For the Reckord | More jazz options for JCDC dance competitors

Come next year, there will be more options for those wishing to enter jazz pieces in the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission's (JCDC) dance competition. The current 'jazz' category, will be broken down into three areas - traditional jazz, contemporary jazz and experimental jazz.

Participants in the final day of last week's two-day dance workshop for teachers and students, held at the Louise Bennett Garden Theatre, heard that news from JCDC dance development specialist Patrick Earle. They also learnt that they have until next Friday to send in their entry forms.

Earle also announced a change in the way that gold winners in the parish finals of the JCDC performing arts competitions will be selected for the national finals. Only the top gold winner in each class and category will move on. The objective is to shorten the usually long national finals in Kingston.

This means that one of the commission's objectives - showcasing the island's best competitors in dance, music and drama at the national finals - will give way to the competing objective of showcasing excellent performers from every parish. The parishes with an abundance of talent will be adversely affected, while less--endowed parishes will have greater exposure of their talent.

Improvisation

Because he also plans to add improvisation as a category in the dance syllabus, Earle brought in Kim-Lee 'Lee Rose' Campbell to train the participants. Campbell is a performer, coach and founder/

director of Karib F.U. N. K - a company devoted to promoting careers in the performing arts.

Instructing the participants to dance freely and spontaneously around the stage, she encouraged innovative movement. She made many apparently contradictory, certainly ambiguous statements, such as: "Don't be afraid to be ugly ... ugly can be so beautiful." After demonstrating and then leading the participants in several exercises, she gave them a few minutes to improvise short pieces. The results, which were far from ugly, were then critiqued.

The other facilitator for the day was the multitalented Neisha-Yen Jones, a writer, actress, dancer, singer, choreographer and lecturer. She has performed in numerous musicals on Broadway, London, Japan and Europe, and is currently host of 'Daytime Live' on TVJ.

While leading the group in a session on jazz, she showed them how jazz movements can be done to different forms of music, including dancehall. She explained that music from any genre can be used, "but you have to stay true to the jazz technique," she instructed.

Afterwards, Earle told the participants, "Now your challenge is to transfer what you've learnt to your students (at school)." He cautioned that the choreography in one's head is often not what ends up on stage, adding, "You've got to be able to (stand back and) critically assess the dance you actually choreograph."

A handout that he gave to the participants, explained the dance objective of the JCDC's Arts Development Unit. It states that while dance may be practised for social, educational, political and therapeutic purposes, the JCDC treats dance as "a concert art, where dance is practised in a performance space" and is offered to audiences for their pleasure. It also "seeks to engage participants in the collaborative process, to develop dance as a tool of communication and preservation of our culture with the focus of providing individuals (schools and communities) with training for cultural development and nation-building."

Favourable comments on the workshop were made by many of the teachers, including Kevin Moore, who up to last year was a member of the National Dance theatre Company. He told me that he was delighted at the turnout of teachers (about 40 in all) and at the high quality of the workshops. Dance auditions are slated to begin in the parishes in late January.