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Call it post-jazz: the category-defying dance form finds common ground in energy and emotion.

Article Excerpt
A pool of light illuminates a barefoot dancer striking a defiant pose, her scarlet skirt whipping around her. A driving, percussive score intensifies as she and bet fellow dancers savagely thrust themselves into and out of their partners' grasps in a modern, frenetic take on a primitive mating ritual. The curtain rises again on a different work, and a recorded voice booms, "This is The Krew." The audience hoots and claps along to songs by Janet Jackson and J. Lo as the dancers ham it up in a street dance medley brimming with attitude and funk. When the lights come up yet again, two female dancers in white bow ties and gloves are high-kicking across the stage to "Sing, Sing, Sing," their stylized leaps and turns cast in giant shadows on the wall behind them.

This motley selection of dances represents only a small scrap of the styles showcased under the banner of "jazz dance" last year in Buffalo at the 2003 Jazz Dance World Congress, where the performances ranged from modern dance and hip bop to Broadway-style showmanship and martial arts-flavored acrobatics. The hodgepodge...

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