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Jazz! : the untold story

Jazz! : the untold story

Thursday, March 28, 2013, 18:29 GMT+7

Jazz!, the first dance show in Vietnam to tell the history of jazz through body language, gave local audiences an illuminating, enchanting look at the genre.

Written by Linh Rateau, a Vietnamese-French dancer and instructor, and performed by over 20 young dancers, Jazz! was enthusiastically embraced when it was staged late last week at Ho Chi Minh City’s Youth Cultural House.

Most of audience member, many of whom were young, were initially doubtful about the appeal and comprehensibility of the show, as its plot was complicated and packed with intricate historical facts and dances that aren’t very popular in Vietnam.

However, they were entranced after just a few minutes of the hour-long show.

The show ingeniously fused definitions, such as “Jazz is the unique blend of ballet techniques and African energy,” and historical facts with alluring dances to demonstrate them.

Jazz! depicted the wide spectrum of jazz types and the genre’s development across different time periods, ranging from the graceful, sensual dances of the 1920s to the fiery, tempestuous Broadway jazz featuring dazzling girls in glittery multi-layered sequin dresses who moved onstage with charismatically brisk steps.

Jazz from the later periods was a harmonious blend of various genres and cultures when it fused with ballet, swing, tap dancing and so on to give birth to unmistakably unique dances.

When it arrived in Vietnam, jazz took on street culture as it fused with hip hop, the leading genre some years ago.

Jazz later turned tender and profound when mixed with ballads in sweet, haunting love melodies.

Among the show’s mesmerizing performances were the magnetic dance by Quang Dang and Hong Nhung to the background music of ‘Come kiss me’, which they successfully performed during one of the finals of “Vietnam So you think you can dance”, season 1; the famous cat dance to celebrate Barbra Streisand’s ‘Memory’, a representative of 1980s opera; and Lady Gaga’s ‘Just dance’ and ‘I like to move it’ from the contemporary era.

The Jazzy spirit

Rateau, the show’s writer, who was born to a Vietnamese father and French mother, learned to dance as a child.

She graduated from the Centre International de la Danse Jazz (International Center of Jazz Dance) in Paris.

She returned to her fatherland, hoping to share jazz dance, her lifelong passion, with those interested in it.

Linh was a dance instructor before she founded Dancenter.

“Jazz! is only a brief look at the jazz dance history, as it would take a whole night to tell the story in details. Maybe we’ll do so another time,” said Linh, who has practiced jazz for the past 15 years.

Among those who share Linh’s passion is John Huy Tran, an overseas Vietnamese dancer who successfully played the story teller in Jazz!.

John recalled that as a newcomer at a dance school in Canada, he lagged far behind his classmates, no matter how hard he tried.

On weekends, some of his classmates would take him to the gym and correct his every dance movement.

“I then realized that effort counts most for a dancer. Even now I still can’t dance as well as they do, but that spirit is always in me,” John confided.

John added that what he has been doing is to help train Vietnamese young dancers, who he said “are so gifted, smart and agile, but may be too proud to practice particularly hard.”

Tuoi Tre

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