Introduction to Jazz Dance Practice

Catalog description

Four hours activity and one hour lecture per week Introduction to Jazz dance practices, history, and culture. Activities will focus on the embodied knowledge and roots of jazz dance from the early 20th century to the mid 20th century as an African diaspora art form and function of community. Students will examine the transformation of this dance from social/vernacular practice to commoditized spectacle through the history of minstrelsy (the foundation of American entertainment industry), Vaudeville, Broadway, and the Golden Age of Hollywood movie musicals. We will also focus on the aspects of race, gender, sexuality, and power that contributed to this process of commodification and appropriation. Effective fall 2022, changed from PADA 253. Repeat 2 times up to 6 units