Jazz Dance II

Course Description

Jazz Dance II is second-level technique in the basic movements of contemporary jazz dance, with focus on lyrical, percussive, and contemporary jazz styles and on improvisation and choreography. It continues the first-level technique course, developing range and stylistic versatility rather than simply harder versions of the same material.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, DAA is the Dance, Emphasis on Activity prefix — studio technique, as distinct from the DAN prefix used for dance history and appreciation. Daytona State publishes it at 3 credits with prerequisite DAA1500, offered fall and spring, and notes it may be repeated once for additional credit. It appears at approximately three Florida institutions.

What distinguishes a second-level jazz course is stylistic breadth. Jazz is not one vocabulary — lyrical, percussive theatre jazz, and contemporary commercial styles ask for different qualities of movement, different musical relationships, and different performance intentions. A dancer who can only do one is limited in exactly the way an audition exposes.

⚠ Parallel numbering: Florida runs more than one jazz sequence

The jazz numbering in Florida is genuinely divergent, and this repository already documents both sides of it:

• Daytona State runs DAA1500 "Jazz I" → DAA2501 "Jazz II". This repository carries the C-suffixed DAA1500C at 3 credits / 60 hours.
• Broward College runs DAA1504C "Jazz Dance I" at 2 credits / 64 contact hours → DAA1505C "Jazz Dance II" — both at the 1000 level.
• Northwest Florida State publishes DAA1500 as "Jazz I for Non-Majors."

SCNS equivalency does not cross numbers, and the credit values differ (2 versus 3). In practice a receiving dance programme will place students by audition rather than transcript, which is the more reliable route — but the transcript question still matters for degree audit and for financial aid. Have any transfer evaluated in writing.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Execute an intermediate jazz warm-up independently and describe the purpose of each phase.
• Demonstrate refined alignment, core control, and placement in movement.
• Perform body isolations with precision, independence, and dynamic variation.
• Demonstrate intermediate jazz vocabulary and execute it with correct technique and quality.
• Perform multiple turns with consistent spotting, including pirouettes, chaînés, and piqué turns.
• Perform intermediate jumps and leaps with safe takeoff, controlled landing, and full extension.
• Distinguish and perform in lyrical, percussive, and contemporary jazz styles.
• Adapt movement quality — weight, dynamics, phrasing — to the demands of a given style.
• Learn, retain, and perform extended combinations with accuracy and performance quality.
• Respond to complex musical structures, including syncopation, accent, and phrasing against the beat.
• Improvise within a defined structure or stylistic frame.
• Create a short original jazz phrase demonstrating choreographic intent.
• Apply performance qualities: focus, projection, dynamic range, and intention.
• Apply injury-prevention practice and describe self-care appropriate to the training load.
• Receive and apply correction, and critique movement constructively.
• Demonstrate studio etiquette and professional conduct.

Optional Outcomes

• Perform in a studio showing, informal concert, or department production.
• Analyze recorded jazz choreography and identify style, structure, and choreographic device.
• Describe the historical development of jazz styles and their cultural sources.
• Prepare and perform audition material.
• Apply partnering or ensemble work.
• Apply conditioning and cross-training specific to dance.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Intermediate warm-up structure and conditioning
• Alignment, placement, and core support at intermediate level
• Isolation technique and articulation
• Intermediate jazz vocabulary
• Turns: multiple rotation, spotting, and travelling turns
• Jumps, leaps, and elevation
• Lyrical jazz: sustained movement, breath, and line
• Percussive jazz: attack, accent, and rhythmic precision
• Contemporary jazz: floor work, release, and weight shift
• Extended combinations and retention
• Musicality: syncopation, phrasing, and counterpoint
• Improvisation within structure
• Introductory choreographic composition
• Performance quality and intention
• Anatomy, injury prevention, and self-care
• Studio etiquette and professional conduct

Optional Topics

• Performance and production participation
• Choreographic analysis
• History and cultural origins of jazz styles
• Audition preparation
• Partnering and ensemble work
• Conditioning and cross-training

Resources & Tools

• Jazz Dance Class: Beginning Thru Advanced (Gus Giordano) — the classic technical reference for the form.
• Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches (Guarino, Oliver) — the standard scholarly history, and the right source for the cultural context.
• Dance Anatomy (Haas) and The Dancer's Way — for the conditioning and injury-prevention content.
• Appropriate footwear and fitted attire that allows the instructor to see alignment.
• A studio with a sprung floor and marley surface, mirrors, and sound system.
• Video recording for self-assessment where the programme permits it — the single most effective learning tool in a technique class.
• International Association for Dance Medicine & Science (iadms.org) — free resource papers on dancer health and injury prevention.
• Recorded repertory across jazz styles — Broadway, commercial, and concert — for stylistic study.

Career Pathways

• Performer — musical theatre, cruise lines, theme parks, commercial and industrial work. Florida is genuinely unusual here: Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando, SeaWorld, and the cruise lines based at Port Canaveral, Miami, and Port Everglades constitute one of the largest concentrations of paid dance employment in the United States.
• Dance teacher — private studios, where most working dancers actually earn a living and the largest employment category in the field.
• Choreographer — theatre, film, commercial, competition, and cheer/dance team.
• Studio owner or director — a business path as much as an artistic one.
• Dance educator in K-12 — requires teacher certification; Florida certifies Dance K-12.
• Adjacent fields — Pilates and fitness instruction, physical therapy assisting, stage management, arts administration, and event production. These are common and respectable destinations, not failures.
• SOC codes 27-2031 Dancers and 27-2032 Choreographers.

Special Information

⚠ Stylistic range is what a second-level course buys, and it is what auditions test

The most useful thing to understand about this course. A dancer who has trained only in one jazz idiom will be asked in an audition to do something else, and the ability to change quality on demand — to move from percussive attack to sustained lyrical line within a single combination — is precisely what a choreographer is watching for.

The practical implication for how to work in this class: when the instructor gives a combination in an unfamiliar style, that is the material to attend to hardest, not to endure until the familiar style returns. Versatility is built by being uncomfortable on purpose.

Improvisation deserves the same framing. Students frequently dread it and treat it as a break from technique. It is the opposite: improvisation is where a dancer discovers what their body actually does when it is not executing someone else's counts, and it is a standard component of contemporary and commercial auditions.

⚠ Repeatability is a feature — use it, but check that it counts

Daytona State notes that DAA2501 may be repeated once for additional credit, which is common in technique courses and reflects how the discipline actually works: technique improves with repetition over time, not with a single term's exposure.

Two practical points. Repeating a technique course is a legitimate and often advisable use of a term for a serious student. But whether the repeat applies to your degree is a separate question from whether it is permitted — see the note below on activity credit caps — and financial aid rules on repeated coursework are their own consideration. Check both before registering for a repeat.

⚠ Dance injury: the floor and the culture are the two variables

Dance carries injury rates comparable to contact sports, and the profession has a documented culture of training through pain. The specifics worth knowing:

• The floor matters more than almost anything else. A sprung floor absorbs impact; vinyl laid over concrete does not. Repeated jumping on an unsprung floor is a direct cause of stress fractures and shin splints — worth knowing not only for class but for later, since many studios and rehearsal spaces have inadequate floors and a professional is entitled to ask.
• Jazz-specific patterns follow from the form's demands: ankle and Achilles problems from repeated jumping and relevé, knee injury from turns on a floor with the wrong friction or with poor alignment, and hip and lower-back strain from deep plié, contraction, and hyperextension.
• Distinguish muscular fatigue from joint pain. Sharp pain, pain persisting after warm-up, and any joint pain should stop the movement. "Push through it" is the advice that ends careers.
• Rest and cross-training are training. Dancers who condition and recover deliberately last longer than those who only take class.

Dance environments are also a documented risk setting for disordered eating and body-image harm, given the mirrors, the attire, and the aesthetic scrutiny. Institutions have counselling and health services, and a student who recognizes the pattern in themselves or a classmate should use them. The International Association for Dance Medicine & Science publishes free, evidence-based guidance on all of the above.

⚠ Does it count? Verify before you register

An advising flag with real cost. DAA technique courses are activity courses, and whether they apply to a degree varies:

• They generally do not satisfy a humanities or fine arts general education requirement — that is normally met by a DAN-prefix appreciation or history course, not by a studio technique class.
• Many institutions cap the number of activity or physical education credits applicable to a degree. Repeating technique across several terms — which is exactly what serious training requires — can push a student past that cap.
• Several of these courses are repeatable for credit, and whether a repeat counts toward the degree is a separate question from whether it is permitted.

Equivalency does not make a course satisfy a requirement it was never designed for. Ask an advisor before registering, particularly if you plan to take technique repeatedly.

⚠ Only about three Florida institutions carry this number — hedge accordingly

This course appears at roughly three institutions statewide. Content, credit value, and emphasis vary more than they would for a widely taught course. Read your own institution's catalog description and syllabus rather than assuming this guide describes your section exactly, and have any transfer evaluated in writing.

Course format, credits, and contact hours

Daytona State publishes DAA2501 at 3 credits with prerequisite DAA1500, offered fall and spring. The 60 contact hours follows the convention this repository's DAA studio courses use consistently — DAA1000, DAA1104C, DAA1204C, DAA1500C, DAA1520C, DAA2105, DAA2205, and DAA2610C are all at 60 hours regardless of credit value, which reflects the fact that studio courses meet for substantially more time than a lecture course of the same credit. Broward's parallel courses run 64 hours under a sixteen-week convention.

Assessment is by demonstrated technique — in-class evaluation, combination performance, and often a final showing — with written work on terminology and history. Attendance carries unusual weight for a legitimate reason: technique is acquired physically and cannot be made up by reading.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement.

In dance specifically, transfer is complicated by the parallel numbering described above and by the fact that receiving programmes place by audition regardless of transcript. Expect to be placed by what you can do, and treat the transcript as a separate administrative question to settle in writing.