A little bit of Smoke & Jazz

Swinging legs and pumping jazz music filled Storre Theatre this past weekend as Jennie McEllistrem (‘10) and her team of swing and jazz dancers performed “Smoke and Jazz.” The piece, performed in the style of renowned choreograper Bob Fosse, was inspired by McEllistrem’s dancing experience from this past summer.

“I did a lot of jazz dancing with a woman who grew up in the 60’s, and her style was really funky,” McEllistrem said.

Prior to this piece, McEllistrem had little knowledge of Fosse’s particular style.

“I’m not a trained Fosse dancer, so I’m a novice with his style,” McEllistrem said.

To gain the desired technique, she looked to Fosse’s biography and watched countless videos of his original choreography from performances such as “Chicago,” “Sweet Charity” and “All That Jazz.”

“I started with some of Fosse’s basic qualities like turned-in or pigeon-toed feet and really isolated movements,” McEllistrem said. “I then started combining his style with some of my own and melded the two together to try to create a cohesive piece.”

Her assistant choreographers, Kayla Oppermann (‘11) and Kelly Jo Roth (‘11), also aided in keeping the movements true to the style of Fosse.

It was a challenge for McEllistrem to keep the movements fresh and unique for each segment.

“Choreographing swing and ballroom dances is relatively new for me,” she said. “The challenges were fun to have since they pushed me and the people I was working with.”

This was a new project not only for McEllistrem to take on as a dancer, but it was new for some of her dancers as well. Performer Angie Pidde (‘11) described this particular piece as a new experience, as she had never been in a Luther dance performance piece, nor had she worked with a student director.

“I’m not a very experienced jazz dancer,” Pidde said. “I took jazz classes in high school, but Fosse’s jazz was something new to me.”

McEllistrem credits every performer for helping to create a cohesive piece and said it was definitely a team effort.

“I could ask my dancers to try a particular move I had created in my head and they would all do it differently,” she said. “It helped me to refine what I was looking for.”

Rehearsals started in mid-September. The swing dancers met once a week for an hour to create and tweak their movements and the jazz dancers met for up to six hours a week to play with the style. Pidde enjoyed the challenge, but also had to put in time outside of rehearsal to perfect the movements.

“The rehearsals were the most intense rehearsals I had ever been in, but I was lucky to be with such fun and experienced girls,” she said.

“Smoke and Jazz” took the stage for three performances, each only 45 minutes in length. As they usually do, this SPIN Theater performance hosted full audiences.