Our Mission

Jazz dance is an art-form for the ages.

Rooted in African culture, its vibrant and revered style has influenced all forms of dance and generations of dancers, artists and creatives throughout its evolution.

But these roots are not always fully acknowledged.

Jazz dance is loved but misunderstood. Insufficient education and misinterpretation of its history leads students to forget the importance of jazz across the different styles of dance, and ignore the importance of its technical foundations.

Without truly knowing the history of where jazz dance originated, and exploring the jazz dance roots, we cannot fully understand how it evolved and where it is going…..

The UPROOTED jazz dance educational mission is to correct that by physically exploring the historical roots of jazz dance providing a greater context and understanding of where the jazz dance movement originated from and how it has evolved through each decade.

There were several influential and essential jazz dance masters whose names were not always highlighted in history. Our mission is to correct that. 

We are not here to cancel any part of the jazz dance journey but merely here to pass on all of the history, names and knowledge, so we can all be as fully informed as possible. 

They are all relevant!