Yesterday, Elze Visnevskyte led a solo jazz workshop at the Traffic Jam! studies. Much of the jazz dance instruction I have received has been partner dancing. I’ve taken a few solo jazz classes, and worked independently on it. While it seems separate at first, solo jazz improves one’s partner dancing. It trains the shape of the body. It builds up one’s vocabulary of steps and rhythms. When you watch an experienced Lindy Hoppers, it is clear that they are well versed in the solo jazz repertoire.

Elza started us off with a body isolation exercise. In small groups, we went around the circle, which each dancer filling up a set number of measures with movement. We started with head movement, went down to the shoulders, hips, and feet. As one other dancer pointed out, this exercise can help one discover which parts of the body feel comfortable. I learned that I feel comfortable expressing the music through my chest and shoulders. I feel a bit awkward with my hips and feet.

We then moved on to a Tacky Annie exercise. The Tacky Annie is a common move where the dancer extends one foot back on the odd beats and touches the floor with the foot, then steps that same foot down on the evens to make a nice percussive pattern. We used the Tacky Annie as a foundation, and experimented with how we could add body movements to make it more interesting. This reminded me of how Jo Hoffberg talks about solo jazz movement; basic moves can become the foundation for an entire dance if you vary whether they travel, whether the movement is big or small, whether certain parts of the body are accented. I had a fun dance to an Angry Ankles song on Friday, which my dance partner and I messed around the entire song with camel-walks.

Next, we did a short rhythm routine, where we stomped on different beats. We discussed whether some stomps sounded better than others. Elza quoted Miles Davis about musical resolution in jazz, “It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note – it’s the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.” Elza also had a nice tangent about silence in music. She said dancing is like a conversation, and sometimes you feel the need to fill the silence. Rather than doing that, she said, it can be nice to just stay silent and groove. If the music inspires you, then move, other wise the dance can just be grooving.

Elze then made us form lines, and demonstrated a series of patterns to copy. It was a mix of kick-ball changes, fall-off-the-logs, and eagle slides. This was the part of the class I started feeling it in my legs. When fatigue kicks in, figuring out the patterns can be difficult, and this is when muscle memory really starts paying off. Some of the patterns I have that muscle memory trained, and what would have otherwise been a difficult trek across the floor was easy. One with an eagle-slide, for example, was easy. I’ve practice that pattern in various routines. Others, I didn’t quite have the muscle memory. Although I do them a lot, and enjoy doing them, there is nuance to a kick-ball change. I often don’t end with my weight fully forward, and because of this, sometimes have trouble integrating them smoothly with the next move.

For the remainder of the class, we learned a short routine. At this point, my legs were dead. I blame the Angry Ankles. It was a fun routine that used the same moves we performed while traversing across the floor. I look forward to continuing to improve my solo jazz so that I can pick up new routines easily. It is a very satisfying thing.