JUMP RHYTHM JAZZ PROJECT

Jump Rhythm Technique^TM is a rhythmically driven, vocally accompanied system of dance and theater-movement education created by Billy Siegenfeld. It is taught on a regular basis in the Chicago area at Northwestern University, Joel Hall Dancers and Center, and area-wide dance studios; nationally at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point and Randolph College; internationally at the Arts Academy of Turku University of Applied Sciences in Finland; and in JUMP RHYTHM's performance-teaching residencies at festivals throughout the United States and abroad. A one-week Jump Rhythm Summer Intensive for both adults and teens is offered every year at Northwestern.  

Jump Rhythm Technique^TM teaches “full-bodied rhythm-making” – transforming the moving body accompanied by the scat-singing voice into a dynamically charged, rhythm-accurate percussion instrument. Students learn to perform energy-rich, offbeat-based rhythms by turning hands, heads, feet, and other body parts into "drumbeaters" that play accents against the “drumheads” of the space. 

The technique also teaches an energy-efficient, body-healthy approach to movement study. Using the innovative alignment concept of Standing Down Straight^TM, it anchors all technical exercises, group improvisations, and choreography in the gravity-directed relationship of the human skeleton to the earth. At a time when cultures seek to produce energy without inflicting damage on the environmental house (ecos) they inhabit, Jump Rhythm's "green" approach proposes an ecology of motion: The ability to send powerful energies, both physical and emotional, through the "house" of the human body free of the hypertensions and strains often associated with serious dance practice. By guiding the skeleton to stand down, not up, straight; by guiding body movement to harness, not resist, gravity; and by guiding students to motivate dancing “from the inside out” by focusing on expressing time-articulated energy rather than shape-articulated space, Jump Rhythm Technique^TM connects individuals to the earth, to themselves, and to other people.

All technique classes are taught to the swinging rhythms of jazz and the blues as well as to the percussive rhythms of funk, hip-hop, and world music.  Inspired by these soulful, joy-giving sounds, Jump Rhythm both honors and expands upon the tradition of American Rhythm Dancing - those dances and songs featured in the work of legendary rhythmicists like Bill Robinson, Fred Astaire, Jeni LeGon, John Bubbles, Fayard and Harold Nicholas, Michael Kidd, Carol Haney, Bob Fosse, Gwen Verdon, Tommy Rall, Chita Rivera, Sammy Davis, Jr., Honi Coles, Cholly Atkins, Gregory Hines, Tina Turner, and Michael Jackson.