A Jazzy Affair

Jazz dance is an umbrella term that can refer to several related dance styles. All of them are connected via common roots, namely tap, ballet, jazz music, and African-American rhythms and dance. Until the mid 1950s, the term "jazz dance" often referred to tap dance, because tap dancing (set to jazz music) was the main performance dance of the era. Today, jazz dance is present in many different forms and venues. Jazz dance is commonly taught in dance schools and performed by dance companies around the world. It continues to be an essential element of musical theatre choreography, where it may be interwoven with other dance styles as appropriate for a particular show. Jazz dancing can be seen in music videos, in competitive dance, and on the television show, So You Think You Can Dance.
Jazz classes require some form of moderate intensity stretching in order to warm up the muscles and help prevent injuries. Some techniques used in the warm up consist of elongating leg muscles and strengthening the core. Although jazz dance can be performed its traditional form, it is often influenced by other dance styles such as acro, ballet, contemporary, lyrical, and hip hop. In turn, many other dance styles are influenced by jazz dance.
Extracted from: http://www.wikipedia.org

I FINALLY took up NEW JAZZ class after researching since last year for good classes in KL and PJ. New Jazz is a more contemporary feel to Jazz and is heavily infulenced by MTV cheoreography dance steps and hip hop. The kind that you see in a Beyonce, Justin Timberlake or Britney Spears music video. The steps are cool and sexy. I took up the class since April and am loving it! Its a girls only class and the lessons comprises of mostly sexy female moves which is why it is more suitably catered to girls. We danced to the latest hip hop songs in the clubs and it is also a very fun way to exercise and tone up your body. You will have loads of fun and can even help to build up your self confidence. So the next time you are invited for clubbing with your girlfriends...you can really bust some cool sexy moves that will definately upped your confidence and sexiness level. You go girl!
For me, i really love dance and especially new jazz as you can get to learn sexy cool steps from latest music videos. I do love other form of dance too such as salsa, belly dancing and latin. New Jazz class costs anywhere from RM90 - RM110 per month depending on which school you go to. Some are pretty good but you will have to do your homework to find out. The one i am attending is pretty good with the instructor dancing regularly for events. She even signed us up for an uncoming hip hop competition happening in August! I am so excited and can't wait! It will be fun and for exposure and experience. It doesn't matter about winning...It's about the chance to showcase your talent, expose yourslef to the dance culture, learn from others and just have fun while doing it! The competition is 4 mths away and we are already training hard and intense for it. This will be the first time ever i am joining a dance competition and keeping up with the class is really challenging as i need to perfect my skills and dance moves....not having prior dance experience makes it even more challenging..but i'm not giving up just yet! After the intense 2hours practice just now...i came home at 10pm. Exhausted but satisfied. I now have more respect for dancers...even back up dancers...it really takes a lot of hard work to be good at it. I now see more to it than just a music video...all the hard work by the cheographer to cheograph a cool dance sequence tailor made for the certain music video whether it is a Britney's, Christina's, Timberlake's or Beyonce's. And really kudos to the singer and the dancers who back them up in the video as it takes a whole lot of hard work and perserverance to make the video look cool and sexy...with all the right steps coordinated for the video. Not to metion, hours and hours of practice to perfect the craft till it leaves your body aching, muscles sore and sometimes even injuries. I will never look at dance the same way again. I am enjoying the class more and more as each week passes by. As i am writing this...my muscles start to feel sore...but tummy starts to feel tighter and more toned already. With all the soreness, i would crash in bed with a deep sleep tonight. Can't imagine the aches tomorrow morning...but i ain't complaining. Success takes hard work! I hope to do well in this competition. Will keep everyone updated on my practice and lessons as the competition approaches closer. =)