JUMP RHYTHM JAZZ PROJECT

Connecting to the earth. Connecting to oneself. Connecting to other people.

About JUMP RHYTHM

JUMP RHYTHM is a Chicago-based, Emmy-Award-winning dance theater company that was founded by Billy Siegenfeld in New York City in 1990. The company's rhythmically explosive ensemble celebrates dancing and singing to the beat-driven sounds of swinging jazz and the blues, hard-hitting funk and hip-hop, and world music. JUMP RHYTHM performs its rich blend of percussive musicality and story-based dance theater in annual festivals in Chicago as well as on tour nationally and internationally. JUMP RHYTHM company members are also teachers and workshop-leaders of the unique approach to movement study called Jump Rhythm® Technique. As taught in local school programs and adult community classes throughout Chicagoland, and as part of the dance and theater curriculums of Northwestern University, University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, Randolph-Macon College, and the Arts Academy of Turku University of Applied Sciences in Finland, this innovative system of vocal-rhythmic movement education transforms the dancing body, accompanied by the scat-singing voice, into an emotionally focused, rhythm-accurate percussion instrument. In addition, the technique’s holistic approach to mind-body alignment called Standing Down Straight ® promotes energy-efficient, injury-free movement performance. The company also conducts week-long intensive workshops in Jump Rhythm Technique at Northwestern University and at summer festivals in the United States, Italy, Finland, and Great Britain. Referring to this approach, the magazine Dancer credited JRJP artistic director Billy Siegenfeld with “inventing the first genuine jazz technique in forty years,” and the magazine Dance Teacher placed Siegenfeld on its Twentieth Century Timeline of Choreographers and Innovators for “develop [ing] the Jump Rhythm Jazz Technique and found[ing] Jump Rhythm Jazz Project.”

The JUMP RHYTHM Mission

Jump Rhythm Jazz Project is a not-for-profit arts organization founded in 1990 whose mission is to celebrate the joys of shared rhythm-making in dance, music, and song among individuals of diverse ages and cultures by honoring and expanding upon the American tradition of Africanist-influenced, rhythm-based dancing and singing. Its innovative pedagogy, Jump Rhythm Technique, serves as the ambassador, locally, nationally, and internationally, of the company’s rhythm-driven, community-directed mission. Powered by the technique’s body-friendly alignment concept of “standing down straight” and by its focus on “full-bodied rhythm-making” – transforming the moving body, accompanied by the scat-singing voice, into a dynamically expressive, rhythm-accurate percussion instrument – students worldwide learn to use motional and vocal rhythms to connect more deeply both to themselves and to others.

JUMP RHYTHM JAZZ PROJECT is a 501(c) 3 organization and is partially supported by a grant from The Illinois Arts Council, a state agency: a City Arts grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events: and the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation.