The art of Jazz

Does dance have limits to what it is and what it can be ? Is there a fine line between the different types of dancing? To me dance is whatever you want it to be. Names like jazz, modern, and ballet are simply categories as which to places a dance piece in. Now of course each category has guidelines or standards as to what could be considered jazz or modern. But guidelines are there just to help and guide some one into saying this is this and that is that. Guidelines are not there to be followed, but to guide us. It’s up to the choreographer’s to decide what they want there dance to be categorized as.

The article the “real thing” by Joe Nash an African American dancer, is just what he thinks about jazz, which does not make him right. He has grown up thinking you can teach jazz because jazz is an attitude and you cant teach attitude. This for the most part I don’t agree with. To me dance is about being free and expressing yourself in a theatrical way. Everyone, comes from different backgrounds and lifestyles, everyone was trained in different places by different dance teacher, so everyone has their own concept of what jazz is. Everyone’s concept of jazz is different and maybe new but it really depends on the training you grew up on. But there is on thing I totally agree, to dance you have to have attitude. Dancers carry this trait naturally and can express it while they dance but others are timid and need to be taught how to present their attitude. Dancing is about performance and you cant perform if you don’t have attitude but it does not mean that jazz is attitude.