Jazz Dance History in America

as researched by Bob Boross

Note - Please respect my scholarship by crediting my as your source when using small quotes. If you wish to use a large block of text, please direct your readers to my page by providing a link to my page rather than copying and pasting large blocks of text. Thank you.

MUSICAL COMEDY DANCE

Theatrical jazz dance developed in conjunction with the evolution of the Broadway musical, which moved from spectacle and light entertainment in the 1920s to carefully constructed integrations of drama, song, and dance in the 1940s and 1950s. In shows of the 1920s and 1930s, jazz and tap dancing were used as momentary diversions from a plot line. In the 1930s a style of dance for Broadway and film productions emerged that featured tap dance and soft shoe footwork with loosely held arms. It had the appearance, due to the dancer's informal approach and lack of technical training, of being improvised. June Taylor, whose female dance troupe "The June Taylor Dancers" gained worldwide recognition when performing on television's Jackie Gleason Show, said that someone who epitomized the 1930s style was "... James Cagney. He was a born dancer, he loved to dance a styled dancing - musical comedy is the only name I can think I can give to it."

A chorus of female dancers (first seen in the Black production The Creole Show in 1889) was the highlight of shows like the Ziegfeld Follies. (This tradition remains to this day in groups like the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes and even the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders). Beauty and poise, not dance technique, were the criteria for female dancers. In "The Influence of Modern Dance on Choreography," Lisa Jo Sagolla concurs, saying that "dance numbers were performed by chorus girls chosen more for their appealing looks than for any degree of dance ability. This was an appropriate method for casting dancers, since none of the choreography demanded much technical skill."

Those who staged movement for shows were called "dance directors," and they were in many cases men with limited dance training. Some dance directors hired prospects without any dance training at all. They preferred to mold each chorus girl to their own specifications, and sometimes held six month training courses to create their dancers. To illustrate the frivolous attitude taken by producers, on occasion a dance would be presented in two separate shows - the same movement with different costumes and music. Again, Kislan stated:

"Any dance director with a grasp of dance fundamentals could build a dance routine in the old tradition: He picked out eight to ten steps from his repertory, assembled them in ascending order of difficulty, and saved the most flashy, unexpected, or unusual item for the end - applause had to be provoked."

Dance was viewed as a form of entertainment, not as a means to express emotion or advance a storyline. This attitude was to change along with the evolving Broadway musical.