Jump Rhythm Jazz Project

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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 TM. 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, t his 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 TM 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.