from the
plantation dances

of the enslaved

Africans and then were embellished

and performed on stage,

and national dance

crazes evolved,

like the Charleston

and the Lindy Hop.

The Lindy Hop is
social dancing.

The dance movements

come from the community.

Lindy was, everybody come

to the club,

learn what it is,

and you can add

your own signature
thing to it

that influences everybody
else to be as creative

as you are being,

and you're all dancing.

[George] We're disenfranchised
in most parts of this city

but we get to go

to this ballroom

and we get to compete
against each other,

and it's about pride,

and it's about reputation.
It's about self-esteem

and we're expressing it
through movement.

This was really the time
when Black and white bodies

were in conversation
with each other,

kind of became okay for a girl

from Upstate New York

to start moving her hips
in that way.

And the Harlem
Renaissance

was really the beginnings of

those conversations.

[DeFrantz] We get to the

1930s and there are progressive whites

who were curious

about Black culture,

not only the parts

that they're allowed to see

but something closer

to how Black Americans

imagine themselves

among themselves.

And these ballrooms

make this possible.

And then we start

to get towards jazz dance.

Broadway changes.

The dances on Broadway start

to look more like the dances

that African Americans

do at home.

They get more

rhythmically sophisticated,

they get less knowable

and more open.

And then we really see

a shift and this happens

up until the second World War.

[Smith] You can't talk
about American success

without tap dance

being a part of that story.

It's important for people
to know that

it came out of a place of

struggle and oppression.

It wasn't just

this happy dance

that was made for

other people's enjoyment.

It was made to express

and to communicate

a certain feeling.

There's always been
a big argument

whether it was tap

dance that created jazz

or jazz that

created tap dance.

[Smith] Tap dance

is older than jazz

and it led to certain social

dance forms

like Lindy Hop and swing

dance which then led to jazz dance.

[Knight] There's
also a relationship

between African
and Irish culture

where we see this
percussiveness coming into play,

with Irish traditional

jig dances

and also African Juba

interplaying with each other.

[Smith] The roots of tap

are African dance,

West African

dance 2.0.

It's what happens when

you take a culture and a style

and you put it in a different

part of the world

and you put the people

that experience that art

under extreme pressure

and under the worst

conditions humanly possible.

Most Black people

in America can tap.

I don't know.

It's just a thing.

You're born, you're Black,

you can tap.

Don't get me wrong.

I love to dance.

I love to dance and I got work.

I was cute.

Cute little colored kid.

They called us colored

in those days.

Cute little colored kid

tapping away.

Oh, I was a real novelty.

Of course, by the time

I grew up,

it's a different story here.

He's an adult Black man now,

he's not so cute.

Give him a broom.

Raymond.

The rich don't patronize tap.

[Smith] There's a little bit
of a fear still

to embrace tap dance

culture entirely

because of the ugly history

that it's attached to,

which is

American history.

And unfortunately,
I don't think a lot of people

are willing to face the truth

of what happened or is

happening right now in this country.

And we're always going

to reflect those truths,

whether or not

they can handle them.

[Allen] It's kind of

impossible to talk about jazz dancing

independent of the music,

because the music truly

through the ages,

defined how the dance would go.

This to me could also
come through

as how important is oxygen

and nourishment?

Every person in my family

was a classical musician

and to hear that jazz music,

something shifted really deep in my soul.

There is an emotionality

and a depth

that is in that music for me

that I'm always trying

to get to and to be able to describe

with movement because

there's such honesty,

such heart honesty.

[Kimberley Cooper] When I hear that sound

as a choreographer,
that springs images and

movement in my head
and makes my body...

It gives me that

invitation, that I feel jazz music does.

Jazz music has

all the accents

and the moments that

happen in between

that you don't expect,

and being off the beat

and being pushed

and just all the

variation of styles and percussive nature

and elongated notes,

it's all in there,

which, physically,

as a dancer,

you can relate to

and connect to.

At one time, the music,

jazz dance and jazz music,

went together.

And the dancers
were performing to live music

and it was an exchange

between the musicians and the dancers.

[Parker Esse] It is

so overwhelmingly fulfilling

to dance with

a jazz orchestra live.

I don't think there's anything

like it, because you...

you're an extension of that...

of that music, it's powerful.

Years and years ago,
jazz music was to move to,

it was to dance to.

And then as people

doing improvisations

got more and more adept,
then it became about

"Look at my skill
in improvising."

And maybe not quite
so danceable.

And then bebop...
And then bebop messed it up.

For jazz dance.

The musicians of

bebop messed it up.

And as the music

changes over time,
as the styles change,

then the dancing that's
done to the popular music,

popular styles,

also changes.

The music got too crazy

to dance to, really.

So, music and dance

went their separate ways.

♪ Forget your troubles

Come on, get happy ♪

[Francis Roach] The jazz

dance that we all iconically know

from the Hollywood days,

that's different than

the jazz dance of the Roaring '20s.

♪ The sun is shining,

come on, get happy ♪

During that time, when

Hollywood was doing its Golden Age,

that was after World War II.

The whole world was in turmoil

and needed some uplifting

and some joy.

♪ Across the river,

wash your sins away in the tide ♪

The idea of male role

models for dancers was few
and far between.

I didn't know
any professional dancers,

I didn't know
any male dancers,

I was the only boy in my school
but I knew who Gene Kelly was,

I knew who Fred Astaire was.

It's just those

character men and women

that I really...

that's what I wanted to do.

My mother would watch old movies

and I fell in love with a movie

uh, I didn't know the name of at the time,

but of course everybody knows it,
which is Singing in the Rain.

And I liked Gene Kelly a lot.

The way he was...

I guess his articulation,

the way he was accentuating the music

but then also his character

and the way
he was telling the story always

and how the dance was kind

of infused into the storyline

and I got kind of drawn to that.

[Warren Carlyle] Gene
is athletic and masculine

and it always felt like

watching the Olympics, watching him dance.

And Fred is just... is

beautiful and elegant and nonthreatening.

You know, he's romantic
and, yeah.

They were
the two different qualities

and the two different
male dancers

that I grew up watching.

And then I also grew up

watching movie musicals.

So, you know,
I'm seeing Fred Astaire,

I'm seeing
The Nicholas Brothers,

I'm seeing Bill Robinson,

I'm seeing
all these famous dancers,

and I'm seeing very vivid colors

and sets, and costume,

and as a kid, it's just,
it's like watching cartoons,

it just grabs you.

I would kill

to be Cyd Charisse's partner.

I would kill for that.

[DeFrantz] What

happened in the 1940s and '50s

that is a turning

point for jazz

is it started

to be codified.

And what's interesting about this

is it could almost

never be codified

by Black Americans

because we still

didn't have access

to courts of law

or legal systems of support.

So, almost all

the jazz dance techniques

are initiated

by white men.

[Hubbard] There are
like two different worlds.

The worlds where ballet

and extensions

and turns,

battements are valued.

Training is valued.

And then, there is the

social swing dance world.

And it's, like,

two different worlds

but the swing dancers understand

the vernacular vocabulary

and the evolution of jazz.

What happened was
that the modern dancers

and the ballet dancers

got a hold of jazz,
pulled it into the studios

and made it be

what they wanted to do

and they called it jazz.

[Natasha Powell] And we
had ballet choreographers

or modern dance choreographers

who are doing their interpretation

of what they

consider jazz to be.

And then, you have critics

who are writing about
what they think jazz is,

not having
any historical reference

to the form
or any connection to the work.

Now, how does that change

how society thinks

or believes
what jazz to be?

And how does that change
the form and evolvement

of what it was

and who was instrumental in that?

[Wendy Oliver] There were two big streams.

People who felt that jazz dance

was this original

vernacular form

that only happened

in the '20s to the '40s.

And there were people who

felt that jazz evolved.

And jazz became

something different

over time but

it's still jazz.

[DeFrantz] Something else

about how Black American

social structure works

is that we believe

in each other and sharing.

It's communal.

We don't really

have long traditions

of individual ownership.

We're not so big up on

claiming it as our technique

or our style

or "this is my dance

and no one else's."

That's quite

a European-American formation

or a capitalist formation.

So, there's a real,

like, problem

when people start naming names
and saying,

"This is who invented a step

or a style or made a technique."

And Black
American culture,

it just doesn't operate that way.

So, it's hard in jazz dance,

because we know it comes from
a lot of that lineage,

to really put a thumb on

who the mother or father is.

Although, in America,

we tend to give the credit to Jack Cole.

But I think, when we look
at the true origins of jazz,

that may not be the

right lens through which to

look at how jazz came about.

So, around the 1940s,

Jack Cole is looking

at classical Indian forms

and starting to incorporate that
into his jazz dance movement.

So, you see

this idea of isolation

that is indigenous
to jazz dancing,

a lot of that
really starts there,

where the head may
move from side to side,

the arms may have

some very particular,

angular motions
to them.

And Jack Cole was taking
a lot of these ideas

and incorporating it

into his choreography

and the dances that

he was creating.

I saw Mr. Cole

in a convention.

This kind of tall-ish,

evil-tempered person,

which is intriguing,

and everyone seemed to be
In love

with that kind of

antagonistic attitude, maybe.

We didn't know
who he was.

He came in with

boots, khakis,

a tied shirt, and a drum,

and he was crazy.

Seven, eight.

Walk, two, two, two,

three, two. Work.

Jack Cole

created a technique.

Was it taken from Ted Shawn,

Ruth St. Denis,

the Denis-Shawn years?

Yes. Absolutely.

Everyone was involved

in his life that

he put into his pot.

They didn't call

their stuff jazz.

Sell those bananas.

Let's do it again, ladies.

[Chet Walker] When you look
at Marilyn Monroe today,

it was Jack Cole who gave her

that persona,

Rita Hayworth,

same thing.

Marilyn wouldn't do it

without him.

If you'll go and you'll look

at Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

and you'll look at

Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend,

she is never looking into the...

into the camera ever

because he's over here

and he is doing it with her.

But when you think about that,

"Oh, what?"

Then you look at it,

and you go,
"It's amazing."

Because she's not playing

to a camera.

She's taking
from the master.

And they had a connection

that was like no other.

He wanted audiences

to understand

what dance was all about.

Dance didn't have
a prominence.

It was background

material.

The stars were the most

important thing

and not the dance.

You can't talk about jazz dance
in America

without talking about
Katherine Dunham.

I know you can talk
about Jack Cole

but you got to talk

about Katherine Dunham.

For us, she is the mother

of all dance in America

because it is that

African heartbeat

that has defined

the style of America to the world.

She was influenced

by Afro-Caribbean movements

combined with Graham

and classical ballet.

And she,

not unlike Jack Cole,

had studied

Eastern dance.

[Smith] She actually started

as an anthropologist.

And through her studies

in anthropology,

that led her to dance.

Because she realized dance

was one of the oldest things

that humans have been

doing on this planet.

[Danny Buraczeski]

Americans have these
puritanical ideas

about the body
and about sex.

And because it was so...

uh, it wasn't sexy,

but it was so sensual,
they had completely devalued

what she was doing even though

it was just extraordinary.

And she was a scholar,

researcher,

made a phenomenal movement.

I mean, the Dunham technique
is just breathtaking

but they just devalued it.

As a child growing up

in Houston, Texas, in the '50s,

everything was segregated.

Water fountains, white only.

Movie theaters,

white only.

Restaurants, white only.

And the dance schools

were no different.

They were not really allowing

Black children

to train and dance

with white children.

I went to the local school,
Mr. DeBato,

and I learned tap dancing

and a little ballet.

But I had a bigger image

of what I wanted to learn.

And it was actually

Patrick Swayze's mom,

Patsy Swayze,

who taught jazz dance,

who saw me outside

of her school.

I was peeping through the window

and she and that wonderful

Southern drawl,

"Little girl,

what you doing out here?

Can you dance?"

I said, "Yes, ma'am."

She said, "Well, bring

your shoes tomorrow."

And so, she allowed me

to come and take the class.

[Rick Odums] I just happened

to see a dance performance

and I was fortunate enough

to meet

the principal dancer,

who was Debbie Allen.

And she was from
Houston like me.

So, I asked her,

"Where can I learn to do
this?" And she told me,

"You need to go see a woman
by the name of Patsy Swayze."

Because unfortunately,
at that time,

or fortunately for us,

she was the only dance teacher

in the entire state of Texas

that would accept Black people

at her school.

Patsy was considered to be

one of the prominent
jazz dance teachers.

And from my understanding,

Patsy had basically
based her work

on the teacher that
she had studied with,

who was Matt Mattox

at that time.

[Bob Boross] Matt never

called his work jazz dance.

He was of the thinking
real jazz dance

is the social and

vernacular forms of jazz.

Back in the late 1940s,

Eugene Loring was creating a class

called freestyle,
where he's saying,

"I want to take the best of ballet,
the best of modern,

the best of jazz,

the best of this,
and put them in together

to one American form of dance."

So, Matt was there

during that process

and would teach there.

So eventually, when Matt left,

he had that from Loring

and then he had worked
with Jack Cole,

so he had the style
of Jack Cole.

And those two things

came together

in his later teaching.

[Nat Horne] I heard
someone beating a drum,

one of those tom-tom drums,
down on the hall and I said,

"Who was beating this drum
every day I come to class?"

And they said that's the

class by Matt Mattox.

Our jazz teacher.

So, I opened the door

and I went in and I looked,
I listened.

And I saw all these

isolations, and the training.

They stood in one spot

for almost half an hour

or 45 minutes just doing
body isolation,

head, shoulders,

rib cage, hips, legs,

parallel legs,

turn their arms.

All of these different

position. I say, "That's close to ballet."

To me, that was
the closest thing

to ballet technique
I can get.

And so, that's

why I started it.

[Boross] So, Matt was taking
these ideas from Jack Cole.

He said, "When I first -
started teaching in New York,

I was teaching for two years, -
anything I learned from Jack Cole

and the students
could not do it because

of the isolated nature
of the movement."

And that's when he

said, "How do I make up
exercises so they figure out

how to move individual

parts of their body?"

So, between head,
shoulders, rib cage, pelvis,

those were, you know,
the things that led him

to create the exercises

that he did.

Accent, reflex,

rhythm, dynamics, relax.

[Horne] Matt and Jack did not

want any expressions in their face.

No expression.

Keep that all inside.

And I wanted to express

what I was feeling.

Matt would say,
"Why are you smiling, Nat?"

I said, because I can feel this,
I'm enjoying the music.

"No smiles." Cut.

[Martine]

Matt was a very integral

and simple

and truth man.

He never try to be false

or to use...

he was always doubting

about himself.

And trying always to get...
To get better

because it was never enough,

you know,

and I have learned that

about him.

I have a great respect and love.

Each people would teach

his technique.

Teach the way

they understand it.

And then they put back with

it their own sensibility.

[Vicki Willis] One of my teachers in Calgary

came back from New York

with this crazy technique.

And she had been studying

with Matt Mattox.

And so, she was a very

thorough teacher

and we were really immersed

in Matt's technique.

Then, at one point,
she came back

from her New York travels

and all of a sudden,

we had our arms above our head
and we were stretching this way.

And we started doing Luigi work.

The Luigi Technique,

much of the most,

important draw about it

was the man himself.

First port de bras.

Five, six...

[Bill Waldinger] Luigi
had been in a car accident

and he was paralyzed

on one side of his body

and the doctors told

him he would never walk again,

And determined to dance

again because he was a dancer.

He developed a way

of rehabilitating his body.

Stretch the right arm
over to the left.

[Roach] His exercises were

much more of a serious nature

because of what

they had to do.

His technique had to rebuild

a really broken spirit

and a really broken body.

He used the image

of pressing down on the bar.

Right? There would be

this imaginary bar
and he would press down on it

and use it to lift his

weight out of the paralyzed leg.

Both arms in front of you.

He would start out at the bar,

use the bar for support,

do these exercises

and then step away
from the bar

and press down on

this imaginary bar.

And that is the foundation

of the technique,

this idea of using the space

in the room for the support.

Passé and down.

And so,

he would do these exercises
extremely slowly

and talk about what everything
felt like.

It really was not
about what it looked like.

It was about what it felt like.

Now, 15 seconds...
The energy in that room

was not like

anybody else's class.

He was really, really

remarkable in that way.

Left arm in your chest.

[Blake] He was so intensely
involved in it

that it just didn't...

it was infectious.

Like, when he starts
moving his chest and shoulders,

it was like you could see

he was in a trance practically.

And we just loved it.

I mean, I had to follow that.

And I did for quite a while.

In five, six,

seven, brush.

A one, two, toe, heel,

toe, heel.

Passé back. Brush.

Repeat. Toe, heel.

[DeFrantz] It's complicated
to try to understand

how Latin rhythms

or Latin expression

becomes embedded inside

something we think of as jazz.

So many of the enslaved

African people

were brought through

the Middle Passage
to the Caribbean.

And most Africans were then

stolen to South America.

So, these affiliations

and sort of windings

through and

sharings are as old

as the slave trade.

[Sekou McMiller]

These are rhythms
that came into Brazil

and into the Caribbean

and into New Orleans

and they're starting

to fuse them.

And people say,
"Oh, it's new music.

Oh, it's new music."

But really, it's more like

a great reunion

of a culture of music

that was once one.

[Brenda Bufalino] Cuban music

had a great influence on jazz.

Then when the bars

went up on Cuba,

American jazz switched

to Brazilian music

for its influences.

And so then,

we started having cool jazz.

[Joshua Bergasse]

There's something about musicality

and syncopation

that excites me.

I was doing a show

and the songwriter,

he was on my case about

everything being so syncopated.

I was talking about my father
who's from Brazil.

And he said,

"Oh, that's what it is."

"You're Brazilian.

That's where all of
your syncopation comes from.

That's why
you're driving me crazy

with this syncopation."

Some of these innovators

start to claim Latin

as kind of their difference

in jazz.

But if we really

wanna understand,

I mean, that starts

from the beginning.

I grew up in Cincinnati,

Ohio, in the '70s.

I went to a little
dance school

and so like
many other kids in America,

I started with tap ballet.
I started when I was three.

And in my teenage years,

I went to Giordano's in Chicago.

That was the first time

I had gone away from home.

But it was the first time

also I felt like an adult in class

and really had a mentality

and a fighting thing

that was underneath
to say, "You can do this."

[Phil Laduca] From Gus,

I learned discipline.

I learned that the body

has to balance in a certain way.

It has to move

and counter move.

And those disciplines

were not what I was used to

in the freestyle improvising

of street dancing.

[Nan Giordano] The markers
of the Giordano Technique,

are the movement comes

from the pelvis.

And that's where everything
comes from.

So, it's got

a very organic quality.

It's combining

the groundedness,

influence from Africa

with the ballet world.

Very technical and you

have to have amazing technique.

And then the modern world,

it's really a combination

of the major

dance disciplines.

It's got to be real.

That was a slogan that my

father continually said.

The way that he lived

his life was with energy,

power, radiant,

and touching people's lives

through jazz dance.

There's a misconception
about the relationship to...

between ballet and jazz.

And it's really important
that people understand

that there has been this kind of

very deep relationship

that George Balanchine had

with the jazz dancing body.

Balanchine had direct contact

with some of these Black bodies

during the time

of the Harlem Renaissance.

Josephine Baker,

she was a very prominent artist
in the United States.

Well, what Balanchine

appreciated about Josephine

was her ability to get down,

that polycentric body,

multiple centers in the body -
That could articulate and speak

to each other

all at the same time.

And so, he was looking

at ballet and deciding that

he wanted to make
something new,

thought, "Well, what if I take
these Africanist aesthetics

from this particular body

and the jazz dancing body

and I incorporate that
into ballet?

What does that do to take

ballet off of its axis?"

Somebody like Jerome

Robbins, his jazz

is absolutely

based in ballet.

But he's taken

on that jazz

to exemplify the character

that is being portrayed.

[Linda Murray] Robbins is

made by virtue of the fact that
he was rejected

from school of
American ballet,

which is the New York City
Ballet School,

the Balanchine School.

He was rejected from there

and he gets his start

with Gluck Sandor,

who's teaching modern dance.

A friend of mine said,

"Oh, you've got to see this."

She called it a
musical comedy.

I said,
"I hate musical comedies."

Oh, I was such a snob too.

Oh, my God.
What a snob.

My chignon, my first position.
Are you kidding?

It's disgusting.
I had never seen it.

Disgusting.

I had never seen a musical in my life.

I had never been.

The only musicals I've seen
is movies, you know.

And they were one of that,
"Oh, that's not for me."

She said, "Well,
I think you should see this.

It's done by Jerome Robbins."

So, when she said,

"It's choreographed and directed by Jerome,"

I said, "I'll go."
Yeah.

And I saw West Side Story.

And that changed my life.

I went out of

the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre,

sat by the Seine,

by the river, and said,

"I have to go to New York

to study that."

And that's what I did.

[Bergasse] The first movie,

the first time I realized

I wanted to do musical theater
was when I saw West Side Story.

West Side Story.
West Side Story.

West Side Story.
West Side Story.

West Side Story.

I mean, West Side Story.

Suddenly, a new world

had opened its doors to me.

That was jazz.

That's what I
wanted to do.

Jerome Robbins' work

kind of exploded

and that straightaway
captured me.

His choreography
is very muscular.

It's very...
It's very grand.

It has great scale.

There's a lot of danger.

I fell in love with not only

Robbins' movement,

you know, it was this mix

of ballet and jazz

but also with his ability

to tell a story

and to convey character.

What West Side

Story showed me

was that you could be

a tough guy

and yet you could still dance.

I mean, how cool was that?

When they would do these

long, extended dance sequences,

I understood

why they were dancing.

I understood what

they were trying to say.

And that helped me

understand the story

and understand
what these characters wanted

and needed and/or

were deprived of.

♪ Boy, boy, crazy boy ♪

I think, personally,

what the secret of good theater is

is conflict that

leads to resolution.

Tension because

there is no answer.

And then eventually,
our hero finds the answer

and finds his way.

Bob Fosse
was the quintessential sculptor

of tension and conflict.

Sexual tension, conflict,

dysfunction that's so deeply

seated from childhood,

from past marriages,

from whatever it is,
from social injustice,

it's... it goes into the body

and it crunches the body down.

He grew up dancing in a

lot of vaudeville houses.

stuff.
I mean, he was around

strippers and a lot of that
stuff.

And you see a lot of that

influence in his work.

He would always say,

"I couldn't turn out,
so I turned in.

And I had bad posture,
or whatever, you know,

so I let it come down
like this."

He was, you know,

pigeon-toed.

You know, he was
a little guy.

There always seemed
to be something in Bob

that was just so cool.

It was just, ah, right in there.

It was addicting.

It was heady.

It was... it

was, ah, jazz.

I think that the turning

point for him was Pajama Game.

And Gwen then

entered the picture.

She was his muse,

absolutely his muse,

and I really think that the

work with Gwen sealed it.

[Kim Greene] If you look at

his dancers, there were no
cookie cutters.

It's not, "Oh, this is Made up of
bunch of this and a bunch of that."

It's like, there was you.
There was me.

There was this person,
that person.

We were all different.

We all brought our own

thing to the table,

that he would then take

and just mold

and make a masterpiece out of.

So, we were doing
The "Cell Block Tango."

And, of course,
I was speaking in Hungarian.

My whole monologue was
Hungarian.

And the only English

was "not guilty."

He corrected and gave directions
to everybody.

Oh, I know this.

And he never said a word

to me, bad or good or... nothing.

So, one day I said,

"Bobby, is it okay what I'm doing?

I mean, 'cause you haven't

said anything to me."

And he turned around,

looked at me.

He said, "Well, frankly,

I don't understand
a word you're saying,

and I made up my mind

that you are guilty."

Well, it was like a knife

because I had decided that she wasn't.

My work on the character was that...
This is so good.

...she was not guilty.
This is so good.

I had a whole story going on.
I have goosebumps.

I'm having all those...

It was like somebody had...

And just before leaving,

he turned around

and he went, "Right?"

I thought

that's the greatest cruel,

cruel, greatest direction

I've ever gotten

because he made me feel

like Hunyak felt.

Yeah.

During the entire freaking show.

He was cruel.
It was cruel...

He was cruel in that way.
He was cruel.

But it was fantastic.
But the whole thing was cruel

towards the Hunyak.
Fantastic.

I have goose pimples too.

It was just... I know.

One of Fosse's main

descriptions for dancers

was that they were actors

who communicated with their bodies.

So, he didn't
call them dancers.

They were the company

and they expressed themselves

and they told that story through

the movements in their body.

You could look at a dance

as if it were a script.

So, the steps are like the words
in a script.

So, you dance the meaning

of the steps.

Not just steps

for the sake of steps,

any more than you would act

a script just with the words.

You don't have to know
what it is.

I'm the only one
that has to know the story.

But there has to be

something internally

going on with everything.

When we're doing

the number "Big Spender,"

Gwen would say
things like,

"Think that you're
pushing through Jell-O

as you're moving
through the number.

Roll your shoulder like

you're wearing a dirty bra."

You know, I mean, it's just...

all these amazing images

would be used.

[Bonnie Lanford] These
dancers lining up against the bar

in the dance hall

waiting for these men to come
and choose them.

And they are broken,

they are broken dolls.

The minute you say that, it's

not girls posing on a bar.

It says so much more.

And, to me,

that just adds these layers

that make it so expressive

and deep

and at the same time, funny.

His big theory was contain

and explode,

so that you would

keep something very quiet

almost like a little secret,

and then go, "Ah!"

♪ Do you wanna

have fun? ♪

[Culbreath] A lot of times in dances,

there's lots of stuff going on

and you just sort of choose
what you wanna look at.

With Bob, everything

was specifically designed

to focus in on a hip

or one person's hand

or the nod of the head

or suddenly there's a shimmy
of a shoulder.

[Blake]
It's the restraint of it,

you know, having
to hold in,

it's like having sex

without having an orgasm,

so it's just...
You know, it just...

it's bubbling up underneath you.

How's about it, Palsy?

Yeah.

I think there's a lot of
ways to look at the history

and who's important,

and part of why

someone like a Mattox

and a Giordano and a Luigi

get talked about so much

was because they codified

their vocabulary.

And also, let's just be frank,

Mattox, Luigi,

Giordano have

a ballet influence.

And, for better or worse,

that told people

that it was legitimate.

But here's the thing.

What if the fundamental

construct of the reasons

why your movement exists

is based on

not having that organization
that never changes,

because that is
a very Eurocentric model?

So it isn't that the

people who didn't codify

hadn't thought it out,

it's that they're saying

the philosophy

on which the thing
we're building

doesn't require

codification.

So who are you
identifying?

Whew!

It's an incomplete list.

It is a list that

has a colonist mindset.

It's always
gonna be an incomplete list

because the people

that we've elevated,

the way that
history works

is that then becomes,

like, the gospel.

So, it's flawed.

It's flawed.

Honestly, Black and

brown people and women

don't get talked about enough
in the history.

[Murray] The way people

value your art form

is based on the sort of historic

importance it carries,

so people place a lot of

value on music and on literature

because you can see a body

of work amassing over time.

But with dance,

you don't have that,
it is an ephemeral form.

And in fact, as a discipline,
we often embrace that fact

and glory that fact

that you only have

that one moment
where it exists

and then it's gone forever,
and that's part of the magic

and the tragedy of dance,

we sometimes don't want

to give that up.

But the problem is,

when you don't keep your history,

then you don't

know where you've come from,

and you can't really know
where you're going

if you don't know

where you've been.

I want us all to be more curious

about the names we don't know.

Because Pepsi Bethel

should be on that list.

[Hubbard] Pepsi was an
authentic jazz dancer.

In fact, his company was

the Authentic Jazz Dance Theater.

He never talked about

his professional experience.

It wasn't until years later
I found out

that Pepsi was

a Savoy Lindy Hopper.

In rehearsals,

Pepsi always indicated
what he would do.

He'd say, "Well,

I'm gonna go over here
and I'll do this,

and I'll go over there,

and I'll do that," blah, blah, blah.

Didn't know until I got

on stage with the man,

he was amazing.

It was like sparks were
flying from his body,

and he was
scatting,

and I was stunned for

a moment, you know?

I'm always researching.
I love research, you know,

and I just decided

to look up jazz dance,

and I said, "Where's

Fred Benjamin's name?"

You know, you see Bob

Fosse, see other people.

And that's part

of the problem,

is that there's only very

specific stories being told.

To be on this planet

during the '60s,

in the midst

of segregation,

to still be able to

create your voice

in the midst of that,

that's real, because Bob

Fosse and Fred Benjamin

had two very different paths.

And I think this is

why it's important

for so many voices

to get lifted up

because it's easy

for things to just

kind of fall away

and not get acknowledged.

These are people who were
so dedicated to the form

that that was their whole life,

and then they pass away,

and if not for their families,

you know, out of sight,

out of mind.

literally.
Without JoJo Smith, there's no

Broadway Dance Center,
literally.

He started a school,

and then that school

became another school,

which then became
The Broadway Dance Center.

But without

JoJo's Dance Factory,

you can't even get there.

One of my biggest

influences

in my style of dance

and jazz was JoJo Smith.

JoJo Smith.

I saw a special on

television, and I saw dancers,

they were dancing

with an undulation

and a smoothness

and a fierceness.

I said,

"Who the hell is that?"

[Sue Samuels] The
different jazz masters,

the early jazz masters came

through ballet training,

so their styles were rounded

in some way.

Not JoJo. JoJo came

through the martial arts.

And his mother

was in Katherine Dunham.

So, the dance

and then martial arts

had, like, a square-ish

kind of style.

[Smith] Before

JoJo's Dance Factory,

which also my mother,

Sue Samuels, helped build,

every dance teacher had

their own studio,

and so you had to go

to this one studio to get ballet,

you had to go to this
studio to get tap.

You had to go
here to get jazz.

They actually brought all

the styles and techniques

under the same roof

for the first time,

and they don't get
credit for it,

but now, I look around the world

and all dance studios
are modeled

after what they started

in the '70s.

These are these names

that get lost,

because they were doing

the work on the daily.

They were teachers,

and they were doing the work

day in, day out.

[Al Blackstone] For me, it
was all about Frank Hatchett.

He was this

incredible presence.

He was really

as much a motivator

and a guru, I'd say,

as much as he was
a choreographer and a teacher,

and he was one of
the first people I think

that, really, I understood

about what style was.

He had a style that he taught,

he called it VOP,
he created it himself,

it sort of became the name
of what he was teaching.

I believe as a jazz dancer,

it's our obligation to interpret the music,

to communicate
with the audience,

it's an energy.

Sometimes we have
to sacrifice technique,

but that's what VOP is,

it's about flavoring the choreography.

VOP, the initials mean nothing,
it's a style.

[Blackstone] He would combine,
like, classic pas de bourrées

and then he would
get this sort of, like,

very grounded sort of, like...

almost the beginning, really,

of what we call hip-hop now.

And he was... combined styles

in a way that was very fearless,

and I think
really excited people.

Pas de bourrée, say hey.

Hey.

Say ho.
Ho.

He was really motivating,
but he was also really fun,

but he also had
very, very high standards.

I remember people would,
you know, come into class,

and they would stand in
the front of the room,

and if they didn't know what
they were doing,

Frank would ask you
to move to the back,

and he would ask you to move
to the back of the room

in front of the entire class.

I mean, there was a really

high standard of behavior.

It's this environment that

was simultaneously really fun

and really energetic,

but also really serious.

People took
this style seriously.

You were in New York,

you had technique,

but you also had flavor,

and you had style.

And I think that he found a way

to combine discipline of the technique

with what was happening

commercially in America

and what was happening
in the clubs

and what was happening
with music.

I don't think

the artists of today

are doing enough

to acknowledge our ancestors,

the lineage of this art form,

and the history of this dance.

I think we need
to talk about our ancestors,

we need to talk about

our inspirations, every class

Not just the one time

we get to sit down on film.

We need to speak

their names every day.

If we continue to

keep their memory,

their spirit alive,

through their dances,
through their music,

through their names,

that evokes their
spirit on a higher level

and that's one of

the most powerful things

you can do as a human.

[Durden] It's paying

respects and honor to the elders.

It's acknowledging that

a group of people were here

and they contributed

to society,

they contributed to

what influenced you.

And to be dismissive

of that is to say
that they weren't here.

Because we go to these studios,

we go to these universities,

and you get one side

of the picture,

and there's a whole other

side that y'all don't even know.

They don't know
about these people,

you don't even know their names.

I think part of what
happens in the U.S. is this

kind of consolidation

of everything.

It's like America

as the melting pot,

things kind of
get absorbed

so we stop identifying the thing
that made it,

and so it becomes

this whole universal

experience of dance.

It's also because as

Americans, we don't acknowledge

the historical roots

of lots of things,

particularly those things
in which African Americans

have had

a vital participatory role.

[Durden] To see someone
doing a dance

but they have no relationship
to the community

and why it's being done, then

it loses its authenticity,

it becomes a movement

that in the movement,

there's authentic form

and expression.

But the meaning behind

what you're doing
is not the same.

[DeFrantz]

African-American creativity
does get appropriated,

it gets taken,

and moved to somewhere

where it never was before

and dropped down to do a

different kind of work,

and then the people who

created the form can't benefit

from all of
the things that

might be available

in this other space.

On Broadway or Hollywood

where there might be money
or more work,

or the possibility to live
in a neighborhood

where schools are good
for children,

like that's not available
for the Black people

who are developing

these dance forms

and these creative addresses.

So, it's important to understand
that this is a part of

how jazz is formed.

It's not gonna go away.

It doesn't not exist
just because we wish it didn't.

This is what jazz is, too,

it's part of it.

I think people

do have a genuine...

Uh, I don't even know

if I can say that word,

but they have a respect for it.

But I just think there's a lot

of conversations to have

as to how authentic

you're doing...

you're trying to hold
o n to something.

It might not be something

for you to hold on to.

I think it also wears a support

for the community

that this art form comes from,

it's the people.

And when people divide

and take the dance away

from the people, and say,

"This dance is cool,

but I don't wanna mess

with you as a person,"

there's danger in that

because now
we're just appropriating

these art forms for sale

as opposed to appreciating

the people

that have brought
these art forms out

and getting the true meaning
of what they're doing

and what they're trying to say.

[DeFrantz] The Civil Rights Movement is

another challenging moment

in American political history

where dances start

to shift yet again

and they become

even more weighty,

so we're seeing
a lot of fists,

and things are getting
just harder

because the struggle
for civil rights

is also reflected

in the social dances
that we create.

We are gonna walk

non-violently and peacefully,

to let the nation

and the world know

that we are tired now.

We've lived with slavery

and segregation 345 years.

We waited a long time

for freedom.

We are trying

to remind the nation

of the urgency of the moment.

Now is the time to make

real the promises of democracy.

Now is the time to make

justice a reality

for all of God's children.

♪ Run from these demons ♪

♪ Please don't give 'em

a reason ♪

♪ To spill blood

on my sneakers ♪

♪ So I just put

my hand up ♪

Martin Luther King was

shot and was killed tonight...

♪ ...put me

in handcuffs ♪

♪ They just scared 'cause

they don't understand us ♪

♪ Try to beat us down

when we try to stand up ♪

♪ I didn't even

do nothin' ♪

[Muhammad Ali] You my opposer
when I want freedom.

You my opposer
when I want justice.

You my opposer
when I want equality.

You won't even stand up
for me in America,

for my religious beliefs

and you want me
to go somewhere and fight

but you won't even stand up
for me here at home.

♪ Oh, baby ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Just give me

my freedom ♪

♪ The beautiful ♪

♪ America ♪

♪ The murderer ♪

♪ America ♪

♪ The beautiful ♪

♪ America ♪

♪ God bless America ♪

[Durden]

The '60s is kind of known
as the Decade of Fire.

We had a lot of assassinations,

Women's Rights movement,

Black Power movement.

And so the music kind of
reflected those times.

The dances reflected the

movement that was going on.

So now the twist

changes the social decorum.

People are just dancing.

They can do it by themselves,

a woman doesn't have to wait

for a man to ask her to dance

[Dr. Faison] We were seeing

all sorts of different attitudes.

And people were

coming out of,

or falling out of,

all kind of closets.

You know what I mean?

So the world was different.

People were different.

We were living and it

was everything out there.

Drugs and sex and

rock 'n' roll, and that other beat.

There it was,

it was jazz back there

on the dance floor again.

You know, taking us

into another era.

In the '70s,

the streets were buzzing,

the clubs were buzzing,

dance was everywhere,

and dance wasn't just

something you had to train for,

dance was something

you could create

whether it was
from the streets of hip-hop

or breaking or

in the discos.

And it was wild.

Hip-hop is the culture that has

come right out of our community.

It's a culture,
It's not just a music style

or dance style, it's a culture.

Hip-hop is a

derivative of jazz.

And so the root of it

is coming from jazz

but it's the street,

it's the common dance.

I call it the common dance
of jazz today.

Most of the characteristics

defined with hip-hop culture

are closely connected
to the roots,

the identifiable characteristics

of African traditional dance.

[Brown] Each

generation has a time

when you're looking

at the politics around you

and you're

responding to it.

That was part of

the creation of hip-hop,

people finding their voices.

[Durden] Pretty much
every hip-hop dance you see,

I can show you footage

of that same step

from the jazz era.

Some of the movement
that you see breakers do was

part of what was considered

eccentric dancing in the jazz era.

A lot of that was seen

as comedic dancing.

In 1921, Lupino Lane

came out with a book,

and in that book,

they illustrate

how to do moves

that breakers do right now.

So, we can see that none

of this stuff is new

and they say nothing is new
under the sun,

the only thing that might

be new is how you put
your twist on it.

But there's a lineage

to this movement

that we need to excavate

to really understand

its socio-cultural

significance.

And these are

steps that go back

to the 1800s,

some of them.

And so there's a progression

that happens in the community

that we don't

see on the stage.

So, Lindy Hop

didn't die,

it transitioned

into some other movements

for the next generation.

So you have Lindy Hoppers
today saying,

"Well, the African Americans,
they dropped it."

You can't drop culture.

You don't drop culture.

But if you're not
in that culture,

you don't see how it

morphs into the next thing.

And so now, when I get
around young students

and they're turning
their nose up at hip-hop.

"Oh, no. I'm not taking

hip-hop, that's not real dancing."

And it's very
interesting to me

because we'll talk about
African-American people

who, "I have to have

my natural hairstyle.

I have to have the garb.

I have to have the Black art
On the wall.

I need to read Langston Hughes."

But when it comes to the dance

and hip-hop

is most tied

to your cultural identity

and heritage

because of the structure

how rooted it is in African

dance.

But that's not real dancing.

And these elders have taught you

to value this Eurocentric dance

over what's most connected

to your heritage.

They don't get it.

They're not
doing it intentionally.

They don't see it.

[Guarino]
Hip-hop, all of a sudden,

you see it not danced
to hip-hop music

so we're removing it
further and further

from that culture

of which it was born.

And it might not have
that connection

to the place

where in the '80s

when people were
using hip-hop

as a way to work out
their aggression

and from a place
of community.

So now I see

a lot of hip-hop dances

where everyone
is standing in straight lines

and directed outward
towards the audience

and there's this
disconnect and lack of community

and they're not dancing
to hip-hop music,

yet they're calling it hip-hop.

So we're having

a lot of the same issues

with these branches off
of the jazz tree

and who knows

where they'll go.

[Blackstone] A great

jazz dancer is musical,

has line,

has a strong

sense of self.

A great jazz dancer

isn't afraid to get dirty.

A great jazz dancer isn't

afraid to enjoy themselves.

[Esse] It's those extra

inches of feeling in movement

that I think makes the most

dynamic jazz dancer,

somebody that doesn't just

stop at the end of the line

but continues to go on.

[Mandy Moore]

A great jazz dancer
knows how to focus.

They know
how to get the audience

to look at them and say,

this is what I want.

This is what I want you

to look at.

[Allen] It's like
the great jazz musicians.

There're a lot of people
that can hit the notes

but can they
put it together,

can they make gumbo with it,
can they zhuzh it,

can they make it hot?

You know,

that's jazz dancing.

[Jerry Mitchell] I can
teach you the steps,

I can teach you the

words, I can teach you the notes

But what I can't teach

you how to do is have passion

If you can't bring passion

to the room,

why would anyone

wanna watch you?

In the '80s, dance was
visible in a way

that it isn't even visible now.

It was, like, okay,
now sex is back

and we're gonna... we got MTV
and music videos and it's hot.

And, like, girls are killing it,
with the guys strong,

shirtless, you know.

[George] There was so much
dance happening in the '80s and '90s.

And you would see

the same dancers

from video to video

and then you just didn't see
them anymore.

And conventional wisdom
would say,

oh, it's because
dancing in music videos

fell out of vogue

in the late '90s.

But the reality also was,

we were in the midst
of an AIDS crisis.

And so there's dancers

who I saw in multiple videos

who then just disappeared.

[Mitchell] I was a dancer.

Choreographers were dying

left and right.

There was no dance.

Dance disappeared
from Broadway

not because the
choreographers were dying,

because dance

is a sexual expression.

Even when you don't want it
to be sexual,

it's sexual because we're using

our bodies to tell a story.

So people were afraid.

And that form

of expression

was left alone

for a while.

[George] AIDS took

out all of these men

and it took them out primarily

between the ages of 23 and 45.

And when you think
about who we are as artists

and when we hit,

like, our prime,

when we really like

figure out what it is
we wanna do.

Thirty-five

and forty-five,

that's when people

really, really lock in

and we just

don't have those voices,

so it changed the trajectory

in ways that I don't know
that we can really name

because, certainly,

work was still getting made,
you know.

Uh, but, you know,

a chunk of the creative team

that created

A Chorus Line is gone.

I got to where I am

on the backs of a lot of people

who are no longer with us.

So, when I really started

to teach in New York,

that was during the AIDS crisis.

So the young gentlemen

who were teaching jazz

all over New York disappeared.

Those people that we lost,

we lost a whole connection

the things that would have
informed theater.

God, who knows what we would
have been doing now

had those people not died.

Sometimes I look at the work
of the '80s

and as much as it feels

sexual and propulsive and dynamic,

there's times it also feels
really desperate,

because people were dancing
for their lives.

And many of them

couldn't talk about it.

It's heartbreaking.
It's heartbreaking because...

we'll never know
what they could have done,

we'll never know how that

work could have changed our lives,

how that work would

have changed the world.

Spread the toes,

plié, rolling up.

Pressing the whole foot
into the floor,

feeling very rooted.

Stand tall.

To first position.

[George] I started
noticing it in the '90s,

the repertoire of jazz

companies was changing dramatically.

Two, regular.

It's slow. I know. I changed it.

What happened

was a huge shift

to modern and

contemporary.

Body roll.

There was

nothing going on,

I mean, you could
barely get a job

as a jazz dancer.

Plié, roll it out.

[George] But then a few years

go by, five, six years,

Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys,

NSYNC, Darrin's Dance Grooves.

Because it's always cyclical,

there's always an ebb and
a flow to what's happening.

And so, even if you don't
see jazz prominent right now,

just wait because it's always
gonna be there.

There's something
about jazz

that feels almost like

everyman meets magnified dancer.

You know, there's some things
about jazz dancing

that I think
can feel

common to someone who
doesn't know how to dance.

It feels right
when you watch it,

where sometimes

things like ballet

can feel a

little elitist.

[Simonson] And because
it was not elitist,

it was not "classical ballet,"

opera, the symphony,

it was looked down upon.

[Knight] There are
certain areas of dance

because
that are much more

well-funded and understood
because

their values fall in alignment

with the values of the people
who have the dollars.

And so, unfortunately, jazz,

hip-hop, tap,

they're looked at

as the other forms.

[Boross] Jazz has been told

not to be jazz.

Jazz is now lately

considered to be a liability

[Walker] I was told,

"If you would put
contemporary in front of it,

I could help you out."

But I couldn't do that.

If you're gonna go
and talk about jazz dance,

you don't wanna put

contemporary in front of it.

Jazz should stand by

itself, but there's no funding.

[Drew McOnie] To say there's more room

in the industry for jazz companies
is like...

I mean, of course there is,
there's so few of them.

You know, if you think
about how saturated

the world is with ballet companies
and contemporary companies that...

And there is... I promise you,
there is the wealth of talent out there

to fill hundreds

of jazz companies.

To make a career in dance,

to make a career here
in New York City,

versatility is everything.

You have to do everything.

You must be a
great jazz dancer.

You must have great
ballet technique.

You need to be
a tap dancer.

You should be great

at flamenco and hip-hop.

And you should sing.

You know, it's a lot.

There's a lot.

I think that what's happening
in New York now

is that people are taking
theater classes

because they
wanna do theater

because that's how

they can make money.

[George] A friend of

mine calls it "get a job jazz."

Training people how to actually
work in the field,

which means commercial work

or theatrical work.

Jazz as a technique

is really how
you become great

at doing
the kind of choreography

that you see in
theater today.

The practice,

or the way it is taught,

is only from a
commercial point of view.

We very rarely go back

and we look at the history,
the lineage,

what makes jazz what it is,

what is the aesthetic.

And so, the aesthetic
has changed so much

that we don't

recognize it today.

[Murray] Sometimes we

think of jazz dance

as permanently
being in peril,

but if you look at those

popular dance shows on television,

there are serious choreographers

on those shows

that are introducing jazz

to a really broad audience.

Dance is becoming more

accessible to the masses.

It's giving them inspiration

and it's getting new people

started dancing.

I worry that it's all
become a little bit tricksy,

that if you can do a

backflip, you're therefore
a jazz dancer.

No, you're not.

Look at this
competition crap.

It's how many pirouettes
can I do?

How can I expose my crotch
in a different way?

It's not about

moving anybody.

[Simonson]
It becomes trick-oriented

and that's what

the everyday person

is seeing on television

and they're going, "Wow."

And we're going,
"No, that's just tricks.

There's no heart."

But there are people

looking at dance now,

so flip it to the other side,

who've never considered

looking at dance.

So, there's a gift in that also.

But I think that, you

know, we're relying on
those young dancers

to know the amount of work
that goes in

to be able to perform
to that level.

And if it can be used

as an inspiration, it's brilliant.

If it's used to make you

lazy, then we're in trouble.

[Culbreath] They do
step right off the bus,

they have an agent

and Twitter followers,

and a YouTube blog, and a thing,
and a thing

and a thing, and all that

stuff is just a bunch of horseshit

in the way to the work.

Just do the work,
but they need somebody

to guide them in the proper way
to do the work

and ask more of them
than they think they can do.

Then you go.
This flight, this flight, stop.

Going to take it again.

Five, six, seven...

[Bergman] Class, as a dancer,

is a place to fall on your face.

What happened

started to change

when all this convention

dancing started

and it all became

about competition.

And I think as a young person,

as a young dancer,

it's a place to fail.

It's a place to fall down

and get back up again,

and learn how
to do something better.

Don't be the...

don't focus so much.

[Chita Rivera] It's not easy.
Dance!

But anything

that's good

is not easy.

If you wanna keep it,

you know.

If you want it to be
a part of you,

then it's got to be

drilled into you.

You have to keep up

with your training.

I think no matter what,
you can never stop learning.

Um, your body is your tool,

and you have to
maintain that tool

and you have to

continue to keep
learning and training.

Most of us, you know,

we spent hours,

blood, sweat and tears,

in a dance class.

Back, back, back, forward...

Doing eight shows a week, folks,
ain't fun.

It's really tough.

To make that kind
of commitment,

get one day off a week,
and in the theater,

you get two weeks off a

year and you work every holiday.

Yes. Isabelle, yes!

The theater, the dance world,

it is difficult.

Ready? Six.

And so, I think for you

to survive,
you have got to love it

more than anything

else in the world.

Keep them still,
keep them still.

Yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes.

[Andrew Wright] I went
to a college to teach

and brought up some elements
of dance history,

and I was met

with absolute blank faces.

I don't understand that.

If it's gonna be your job,

and your livelihood,

and your passion,

why don't you know
the history of it?

And especially today,

with the Internet,

you can find anything out

within seconds.

[Tom Ralabate]

I think it's important
for studio teachers

to constantly

sprinkle

information to
their students.

You can teach

a Shorty George, okay,
a vernacular movement.

But you best,

while you're teaching
that movement, Shorty George,

mention that George

Snowden was the originator of
this movement

and that it

happened at a place

Lindy Hoppers
would gather together.

All you're doing is
just sprinkling information

while they're learning it.

Okay?

All right. Good enough?

Four times, right side, -
Left side, right side, left side.

We as dancers

have been mentored.

We have a responsibility
to do the same.

We're all kind of vessels,
aren't we,

and taking into
the dance studio

our knowledge
and what we know,

and then you don't realize

you're impacting the next generation.

[Boross] There's a lack

of curiosity about jazz,

about what it is,

about what its relation
to our history is.

I mean, jazz is the history
of America,

pure and simple.

[Smith]
It's the American voice

that has allowed

so many people

in oppressed situations

to speak.

And that's a beautiful thing.

If dance can do that too, man,

that's an empowering tool

that we should never take away
from our children,

never take out of schools,

as we have been doing.

We should implement it more

into our educational system.

[George]

We're not having a dialog
in the jazz dance field.

Part of it is, is that

the concert people

are sort of conflicted

about the relationship
to the contemporary people.

And the contemporary people

and the swing people
have no relationship.

But what I do know is

the urban dance community

and the tap community have
figured out

how to always stay in dialog
with each other

regardless of
the different schools.

And the jazz community
does not know how to do that

and it's tragic, and it's why
we're in this place

that we're at right now,
where we're trying to

still, like,

claw and claim

because we don't communicate.

♪ Everything

must change ♪

[Knight] I think jazz

is in a place
of flux at the moment.

There's a little bit
of confusion

about whether or not

it's necessary

or whether

it's relevant.

♪ ...remains the same ♪

We are in transition.

I don't know where
this is gonna go,

but we have

arrived nowhere.

This is all shifting.

♪ No one and nothing

remains the same ♪

I would never profess

to tell you

how to dance

if that's what you wanna do

and I would celebrate
what you do.

It may not be

what I wanna do.

And I think that's where we

get into a bit of controversy,

when people become

such purists

that they think they own

a certain style
or a certain technique

and that it can't evolve.

Well, the world is built,

the universe is built,
on change.

And if nothing changes, it is

stagnant, it is not alive.

♪ Nothing, no one

remains unchanged ♪

[DeFrantz] I think the future

of jazz dance is very promising.

I think we should continue to

work on reclaiming its roots,

but still embracing

the hybrids

that are happening

right in front of us.

I think it's gonna create

a lot of debate,

but that's what

jazz dance is.

♪ Ooh ♪

♪ Except ♪

♪ Rain comes

from the clouds ♪

[Allen] I think to go

forward, you have to look back

and you have to know

the history

and references.

♪ And hummingbirds... ♪

I think there's

a beautiful weight
and responsibility

to being a jazz dancer

because there are so few of us

and because the history

is complicated

and born of finding joy

in suffering.

And so, if you're going

to represent that history,

you have to know

where it came from.

I met... Okay.

I met John Travolta
at a party once.

This is...
I'm gonna tell you this.

And I brought

up the nerve,

you know, got up the nerve
to go over to him,

I'm just like, "Don't be a nerd. Don't be a nerd.
No, don't be a nerd."

And I said to him, "Hey, John,
my name is Mandy Moore.

I'm a choreographer.
I just wanna let you know

that Staying Alive was

honestly one of my favorite
films ever."

And he goes, "Wait, the one

where I was a jazz dancer?"

And I was like, "Yeah.

It was my favorite film."

And he's like... I think
he was weirded out by it

because of course

the man's done, like,
so many other films

that are, like,
so much more, you know,

probably more
successful or whatever,

but I just thought
it's so funny the way he,

like, he had this disdain
for, like,

"Wait, the one where
I was the jazz dancer?"

I was thinking, "Yes, the one
where you're the jazz dancer.

That's why I'm a jazz dancer."

I have no idea how old I am.

It's the truth.

What?!

I mean, should we go

to the next question?

Is that it?

I mean, can you edit that?

Like, one of the best things

ever and he's, like,

"Jump!"

And she's, like, "I can't!"

And then she, like,
leaps in her red tights

with the red leotard.
I mean, it was over for me.

Like that... from that

point forward, jazz.

That's it.

That's all I'm doing.

That's okay.
Ahem.

Try it now?
Oh, yeah, I'm just stretching.

You might not wanna put that
in the movie.