The Daily Bulletin Archive

Carlos Jones, associate dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and coordinator of the Africana studies program, co-edited the book Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanist Aesthetics and Equity in the Twenty-First Century (University Press of Florida, February 2022). The book explores the long-overdue recognition of jazz dance as a historically Black American art form.

Rooted Jazz Dance brings together jazz dance scholars, practitioners, choreographers, and educators from across the United States and Canada with the goal of changing the course of practice in future generations. Contributors delve into the Africanist elements within jazz dance and discuss the role of Whiteness, including Eurocentric technique and ideology, in marginalizing African American vernacular dance, which has resulted in the prominence of Eurocentric jazz styles and the systemic erosion of the roots. 

Jones’s co-editors were Lindsay Guarino, associate professor of dance and chair of the Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island; and Wendy Oliver, professor of dance and chair of the Department of Theater, Dance, and Film at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island. The publisher promoted Rooted Jazz Dance as a Black History Month selection.

Jones’s research for the book ties into another project, the musical American Rhapsody, currently on stage at MusicalFare Theatre through March 27. Jones served as the director and script consultant on the story of two piano players, one a White classical pianist and one a Black jazz pianist, and their riveting discussion of the historical erasure of African American music and dance on Rhapsody in Blue, a seminal work of George Gershwin’s.