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Decidedly Jazz Danceworks

Overview

Decidedly Jazz Danceworks (DJD) is a Canadian jazz dance company and dance school based in Calgary, Alberta. The company was founded in 1984 and offers regular performances and classes in the Decidedly Jazz Danceworks Centre, located in Calgary’s Kahanoff Centre. The company has performed in various locations in Canada, as well as the U.S. and internationally. Performance credits include the Toronto Fall for Dance North festival, and Jacob’s Pillow in Beckett, Massachusetts in the U.S. In 2022, the three founders of DJD, Vicki Adams Willis, Michele Moss, and Hannah Stilwell, were inducted into the Canadian Dance Hall of Fame in Toronto, Canada. This award honored their work in establishing the company and their creative contributions to the company since then. In addition, founder and former director Vicki Adams Willis has won both the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Award (2021) as well as the University of Calgary’s Distinguished Alumni Award for Lifetime Achievement (2020). Current director Kimberly Cooper has also been honored with Dance Victoria’s Crystal Dance Prize in 2014 for her dance research in Brazil, as well as the 2002 Emerging Artist of the Year Award from Alberta Dance Alliance.

Company Beginnings

In 1984, University of Calgary jazz dance department head, Vicki Adams Willis, along with two of her graduating students, Michèle Moss and Hannah Stilwell, started Decidedly Jazz Danceworks. Their mission was to bring attention to the African American roots of jazz dance and create a concert jazz dance company. The three began their creative work in a one-room upstairs dance studio in Calgary, choreographing, rehearsing, and presenting new jazz dance pieces to live music. They received a grant to hire four dancers for two months: Stilwell, Moss, Jill Currie, and Sean Cheesman, and the show's success caused them to extend its run. Willis encouraged her younger co-founders to study dance in Africa and the Caribbean, in order to develop embodied knowledge of the roots of jazz dance. The two took their first research trip to Dakar in Senegal, Africa in 1986 to study dance.

By 1987, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks had ten dancers, all of them full-time. That was also the year that they created a dance school. They offered classes in jazz dance and related forms, while continuing to perform. Over time, they began to offer additional classes in a variety of dance styles. Their school developed both a recreational dance program and a professional training program. Founding Artistic Director Willis has won several honors and awards over the last decade, including the 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award for Lifetime Achievement from University of Calgary; 2021 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards, 2022 induction into Canada's Dance Collection Danse Hall of Fame, and a 2022 Queen Elizabeth 11 Platinum Jubilee Medal. In addition to travelling throughout Canada, the company performed at the Havana International Jazz Festival in 2005.

Company Development

Because Willis urged her company members to travel in order to study the roots of jazz in a variety of cultures, her company members returned with a lot of knowledge to share with others. This idea of studying dance in African and African-diasporic communities still influences the company and school today. Individuals within the company have studied and taught many styles including swing, Afro-Brazilian, rhythm tap, salsa, South Indian bharata natyam, flamenco, and Afro-Cuban. All of these have contributed to the movement possibilities within the choreography.

Throughout the 1990s, Willis, as the primary choreographer for the company, transitioned away from the more balletic influences common to concert jazz dance companies in the late 20th century. Instead, she embraced the African-based forms that the dancers were learning. She also encouraged the dancers to generate movement through improvisation, instead of crafting every step of the choreography herself. This created a democratic approach, allowing the dancers' strengths to be revealed and integrated into the dances. DJD received its first grants from the Canada Council for the Arts in 1999, 15 years after its founding. The company was originally prohibited from applying for Council funding, since the Council would fund only ballet and modern dance until it changed its policy in 1993. The grants received in 1999 were from the Touring Grants Program and the Creation/Production in Dance: Multi-Year and Biennial Grants Program.

Willis has produced over 35 original works for the company since its inception. She continued her leadership of the company until 2013, when she transitioned to the role of Founder in Residence, and appointed dancer/choreographer Kimberly Cooper as Artistic Director of the company.

Further Developments

Under Cooper's direction, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks creates two to three original works each year, at least one of which has live music. Their philosophy is that jazz music is the foundation of jazz dance, and their collaborations have included work with Rubim de Toledo, Tommy Banks, Mark Murphy, PJ Perry, Jackie Richardson, and others.

Kathi Sundstrom is the Executive Director of Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, and has worked with them since 1993. In 2017, Sundstrom won the Calgary Award for Community Achievement in the Arts.

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  2. Brett, Cindy. "Kimberly Cooper New Artistic Director of Decidedly Jazz Danceworks". The Dance Current. The Dance Current. Retrieved 2024-11-11.
  3. Offin, Sarah. "Decidedly Jazz Danceworks unveils new $26M centre in downtown Calgary". Global News. Global News. Retrieved 2024-11-11.
  4. George, Melanie. "Jazz Dance Direct Archive: Decidedly Jazz Danceworks". Jazz Dance Direct. Melanie George. Retrieved 2024-11-11. "DJD has toured extensively across Canada, to Cuba, Chicago, Japan, and the Turks and Caicos Islands."
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  10. "Kimberly Cooper". Fall for Dance North. Toronto Union. Retrieved 2024-10-16.
  11. Foggo, Cheryl. "A Little Jazz on the Prairie: The Heart of Africa in Alberta's Decidedly Jazz Danceworks". Albertaviews. Albertaviews. Retrieved 2024-11-11.
  12. Foggo, Cheryl. "A Little Jazz on the Prairie: The Heart of Africa in Alberta's Decidedly Jazz Danceworks". Albertaviews.com. Albertaviews. Retrieved 2024-10-16. "Vicki says, 'It s very difficult to access that spirit by teaching from a European pedagogical standpoint.' ...Michele and Hannah went on their first African dance-research trip in 1986."
  13. Newman, Keith Shawn. . Queen's University, Dissertation. Queen's University. Retrieved 2024-11-11."Willis, Moss and Stilwell all knew that they had to follow the African lineages that went beyond the commonly0known US origins of the form. They needed to go to Africa."
  14. Foggo, Cheryl. "A Little Jazz on the Prairie: The Heart of Africa in Alberta's Decidedly Jazz Danceworks". Albertaviews.com. Albertaviews. Retrieved 2024-10-16. "In 1987, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks took the frightening leap to full time, with 10 dancers...remained committed to providing jobs and training for dancers...created a dance school and performed with live musicians."
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  18. "Lieutenant Governor of Alberta 2021 Arts Awards". Artsawards.ca. Lieutenant Governor of Alberta, Canada. Retrieved 2024-10-16.
  19. "2021 Distinguished Artist Inducted into the Dance Collection Danse Hall of Fame". Artsawards. Lieutenant Governor of Alberta. Retrieved 2024-10-16.
  20. "AFA Awards 15 Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee Medals". Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Retrieved 2024-10-16.
  21. "Toronto Union: Fall for Dance North". Fall for Dance North: Kimberly Cooper. Fall for Dance North. Retrieved 2024-11-11. "...has toured nationally and internationally, including being invited to perform at the Havana International Jazz Festival in 2005."
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  26. "Vicki Adams Willis receives Distinguished Alumni Award for Lifetime Achievement". Alberta Dance Alliance. Alberta Dance Alliance. Retrieved 2024-10-16.
  27. Brett, Cindy. "Kimberly Cooper new artistic director of Decidedly Jazz Danceworks". The Dance Current. The Dance Current. Retrieved 2024-11-01.
  28. Guarino, Lindsay; Oliver, Wendy (2014). Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches (1st ed.). Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. p. 290. ISBN 978-0-8130-4929-8.
  29. "Calgary Award Recipients". Calgary Award Recipients 2016. Calgary.ca. Retrieved 2024-10-25.