Projects
Videos
Authentic jazz as art
Portfolio of choreography & performance
I was delighted to be invited to work on a track by Alison Affleck. I chose “Gonna Lock My Heart and Throw Away the Key” because I was drawn to Ali’s rendition, which seemed to me both heartfelt and mischievous. I worked separately on rhythms and on body lines. For me, the beauty of authentic solo jazz is that it interconnects rhythm tap and show dance, allowing it to participate with the musicians while adding expression and visual line.
Lockdown proved a challenging time. I found myself struggling just to listen to music that I’d dance to quite easily. So it was with some trepidation that I embarked on this collaborative project with a great bunch of musicians! I would normally dance Balboa (partnered dance) to a Django Reinhardt song but this was not an option, so I combined Charleston and Black Bottom steps with some Balboa shuffles rhythms danced as solo jazz. A separate challenge was dancing on a single paving stone! But I love that we were able to give people a very colourful and upbeat piece, during a difficult time in all our lives.
I created “Spirituals to Bebop” to showcase the various styles under the Swing Dance umbrella. I also wanted to show how the dancing body changed, for example, from the upright, staccato of a downtown Charleston to a more liberated Black Bottom and on to a looser-limbed Big Apple.
I began and ended the piece with “I’m a Pilgrim” to be clear this is the role I perceive for myself as a performer in and educator of this African American dance form.
I included poetry by Harlem Renaissance poet, Langston Hughes to emphasise that this dance is more than a social dance, it is an art form.
I danced a part of the shim sham to Mahogany Hall Stomp because I wanted to get closer to the music and what better way than to interrupt the routine to make way for that incredible note held by Louis Armstrong, without stopping the dance.
I couldn’t resist including “London Rhythm” by the Mills Brothers while dancing a medley of Tranky Do and Big Apple, to indicate this city’s involvement in the music and dance throughout their history.
Without a partner, I nevertheless embedded an artistic representation of the partner dances, Lindy Hop and Balboa. I danced the “follow” in the Lindy and the “lead” in Balboa because they are my most regular roles for those styles.
It was a very unusual piece for a cabaret at a social swing dance and I was grateful to everyone who supported the project, particularly Dave Parsons for commissioning and filming it.
My first choreography on film project! (2009)
I had been dancing Solo Jazz and Lindy Hop for a few years but had failed to find routines that portrayed either emotion or narrative… so I created one!
I based it around a pattern of steps to form a sort of dance-riff. I asked my fellow performance-group swing dancers to help me bring it to life and Dave Parsons did a wonderful job of turning my mad idea into a cool noir.
Interpretation
Interpreting the classics
Authentic Solo Jazz has a few ‘classic’ routines.
In 2015 I taught a series of classes on the Dean Collins Shim Sham. I was very grateful for the guidance of Peter Loggins, the dancer and researcher who had ‘saved’ the routine from being forgotten. It took me a long time to find a suitable piece of music, but I think I got a good match with Cab Calloway’s “At The Clambake Carnival”. The paving stones made some moves difficult to execute smoothly but we decided to stick with the single take rather than edit in ‘corrections’.