Dance Across The World: Is Jazz All that Shmazzy?

Jazz is a very popular, fun and energetic dance style that people see on tv, movies, and music videos. According to History of Jazz Dance,"Jazz dance is an umbrella term that can refer to several related dance styles. All of them are connected via common roots, namely tap, ballet, jazz music, and African-American rhythms and dance."
Jazz has been thought to be a dance that was started in America, but Jazz actually began in the 1800s from African American vernacular dance. Many Jazz moves were created by slaves as this was a very needed physical and emotional outlet. Slave traders normally allowed the slaves to dance on their way over to America. This was their attempt to keep them fit, which worked, but also ended up creating dance steps that will be used in history. "Until the mid 1950s, the term "jazz dance" often referred to tap dance, because tap dancing (set to jazz music) was the main performance dance of the era. During the later jazz age, popular forms of jazz dance were the Cakewalk, Black Bottom, Charleston, Jitterbug, Boogie Woogie, Swing dancing and the related Lindy Hop." ( History of Jazz Dance) Now a days you don't see these steps anymore or if you do they are ever so subtley hidden into the jazz routines making them hard to be recognized. Today Jazz is performed and viewed at many different venues and events such as, musical theaters, dance competitions, and parties. The Jazz technique requires a very strong posture so the dancer can do all the turns and tricks. The way the dancers can perform strong and sharp movements is because they have ballet technical training. Having center control is very important because the body's center is where all the movements get there strength from. This is how a dancers balance is always perfect by performing intricate steps. In order for a dancer to turn consistently without getting dizzy the dancer must look and one spot continuously as they turn. There are a couple common jazz steps such as ball change, barrel turn, jazz square,and jazz walk. & here is the normal part & my most favorite part of the blog where I put DWTS routines so you all have something to visualize! (: