Solo Jazz
An improvised solo dance rooted in early-20th-century African-American vernacular movement
Jazz dances — also called Authentic Jazz or Vernacular Jazz — include the Black social dances popular from 1920 to 1950, such as the Charleston, Tap, Black Bottom, Shimmy, Suzy-Q and many others. Here you learn to feel the rhythm in your own body, without a partner to rely on. Musical, liberating and full of character, Solo Jazz is equally joyful danced alone in front of a mirror or in a room full of people all hitting the same musical break together.
Solo Jazz — also called Authentic Jazz or Vernacular Jazz — developed the movement traditions brought from Africa into the dance halls and stages of early-20th-century America. Its vocabulary of named steps — the Charleston, Black Bottom, Truckin’, Shorty George, Shimmy, Suzy-Q and many more — was created and passed from one dancer to another by Black dancers in New York and across the USA.