December 2016 | Jazz Hands-On

It was three and a half days into National Dance Education Organization’s four-day jazz dance conference when the first pirouette appeared. Attendees included 94 jazz dance educators from higher-ed, public school programs, and private studios, yet when the hours of technique classes wrapped up at the conference’s end, not one had included head-high battements.“What kind of jazz is that?” you might ask.Questions like that—about what jazz dance is, where it lives, who