"Joanne's lessons"

At Joannes's lesson we are study how to dance Jazz Dance . Also we have many gymnastic , team work and different choreography.

*Here you have small information about what is Jazz Dance:

 JAZZ DANCE- is a classification shared by a broad range of dance styles. Before the 1950s, jazz dance referred to dance styles that originated from African American vernacular dance. In the 1950s, a new genre of jazz dance — modern jazz dance — emerged, with roots in Caribbean traditional dance. Every individual style of jazz dance has roots traceable to one of these two distinct origins. Jazz was a big hit in the early 50's and it is still a well loved style of dance all over the world.
(Information took it from wikipedia)

*Different types of Jazz Dance:

1) Cakewalk
The cakewalk style of jazz dance was a socially acceptable way slaves made fun of their owners. Dances were usually held at the master's house on the plantation and often took the form of a competition with cake as the reward for the winning dancers, hence the name of the style. Slaves would line up and high step in a straight line, mimicking their masters and other aristocrats. The style died out between 1915 and 1920.
Swing and Boogie Woogie
2) Swing and Boogie Woogie
Swing dance and the Lindy hop were terms used interchangeably for the same dance style up until 1945, when other forms of swing dancing were invented, making the Lindy hop just one of many styles of swing dance. The boogie-woogie is a swing style where dancers move to a blend of big-band swing and blues music beats. The boogie-woogie is generally a fast style involving flying feet, hops, stomps and jumps.
3)Black Bottom 
The black bottom style of the early 1900s earned its name from the slapping of the bottom during the dance. Soloists or couples hopped forward and backward, stamped their feet and gyrated their pelvises, all while slapping their own bottoms.
4)Charleston
 The Charleston first became a popular jazz dance style in the 1920s and is still being practiced today. The basic step of the Charleston involves pivoting the feet in and out while straightening and bending the knees. Weight is shifted from foot to foot and the unweighted foot kicks out at an oblique angle.
5)The Lindy Hop and Jitterbug
The Lindy hop, characterized by breakaways from a couple's embrace to engage in intricate solo footwork, is often called the jitterbug today. The style originated in the Savoy ballroom in Harlem in the late 1920s. According to The Lindy Circle website, the name jitterbug may have referred to the way white people danced the Lindy hop, which appeared to some as though they were intoxicated. Today, the jitterbug name is used for a variety of different styles in different places
6)Lyrical Dance
Lyrical dance is a style that may incorporate jazz dance steps. Lyrical dance, in the tradition of jazz dance, is designed to work with popular music of the day. Many lyrical dancer-choreographers have worked for pop acts such as Britney Spears and Mariah Carey, incorporating balletic and jazz-dance moves into music videos and show choreography. Lyrical dance primarily seeks to incorporate many types of moves into flowing movement that is keyed to music.
7) Jazz-funk
 Jazz-funk dance is a style influenced by hip-hop music. It is a studio dance style created by trained dancers in response to street dance moves they saw being performed by those in the hip-hop scene. Jazz-funk performances were often featured on the show "In Living Color", performed by the Fly Girls including Rosie Perez. Beyonce Knowles is a well-known pop act which uses this style. Jazz-funk, also called "street jazz", though a hybrid of hip-hop and jazz dance, is not considered a hip-hop style because the foundations of movement are based on jazz dance.

Black Bottom

• The black bottom style of the early 1900s earned its name from the slapping of the bottom during the dance. Soloists or couples hopped forward and backward, stamped their feet and gyrated their pelvises, all while slapping their own bottoms.

Read more : http://www.ehow.com/info_12122652_7-different-styles-jazz-dance.html

Black Bottom

• The black bottom style of the early 1900s earned its name from the slapping of the bottom during the dance. Soloists or couples hopped forward and backward, stamped their feet and gyrated their pelvises, all while slapping their own bottoms.

Read more : http://www.ehow.com/info_12122652_7-different-styles-jazz-dance.html

8)Swing dance  is most commonly known as a group of dances that developed with the swing style of jazz  music in the 1920s-1950s, although the earliest of these dances predate "swing era" music.

Also I pasting here short presentation about my favourite type of jazz dance which is Swing Dance.

Here you have sample video of Swing Dance;)

*Today likewise we leartn overview of Jazz Dance-Key facts:
1500- Tradytional African's dance.
1800-1900- Cake Walk, Vauderille shows.
1920's - Charleston,Swing Dance.
1930-40-Blue Dance.
1950's- Coll Danc.
1960's-Motown Music
1970's-Disco, Hip Hop.
1980's -Commercial Jazz Dance.
1990's-Street Dance.
Present- Lyrical Dance.

"Dominique's lessons"

In this lesson we are study how to dance ,specially in this year is  contemporary dance which is really nice and sometimes hard .From lessons we made many gymnastic ,different choreograhpy (our as well), work with pair and so on...
Very often teacher please us to write what are we fing difficult during this lesson . For me somtimes is just problem to remember some steps so after college im going home and I'm pratice in.

*Here I will tell you a little be about contemporary dance. 


Contemporary dance is a popular form of dance which developed during the middle portion of the twentieth century and has since grown to become one of the dominating performance genres for formally trained dancers throughout the world, with particularly strong popularity in the U.S. and Europe. Although originally informed by and borrowing from classical, modern, and jazz styles, it has since come to incorporate elements from many styles of dance, but due to its popularity amongst trained dancers and some overlap in movement type, it is often perceived as being closely related to modern dance, ballet and other classical concert dance styles.
In terms of the focus of its technique, contemporary dance tends to utilize both the strong and controlled legwork of ballet and modern dance's stress on the torso, and also employs contact-release, floor work, fall and recovery, and improvisation characteristic of modern dance^.Unpredictable changes in rhythm, speed, and direction are often used, as well. It sometimes also incorporates elements of non-western dance cultures such as elements from African dance including bent knees, or movements from the Japanese contemporary dance Butoh.

I took this information from wkipedia.

* Also I would like to tell you about 3 choreography dancers which are :

Piny Baush:(27 July 1940 – 30 June 2009) was a German performer of modern dance, choreographer, dance teacher and ballet director.

Marta Graham:(May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influencePicasso had on the modern visual arts,

George Balanchine:(January 22 [O.S. January 9] 1904 – April 30, 1983) was one of the 20th century's most prolific choreographers. Styled as the father of American ballet, he took the standards and technique from his education at the Imperial Ballet School and fused it with other schools of movement that he had adopted during his tenure as a guest choreographer on Broadway and in Hollywood, creating his signature "neoclassical style".

*And the last thing is video which one recorded with my classmate when we danced together;)