THANK YOU! SEE YOU IN 2025!!
Elevate Your Dance Journey
Uprooted Present – Teachers Jazz Dance Workshop – An in-depth pedagogy of jazz dance with industry professionals – exploring an authentic way to teach the roots of jazz dance.
The Uprooted Jazz Dance Education Project is presenting a 3 day Intensive teachers workshop. Dates – August 16-18th 2024 in NYC
Immerse yourself in the vibrant rhythm of New York City’s dance scene! From August 16th to 18th, join us for an unforgettable three-day teachers workshop designed to ignite your passion for jazz dance and elevate your teaching skills. Hosted at a premier location in the heart of the Big Apple, this intensive promises an enriching experience led by world-class instructors.And now, they’re offering it to you.
Led by the industry’s finest educators and facilitators, thIS inspirational jazz dance teachers workshop will explore the historical roots of jazz dance to provide greater context and understanding of the art form teachers of all ages around the world. From African dance to Afro Latin Fusion, AfroBeat to Social Dance, no stone is left unturned as jazz dance is reintroduced at grass roots.
Join Our Vibrant Community
Connect with fellow dancers and educators as you explore the rich tapestry of jazz dance. From lively discussions to collaborative classes, our workshop fosters a supportive and inclusive environment where creativity thrives and connections flourish.
Embrace the Rhythm of the City
Immerse yourself in the electrifying energy of New York City, a melting pot of culture and creativity. From the iconic streets of Broadway to the historic neighborhoods of Harlem, experience the pulse of jazz dance in one of the world’s most renowned dance capitals. Discover inspiration around every corner and embrace the limitless possibilities of your dance journey.
DAY 1 - Friday August 16th - 10 - 5pm
Morning
Thomas De Frantz - will lead a deep dive discussion focus on restructuring the classroom to get at the feeling inside of jazz (that is so much discussed in the film) aspects of jazz dance and the importance of New Orleans and some movement material– getting away from mirrors, utilizing the technology of the circle as in the ring shout, emphasizing expression rather than imitation. His lecture/class will also stress what we need and all the different ways to make movement, not just one, so other ways to organize the classroom are also super-important.
Afternoon
Continuing the theme of the New Orleans jazz theme – Cat Foster would lead the afternoon session with a class on African American Social Dance. Class description:For centuries, the evolution of African dance, history, and culture have all played an intricate role in how communities are shaped in the world. Come experience a journey through modern and traditional African Diaspora dance styles, while furthering and elevating your own communities!
Each day ends with a discussion group moderated by Robin Gee.
Thomas F. DeFrantz directs SLIPPAGE: Performance|Culture|Technology, a research group that explores emerging technology in live performance applications, currently in residence at Northwestern University.
DeFrantz received the 2017 Outstanding Research in Dance award from the Dance Studies Association. DeFrantz believes in our shared capacity to do better, and to engage our creative spirit for a collective good that is anti-racist, anti-homophobic, proto-feminist, and queer affirming. DeFrantz acted as a consultant for the Smithsonian Museum of African American Life and Culture, contributing concept and a voice-over for a permanent installation on Black Social Dance that opened with the museum in 2016.
Books include Dancing Revelations Alvin Ailey's Embodiment of African American Culture (2004), Black Performance Theory, co-edited with Anita Gonzalez (2014), Choreography and Corporeality: Relay in Motion, co-edited with Philipa Rothfield (2016), and the Routledge Companion to African American Theater and Performance co-edited with Kathy Perkins, Sandra Richards, and Renee Alexander Craft (2018).
Creative: Queer Theory! An Academic Travesty commissioned by the Theater Offensive of Boston and the Flynn Center for the Arts;fastDANCEpast, created for the Detroit Institute for the Arts; reVERSE-gesture-reVIEW commissioned by the Nasher Museum in response to the work of Kara Walker, January, 2017.
Recent teaching: University of the Arts Mobile MFA in Dance; Juilliard, Movement Research, ImPulsTanz; New Waves Institute; faculty at Hampshire College, Stanford, Yale, MIT, NYU, University of Nice. In 2013, working with Takiyah Nur Amin, DeFrantz founded the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance, a growing consortium of 350 researchers. slippage.org.
Catherine Foster is a professional dancer, dance educator, choreographer, freelance makeup artist, and cultural consultant. She received her dance training from the DC Youth Ensemble (DCYE), the BaltimoreSchool for the Arts (BSA), and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center.
She was a finalist and 2nd place winner in the National Arts Recognition/YoungARTS, in Miami, Fla., and is a recipient of the Astaire Award for Best Broadway Female Ensemble. She has worked with and performed the works of noted choreographers, including Donald Bryd, Bill T. Jones, Hinton Battle, Darrell Grand Moultrie, and Abdel Salaam.
Company Credits: The Fred Benjamin Dance Company; Forces of Nature; Camille A. Brown and Dancers (Principal Dancer). Recording Artists: Alicia Keys, The Roots, Jazmine Sullivan, Seun Kuti, Davido, Angelique Kidjo, Lauryn Hill. Film/TV: TEDx/TED Talks; Black Girls Rock (BET);
Netflix Originals: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Assistant Choreographer); NBC /Amazon prime comedy series HARLEM (dancer/actor). Broadway/Off-Broadway: FELA! (original cast) produced by Jay Z and Will Smith; Once on this Island (Assistant Choreographer); Ain’t No Disco (Assistant Choreographer). Catherine is currently in her second season at The Metropolitan Opera, performing in Terrance Blanchard’s CHAMPION: An Opera in Jazz. A dance educator for over 10 years, Catherine regularly teaches in New York City and internationally. Catherine has performed throughout North America to as far as Central and South America,Europe, and Africa. Catherine gives thanks to her ancestors, mentors, and loved ones for her success and guidance!
"Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances."- Dr. Maya Angelo
DAY 2 - Saturday August 17th
Morning
Robin Gee – Robin teaches at the University North Carolina Greensboro. Robin will explore the roots of jazz dance in the African Diaspora. Robin will lead the morning session by digging deep into jazz dance’s African roots, how to authentically teach it in the classroom and how the roots have evolved.
Tracing the African origins of Jazz dance: Aesthics and Continuity
This class will look at the roots and influences of American jazz dance as an extension of African music movement practices. The class will combine introductions to “West African dance movements with a larger discussion of history of the forms, historical context, and aesthetics inherent therein. The class will go from “git down to sit down”, praxis to theory, seamlessly bridging the two.
Afternoon
Maurice Watson will teach a class:
Jazz Dance: from the Streets to the Stage, this class explores the historical African Diasporic roots of Jazz Dance while focusing on the political and social origins of Jazz in Africanist and American Dance traditions. Rooted in Vernacular jazz, dancers will tap into the cool, blue, and smooth groove of jazz movement while centering individuality, artistic expression, and building community within the movement practice. This class encourages you to bring out what Babyface's 1993 classic says, "the cool in YOU!"
DISCUSSION led by Robin Gee.
Robin Gee holds an MFA in Contemporary Dance Choreography and Performance from Sarah Lawrence College and specializes in African, Caribbean, and Modern dance techniques. She is an Associate Professor of Dance at UNC Greensboro where she teaches African and Modern dance and has developed the schools Screendance curriculum.
Ms. Gee performed with several dance companies in NY including Les Ballet Bagata directed by Yousouff Koumbassa, former principal dancer with Ballets Africains de Guinea, and Marie Basse Wiles’ Maimouna Keita Dance Company with whom she toured the US and Africa. Her choreographic works have appeared in the North Carolina Dance Festival, Dumbo Arts, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, as well as resident works mounted on various colleges and universities around the world.
She is the recipient of the West African Research Association'sPost Doctoral Fellowship in African Research, the Central Piedmont Artist's Hub Grant for her work on dance andmusic in West Africa. Most recently she is the recipient of the American Association of University Women's Post-Doctoral Research Award for her work on The Mande Legacy, a dance documentation project for which spent six months in Guinea, the NC Choreographers Fellowship, and the Fulbright Award for her Research in Burkina Faso in 2013 and the Fulbright Specialist Award 2020.
In 2006 Ms Gee also formed her own company Sugarfoote Productions, a multipurpose service organization designed to expose communities to the myriad expressions evident in African art and to help local audiences experience the richness of African and Diasporan cultural traditions. Her own dance films have currently screened in 27 film festivals worldwide.
Maurice Watson is a dancer, choreographer, and educator with over 20 years of dance experience. He holds an MFA in choreography from the University of Iowa and is currently an Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of North Carolina Greensboro (UNCG). As a dancemaker and teacher, his movement research focuses on jazz dance and choreography rooted in the black dance vernacular, utilizing musicality, groove, and individuality as the driving force.
Watson has choreographed and taught nationally and internationally for universities, summer programs, anddance studios across the United States, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.
DAY 3 - Sunday August 18th
Morning
Chanon Judson will lead the morning with her class/lecture:
Chanon invites learners and practitioners to explore Jazz, a rich and relevant African American art form with concentration on rooted embodied practice, relationship to musical structure, ensemble practice and jazz ideology as an organizing aesthetic.
Key areas of study will include improvisation, shedding or solo study, and ensemble practice.
Historical and Cultural Relevance
Chanon’s curriculum roots embodied study in the Ring Shout and Congo Square traditions, and journeys onward to present day jazz aesthetics. This is a vast and rich living tradition! Some key areas of embodied study include:
Ring shout traditions
Second line traditions
Orisha / African Caribbean traditions
Swing traditions
Codified forms (Dunham, Horton, Giordano)
House / Hip-Hop / Dance Hall tradition
Afternoon
Sekou McMiller will teach class exploring their individual class styles to inspire the teachers in their final afternoon.
Afro Latin Jazz and Soul Experience with Sekou:
Sekou’s "Afro Latin Jazz and Soul Experience" takes a rhythmical journey through the African American, Afro Latino and other African cultures looking at varying similarities, past intersections and exploring new and exciting fusions. Deeply rooted in the Caribbean dance and music culture (Salsa/Mambo, Cha-cha- cha, Rumba, etc...) while blending with African American Jazz, African modern dance as well as other traditional and social dances from West Africa, the Caribbean and the US. This class will explore the fundamental elements and movement principles of Embodied Africanist Aesthetics while recognizing the varying similarities, past intersections, current and future fusions with other cultures.
FINAL DISCUSSION/FEEDBACK AND WRAP
Chanon Judson is the Co-Artistic Director of the critically acclaimed Urban Bush Women (UBW). UBW galvanizes artists, activists, audiences and communities through performances, artist development, education and community engagement. As a legacy bearer, Chanon stewards the continuum of UBW’s methodology and repertory, as well as innovates new creative works and practices alongside Co-Director Mame Diarra Speis. Original works include Hair and Other Stories and Haint Blu.
Other directorial and choreographic credits include "Priestess of Twerk” (Irondale, Nia Witherspoon), “Chronicle X” (The Shed, Nia Witherspoon), “The Hang” (HERE Arts, Taylor Mac), Cannabis! A Viper Vaudeville (La Mama, Talvin Wilks), “The Invention of Tragedy” (Flea Theatre, Meghan Finn), “It’s Not so Bad in My Brain” (New Perspective Theatre), “Prometheus Bound” (The Tank, Ran Xia), , “Brett and Ashley” (New Perspective Theatre).“ Orlando (Bard University, Ran Xia), and directoral fellowship with New Perspective Theatre and Chicago Director’s Lab
As a performer and collaborator, Chanon has worked with Mickey Davidson, Kwame Ross, Barak adé Soleil, Talvin Wilks, Sita Frederick, Allyne Gartrell, and Sandra Burton. With credits that include A 24-Decade History of Popular Music (Taylor Mac), God’s Trombone (Craig Harris), Cannabis! A Viper Vaudeville (Talvin Wilkes, Grace Galu, Baba Israel), Cotton Club Parade (Warren Carlye), Michael Jackson 30th Anniversary Concert (Glenn & Brian), and the Tony award winning musical Fela! (Bill T. Jones)
Sekou McMiller Is a world-renowned Choreographer and Director at the forefront of a new movement in the dance and music world. His explosive energy on and off stage, has earned Sekou broad recognition worldwide.
Sekou has performed and choreographed for Top Latin artist such as Gilberto Santa Rosa, Willie Colon, Cheo Feliciano, Johnny Pacheco, Tito Rojas, Tito Nieves, PitBull, and the pop icon MADONNA. A recent recipient of fellowship with The Alvin Ailey Foundation’s New Directions Choreography Lab and the City University of New York (CUNY) Dance Initiative, Sekou’s choreographic works have been featured throughout North America and abroad in over 30 countries.
Sekou can be seen in the Warner Bros theatrical feature "In the Heights" (2021) directed by Jon M. Chu and in the newly released documentary "Uprooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance". Currently, Sekou is a Professor of dance at Marymount Manhattan College, The Ailey School, Joffrey Ballet School, Ballet Hispánico, and NYU: Tisch School of the Arts.
In addition, Sekou is a curator and project director at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem.