Round Table
Urban Paradox #8

Under the name Urban Paradox, round-table discussions have been taking place at a number of dance festivals since 2021, where key figures in Dutch hip-hop talk to each other about current issues in the community. These have included discussions on the position of women in hip-hop culture, appropriate ways to archive hip-hop for future generations, and lessons to be learned from best practices abroad.

Urban Paradox #8 asks what we can learn from the history of jazz dance. Hip-hop is not the only street culture in the history of dance. In the early 20th century, new dance forms such as Animal Dances and Lindy Hop developed in America from musical street processions and social dance forms like the charleston, often interacting with improvising jazz musicians. The term Authentic Jazz dance is used as a collective term, to distinguish it from the later New Jazz dance inspired by ballet and show dance.

Like Hiphop/urban/the culture, Jazz dance is a collection of colourful subcultures with different perspectives and dance styles. And like hip-hop, Jazz dance has gone through different phases: from obscurity to popularity, exploitation, institutionalisation and the increasing threat of oblivion. What lessons can street and hip-hop dance cultures learn about how jazz dance emerged in theatres and dance schools and was pushed to the margins? What happened to the heroes of the time? And is it bad that jazz dance is not as popular as it was, say, 30 years ago? 

The panel includes experts and icons of janzz dance, Jocelyn Bergland and Glenn van der Hoff. They will engage in a conversation with Andrey “Drosha” Grekhov in which they search together for wisdom from the past for the generations of the future.
Before the round table, there will be an opportunity to jointly watch the multi-award-winning documentary:Uprooted: the Journey of Jazz Dance by Khadifa Wong. 

Both the screening of the film and the round table will take place in Room 2 of Lumière Cinema Maastricht. Admission to the Round Table is free. Registration required.