Estelle and Alfonso Performing Arts

Jazz dance is a form of modern dance that is strongly influenced by the sounds, rhythms, and techniques of jazz music. Like jazz music, jazz dance is highly individual, with an emphasis on showcasing individual skills, and jazz dancers are skilled at improvisation as well as working with other dancers to achieve a desired look and feel.

Most talented jazz dancers start out in the field of ballet. In ballet classes, they learn control, skill, and grace, and they tone and condition their bodies for dancing. Once dancers have experienced the discipline of ballet, they can pursue additional training in jazz dance, which hones improvisation skills, teaching dancers to move with the beat and to riff off each other in performance. Skilled jazz dancers can be in great demand, appearing in films, Broadway productions, and dance performances all over the world, with some noted choreographers working in a wide variety of genres, from television commercials to drill teams.

Jazz dancers may be slow, dreamlike, and graceful, or they may move abruptly and sharply, executing fantastic leaps and other feats. As a result, they must be physically very flexible, and very attuned to the music they dance to.

Some jazz dance is heavily structured and choreographed, while other performances build in room for improvisation. In group performance, improvisation must be carefully executed, with the dancers working together so that they do not clash or distract from the harmony of the piece, just like jazz musicians. This form of dance does not necessarily have to be performed to jazz music, although it often is, and it can integrate skills from other fields of dance, like tap; the original jazz dance, in fact, was tap dance, with dancers branching out into other styles. Jazz is the foundation of HIP HOP and recommended as a core study (like ballet) for any aspiring dancer.