Jazz Funk
Also known as: Commercial jazz
History & Cultural Context
Jazz funk developed as jazz dance absorbed funk, hip-hop, and street styles from the 1980s onward, becoming the high-energy commercial idiom of music videos, pop tours, and concert choreography. It keeps jazz isolations and attack while adding street-style groove, texture, and attitude.
Cultural Significance
Jazz funk is central to the commercial dance industry—music videos, tours, and televised performance.
Characteristic Movement & Technique
Jazz isolations and lines fused with street-style groove, texture, and stylized attitude.
Dance Lineage
Track Your Jazz Funk Progress
Practice Jazz Funk figures between lessons with Figure Focus — step-by-step breakdowns, floor diagrams, and progress tracking. Free to use.
Sources & Further Reading
Cultural & Historical Context
Jazz Funk emerged from United States during the 1980s—present day. Understanding the cultural roots, musical traditions, and social circumstances of this era enriches appreciation for the dance's characteristics and significance.
Primary Source Documents
The Library of Dance contains public-domain primary sources for dance history. Copyrighted modern syllabi are indexed with purchase links to their respective copyright owners. Search by dance name or codifier to discover primary source documents.
Last reviewed: June 2026 — This dance profile synthesizes historical research, cultural documentation, and contemporary practice knowledge to provide authoritative context.
More in Jazz Dance
Vernacular Jazz
The African American social-dance 'trunk' of jazz dance—ragtime steps, the Charleston, and the Lindy Hop—from which the theatrical branches grew.
Broadway / Theatrical Jazz
The presentational, musical-theater branch of jazz dance shaped by choreographers such as Jack Cole, Jerome Robbins, and Bob Fosse.
Lyrical Jazz
A late-20th-century fusion branch combining jazz technique with the continuity and emotional expression of ballet and contemporary dance, danced to lyrics-driven music.
Dunham Technique
Katherine Dunham's codified technique drawing on Caribbean and African dance, foregrounding torso isolations, polyrhythm, and a wider rhythmic range than other Western dance of its time.