So what's American? What's jazz? (Starting Here).

An American in Paris used to be identified by his wearing of white athletic socks and dancing and singing in the streets. By "Yankee ingenuity." But American national character is far more complex--contradictory, schizophrenic even. It's not just one thing. For example, we are totally global and yet isolationist; exhaustively democratic in seeking group input and yet we eschew challenging discussion; we are charitable yet insatiably greedy. We will be honest to a fault to a Dr. Phil or a Jerry Springer but lie to a Senate subcommittee or our homeroom teacher. We will go halfway round the world to guarantee the freedom of another nation but don't to go a mile away to vote to insure our own. It's hard to put labels on Americans.

If we cannot succinctly define "American," it's small wonder that we have difficulty defining jazz dance, a major American art form. It, too, is not just one thing. It's hot and cool. It's the slinky, pelvic-centered low blues, extending to the angst-filled pop lyrical contraction. It's the ragtime rebels, the prohibition jazz babies pushing the envelope. It's jazz tappers rifting percussive improvisations. It's classical and contemporary musical theater. It's MTV. If it's performed at a jazz club or a jazz congress, does that make the work jazz? If it's a modern dance or contemporary ballet choreographer working to jazz or pop music? Are the Dallas Cheerleaders doing jazz dance? We recognize Giordano's and Hatchett's classical moves, but what about the new, edgy moves by youngsters who never learned classical jazz or jazz syllabus terminology?

Crossovers and fusions of styles and companies blur the lines of any definitions we might establish. For example, with choreography by Michael Smuin, Dance Theatre of Harlem--a company established so black dancers could perform ballet--is touring a blues music standard, St. Louis Woman. Jazz master Matt Mattox is teaching this summer at a bastion of modern dance, Jacob's Pillow. Choreographer and percussionist Billy Siegenfeld (of Jump Rhythm Jazz Project) recently set a piece on the classically modern Limon company. Robert Battle, from the Paul Taylor-David Parsons lineage, takes his Battleworks to Jazz Dance World Congress this summer. And I recently saw a performance by Trinity Irish Dance where the company actually danced hip-hop. And my personal favorite is the international company that does something called butoh rock (hip-hop and "rock" arguably being considered jazz).

So how do we categorize something as jazz dance-by the music it's danced to, by the type of place it's performed in (e.g. a jazz festival), by a recognizable technique, by company lineage? And who is the arbitrator of whether it is or isn't?

Maybe we should leave it to the dancers to name what they do. They can call it the way they feel it. And if they need help to continue their studies, let them look at our new scholarship listing feature on page 44.