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Lou S. Habash the dancer wouldn’t be who she is today without the influence of modern jazz dancers who have defined the art of the genre as it is known today. My idols, Jack Cole, Katherine Dunham, and Twyla Tharp, are some of the most famous jazz dancers whose techniques and performances made an impact not just on me, but also on the entire world of jazz. Here are the reasons why they stood out:
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The man was not called the Father of Jazz Dance Technique and the Father of Theater Dance for nothing. During the Great Depression, he was the first dancer to mix popular jazz moves with modern and ethnic dance styles, which resulted to a unique technical jazz dance that he himself formalized. It was a style that was full of emotion, movements, and animalistic appeal. He worked with the iconic Hollywood actress Marilyn Monroe when he choreographed “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.”
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A proponent of black dance in her time, Katherine Dunham established the black modern dance company Negro Dance Group. Her style was a fusion of Cuban, Haitian, Brazilian, and Caribbean rhythms that resulted into a polyrhythmic strategy. She also made popular the technique called body isolationism.
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"I had to become the greatest choreographer of my time. That was my mission, and that's what I set out to do."
Influenced by a musical family, Tharp had formal dance training in college. At 23, she studied ballet at the American Ballet Theater in New York and eventually founded her company, the Twyla Tharp Dance. She created a dance style that’s not only humorous, but edgy as well, breaking the norm of seriousness and spirituality of what modern dance was then.
My Twitter account offers more information on jazz dancing.
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