DeAnnaPellecchia.com

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JAZZ/FUNK 
CLASS DESCRIPTION:
Jazz dance is influenced by other dance styles such as ballet, contemporary, African, tap, and hip-hop (scroll down for a brief history on "Jazz Dance"). Therefore contemporary jazz, meaning jazz dance of today, is the blending of many different dance forms and styles. Technique is the foundation for all dance movement. Establishing a strong technical foundation enables a dancer to focus on the stylistic and performance aspects of dance. A jazz dancers' strong and sharp movements are greatly aided by a good background in ballet technique.

DeAnna has resided on dance faculty at Boston University since 2002. She teaches Jazz-Funk at the beginner, intermediate and advanced level. This athletic, high-energy class explores the ability to find strength and fluidity in movement. Class FIRST focuses on estalishing sound anatomincal technique. Class also accesses the full range of the dancer’s artistry by exploring musicality, timing, performance skills, and concepts of stage presence. DeAnna’s choreography -- free-wheeling turns and leaps with sudden inversions, extreme suspended shapes, rhythmic isolations, quirky gestures and intricate footwork -- has been described as "dramatic...effective...blistering...and sensuous…" by The Boston Globe and "athletic and daring...fierce and compelling" by The Quad, BU's on-line magazine. As a kid, DeAnna spent her free time taking ballet classes and playing tackle football with her brothers. Her physicality and approach to movement is a marriage of the two. Her movement vocabulary is extremely grounded in nature, strongly influenced by her extensive studies in martial arts, and punctuated with quick, explosive accents, characteristic of jazz and hip-hop, resulting from her studio-days as a 'jazz-baby'. In her professional career, DeAnna has come to study mime, acting, Butoh, aerial dance, stilt-walking, horse handling, Authentic Movement, Kinetic Awareness™ with Elaine Summers, One Thousand Voices with Paula Josa-Jones and Deep Listening® with Pauline Oliveros', all of which inspire her choreographic style. DeAnna trained and competed in the Korean martial art Tae Kwon Do under Master Young Ho Jin, former trainer of the U.S. Olympic Team. She has also studied Capoeira and Wushu, martial art forms originating in Brazil and China, respectively. DeAnna went on a month-long tour of India in January 2011. While performing and teaching there she also continued her study of Kalaripayattu. Kalari, originating in Kerala, India, is regarded as the oldest martial art form in existence and aims to make the practitioner a warrior of extreme flexibility and strength. DeAnna’s warm-up includes intense strength and flexibility training combining exercises from Kalari, Tae Kwon Do, Wushu and Capoeira, providing dancers the opportunity to find commanding power and mind focus in their movement. Class also includes...

• Center work including exercises from traditional ballet training – plie’, tendues, ronds de jambe, grand battements, etc…
• Turns across the floor including chaines, piques, pirouettes, etc...
• Leaps across the floor including grande jetes, turning jumps, tour jetes, etc….
• Choreography "across the floor"
• Center phrase focused on learning / performing choreography

*THIS IS NOT A VIDEO-DANCE CLASS. THIS IS NOT A WORKOUT CLASS. THIS IS NOT A CHOREOGRAPHY CLASS. THIS IS A TECHNIQUE CLASS.
IMPORTANT NOTE FROM DEANNA: My credited Jazz/Funk classes are not conceived, prepared or taught as workout classes. I expect that students registered for one of my PDP DA classes are dedicated, focused dance students who are ready to work hard throughout the duration of the semester to improve their dance / performance techniques. If getting a "good workout" is the only/main reason you are enrolling in one of my credited classes, please reconsider. There are plenty of non-credit dance classes available that will offer you just that -- a good dance workout. My credit classes are geared toward dancers/movers who want to apply themselves and better their dance technique. 

APPROPRIATE LEVELS:
ALL LEVELS FOCUS ON CORRECT ANATOMICAL ALIGNMENT. MY NUMBER ONE GOAL IS FOR YOU TO HAVE A DEEPER, MORE COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR BODY'S ANATOMICAL STRUCTURE WHEN YOU LEAVE THIS CLASS.

1. BEGINNER – you do not need to have any prior dance experience. We start from scratch. Of course if you do have SOME experience and want a refresher on basics this is the class for you also. Each semester the pace of the class is very much determined by the level of the individuals in the class.

2. INTERMEDIATE – you have been exposed to the basics before…tendu, plie, turns, etc….we will work on deepening your understanding of these things. Intermediate level gets deeper into choreography than beginner…nuance/dynamics of movement, initiation of movement, etc…

3. ADVANCED – I prefer advanced students to take at least one semester of intermediate with me. If you have not, then consider the first class of the semester your audition. The advanced class is just that…ADVANCED. It is fast paced with a focus on learning choreography quickly and then taking your dancing/performing to the next level…focus, intent, etc….if you are in this class you should have an extremely solid understanding of the basics.

*if you have any questions about what level you belong in, please come to the first class you are registered for, take the class and see me after, we can assess your status then. If I do not believe you are in the appropriate level, I will initiate a conversation with you directly following your first class.

POLICIES:
• TARDINESS / LEAVING EARLY: I understand that many students have to travel from the other side of campus in order to get to fitrec which makes it almost impossible for people to get to class right on time. If you must be more than 5 minutes late please tell me at the beginning of the semester. I will put your name on a list of people "allowed to be late". NO ONE MORE THAN FIFTEEN MINUTES LATE WILL BE ALLOWED TO TAKE CLASS. Although many university classes end 10 minutes before the "hour", I teach right until the "hour". If you need to leave early to make your next class, excuse yourself descreetly.  

• FOOTWEAR: I request you do the entire warm-up in BARE FEET. For across the floor combinations and center phrases you can use jazz shoes if you want (although I don’t recommend it) or jazz sneakers (which I think are better, I wear jazz sneakers myself sometimes).
›NO SOCKS. (unless you’d like to use them for turns across the floor)
›NO OUTSIDE SHOES / SNEAKERS IN THE STUDIO. I mean it – don’t take off your shoes and bring them into the studio, leave them in the cubbies outside. It is gross and dangerous to dance bare foot on a dirty floor, so please leave all outside shoes outside the studio. 

• ATTIRE: FITTED clothing. I need to see your body alignment so please nothing too baggy. Dance pants, dance shorts, tights, tank tops, etc…I don’t really care as long as I can see your body.
PULL YOUR HAIR OUT OF YOUR FACE.

• OTHER STUFF:
›NO GUM!!!!!
›CELL PHONES OFF OR ON SILENT 
>NO TALKING DURING DANCE CLASS!!! please keep your personal conversations with your friends outside of class. It is disruptive and inconsiderate of others.

GRADING / ATTENDANCE:
• Students receive a pass or fail grade based on attendance. Students are allowed THREE EXCUSED ABSENCES...meaning excused for ANYTHING - religious holiday, beanpot game, sickness, injury, etc...
Any additional absences must be made-up in order for you to pass the class.

• Students taking one of my classes for credit toward your DANCE MINOR - you receive a letter grade. This letter grade is based on how hard you work and how much YOU improve from the beginning of the semster to the end. If you are taking my class for a letter grade you are allowed TWO absences before it affects your grade.

MAKING-UP CLASSES:
• You are allowed to make-up 1 class with a BU performance and 1 class with a non-BU performance.
• You are allowed to make-up 1 class with a dance class of your choice either at BU or at an
   independent dance studio (options listed below).
• Any additional make-ups must be made-up WITH ME either at BU or at
  my tuesday night classes "Downstairs at the Cathedral".

1. ATTEND A PERFORMANCE:
   ---> Attend a performance at Boston University - show me your program and ticket stub.
   
   ---> Attend a performance at a theater in Boston - please approve the performance with me first - show me your program and ticket stub.
   
   ---> Attend a performance / event specified by me - there will be several I will mention thorughout the course of the semester - show me your program and ticket stub.
   
   
2. TAKE A CLASS:
   ---> Drop-in to any of my credit classes (that you are NOT registered for). 
   
   ---> Take a dance class (of any kind), yoga or pilates class at Boston University.
   IMPORTANT - teachers are not required to allow you to drop into any class! Please ask permission of the teacher to take his/her class! Bring a "make-up slip" and have he/she sign it and then turn the slip into me.
   ALSO - fitness classes other than yoga and pliates can not be used for make-up, neither can "working out" in the gym. DON'T ASK.
   
   ---> Take class with me "Downstairs at the Cathedral" Tuesday Nights.
   CLICK HERE for details.
   
   ---> Drop-in on one of my non-credit classes (either DanceBody Conditioning or Jazz Workout). See details below.
   
   ---> Take a dance, yoga or pilates class at The Dance Complex, Green Street Studios OR Jeannette Neill Dance Studio. When you pay for class ask for a receipt of payment, this is your "make-up slip", turn it into me.

• Originated in late 1800s early 1900s

• World War I had ended (1918) and a social revolution was under way! Customs and values of previous generations were rejected. Life was to be lived and enjoyed to the fullest.

• New era of the "lost generation", and the "flapper" with her rolled stockings and short skirts. They danced in the cabarets, night clubs, and speakeasies that replaced the ballrooms of pre-war days.

• Dancing became more informal - close embraces and frequent changes of partners were now socially acceptable.

• Only one kind of music suited this generation - jazz, the vehicle for dancing the fox-trot, shimmy, rag, Charleston, black bottom, and various other steps of the period.

• The birthplace of jazz has many origins: New Orleans, St. Louis, Memphis and Kansas City are just a few. An early popular "jazz dancer" was vaudeville star Joe Frisco who, in the 1910s, danced in a loose-limbed style close to the ground while juggling his derby, hat and cigar.

• Jazz is characterized by certain essential features. The first is a tendency to stress the weak beats of the bar (2nd and 4th) in contrast to traditional music which stressed the first and third beats. The second feature is syncopation through an extensive repetition of short and strongly rhythmic phrases or "riffs". The third feature of jazz is swing (regular but subtle pulsation which animates 4/4 time). The swing must be present in every good jazz performance.

• 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. During the later jazz age, popular forms of jazz dance were the Cakewalk, Black Bottom, Charleston, Jitterbug, Boogie Woogie, Swing dancing and the related Lindy Hop.
 
• After the 1950s, pioneers such as Katherine Dunham took the essence of Caribbean traditional dance and made it into a performing art. With the growing domination of other forms of entertainment music, jazz dance evolved on Broadway into the new, smooth style that is taught today and known as Modern Jazz, originally the shortened sounds of tap dancing were considered jazz dancing, until it branched off to follow its own, separate evolutionary path. The style of Fred Astaire comes from jazz dancing, as well as many dances by the modern dance choreographer Alvin Ailey.  the body popping movements of hip-hop also has its root in jazz. The performance style of jazz dance was popularized to a large extent by Bob Fosse’s work who was inspired by Fred Astaire and the burlesque and vaudeville styles, which is exemplified by Broadway shows such as Chicago, Cabaret, Damn Yankees, and The Pajama Game.  The common subject binding these obviously different things together is rhythm, or to be more exact, rhythm that is composed in African influences.