Ben Reiner

3/20

The dance starts initially with period appropriate partner dancing, involving very proper and
strong movements by both men and women. The partners rapidly change during this section of dance
and as it so does the intricacy of the dance when flips, and lifts especially come into play. They then
move into more of a dance off section. This features more on a beam and dancing on boards, this
provides “competitions” in the dance. The dancers do flips and many jumps on the beams, this is why I
think that it defines “Commercial Jazz” because while there is intense technique involved in all of the
choreo performed over all the dance was more about the spectacle of it all. The dance involved became
secondary to these acrobatics. The dance also lends itself to how important things like dancing were in
previous eras socially speaking. It shows that it relied on social cues and that things like courting in the
era were progressed by dancing.