Beyond the Basics
A Jazz Dancer's Guide to Intermediate Moves and Musicality
So, you've mastered the foundational steps. Your jazz squares are sharp, your pirouettes are stable, and you can hit a solid jazz hands pose without a second thought. Congratulations! But now you're hungry for more. You're ready to dive into the rich, dynamic world of intermediate jazz—where technique meets artistry, and movement becomes a conversation with the music.
This guide is your next step. We're moving beyond the vocabulary of steps and into the language of dance itself. It's not just about what to do, but how and why to do it.
Elevating Your Technique: The Intermediate Toolkit
Intermediate jazz is characterized by a greater complexity of movement, requiring more strength, flexibility, and control. It's where isolations become more nuanced, and transitions become as important as the poses themselves.
Key Moves to Master & Refine
- Piqué Turns & Chaînés with Attitude: It's no longer just about spotting. It's about the explosive push off the floor, the sustained retiré position, and controlling the landing to flow seamlessly into the next step.
- Fouetté Turns: The ultimate test of core strength and control. Start by breaking down the whip of the leg and the consistent spot. Don't aim for quantity; aim for clean, controlled doubles or triples.
- Layouts & Tilts: These moves require incredible core and back flexibility. Focus on initiating from the center and creating long, beautiful lines rather than just "leaning back."
- Stag Leap & Grande Jeté: Elevate your jumps by focusing on the height and split in the air, pointed feet, and a soft, controlled landing. The back leg's bend in a stag leap adds a layer of stylistic complexity.
- Isolation Sequences: Move beyond simple head, ribcage, or hip isolations. Practice layering them (e.g., a head slide with opposing rib cage movement) or doing them in precise, syncopated rhythms.
The Heart of Jazz: Embracing Musicality
At the intermediate level, executing the steps correctly is only half the battle. The other half is dancing with the music, not just on top of it. This is musicality.
Musicality isn't a gift you're born with; it's a skill you build. It's the ability to hear the different layers within a piece of music and translate them through your body.
Start by actively listening to jazz music—not just as background noise, but as a student. Break it down:
- The Melody: This is often the singer or the lead instrument. Does your movement follow the flow of the melody, or contrast it?
- The Rhythm (Percussion): The heartbeat of the song. Use your footwork, sharp accents, and body percussion to hit the drums, shakers, and clicks.
- The Bassline: The foundation. Use grounded, sustained movements, pliés, and weight shifts to embody the deep, rhythmic pulse of the bass.
- The Hits & Accents: Those moments where the brass section blares or the drummer hits a crash cymbal. These are your moments to punctuate with a sharp head snap, a kick, or a dynamic pose.
Putting It All Together: Phrasing & Storytelling
A series of well-executed steps is a combo. A series of steps infused with musicality and intention is a story.
Phrasing is how you structure your movement over a musical phrase (typically 8 counts). Instead of starting and stopping with every 8-count, try dancing through the phrases. Build energy through one phrase, hit a climax at the start of the next, and use a third phrase to release and recover. This creates a dynamic and engaging performance that feels less robotic and more human.
Your Homework: Take a jazz standard like Ella Fitzgerald's "Blue Skies" or a modern track by Lianne La Havas. Listen to it 10 times. Map out the melody, the solos, the hits. Then, improvise. Don't perform a memorized combo. Just move. See what your body wants to do when you truly listen. That's the beginning of finding your unique voice in jazz.
The journey from an intermediate to an advanced dancer is a deeply personal one. It's less about checking boxes and more about exploration, making mistakes, and discovering how you uniquely interpret the soulful, complex, and exhilarating world of jazz music through your body.
Keep listening. Keep moving. And most importantly, keep it jazzy.
- The Jazzology Team
