Jazz Dance

Jazz Dance, broad term for American social and stage dance employing jazz or jazz-influenced music. As social dance, jazz dance originated in black social dances of the 19th century and earlier; around 1910, beginning with the cakewalk and turkey trot, diluted forms of black social dances were adopted into white social dance. Some social jazz dances, such as the Charleston, jitterbug, and twist, have movements traceable to African and early slave dances; others, such as the foxtrot, can be seen as European couple dancing adapted to jazz rhythms.

As stage dance, jazz dance is rooted in these social dances and also in 19th- and early 20th-century theatrical dance (in minstrel shows, vaudeville, revues, and early musical comedy). After about 1940 American theatrical dance underwent a major development, and in the 1950s and 1960s a style emerged that drew as needed on elements of ballet, modern dance, and tap-dance. It emphasized body line and flexible torso; fast, accurate footwork with the feet basically parallel (unlike the turned-out feet basic to ballet); and exaggerated movements of individual body parts, such as the shoulders. In general, it concentrated on floor-oriented steps as opposed to high lifts or leaps.