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What Is Modern Jive?
Modern Jive is the general term for a partner dance popular in the UK, Australia, New Zealand — there are classes in other countries, including: France and Dubai..
It is still possible to see bebop (jive-style) dancing in France, e.g. in jazz clubs in Paris, such as Le Caveau de la Huchette, or Le Slow Club, where it is typically danced with syncopated chassés (and Gallic “Je ne sais quoi”).
Modern Jive is also known as French Jive — as the conventional history suggests that it was imported from France, where it had been adapted for dancing to jazz, from Jitterbug and 1950s Rock'n'Roll (Le Roc). The Ceroc® and Leroc names are reputedly both contractions of the French phrase “C'est le rock”.
Confusingly, Modern Jive is also taught under several different (sometimes trademarked) names. Similarly, companies in other countries, e.g. Australia, have locally trademarked the term Ceroc®.
Modern Jive has featured in several news articles (for example, [Media Coverage Of Ceroc Enterprises Ltd.], [The Night I Took A Taxi Around The Floor], [Dance To Ceroc For That Tip Top Body], [A Little Bit Of Everything], [Ceroc], [Ceroc Dancing: The Place To Find A Date], [Scotsman Jive Article] and has also featured in several television programmes in the UK, including: [Post-Modern Pastimes], [Travels With My Tutu], [Would Like To Meet] and [The Morning Show — Life Swap].
Modern Jive is easy to learn, since “basic Modern Jive” is danced without complex syncopation or (any) footwork. The short-length and modularity of Modern Jive moves also makes it easy to dance them socially (“in freestyle”). Modern Jive is sometimes referred to as a “touch” dance, since moves are led and followed through the hand or dance holds. This lead and follow, enables improvisation, so that personal repertoires of moves can be developed — thus, moves and styling vary between classes — although they are more likely to be standardised within franchises such as Ceroc®, or umbrella groups such as the LeRoc French Jive Federation.
Modern Jive is somewhat of a hybrid dance form:
It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine characteristics that feature in all Modern Jive moves. However, many Modern Jive moves feature movements that are predominantly two musical beats in duration — starting on the “up-beat” and ending on the “down-beat” — different Modern Jive organisations may teach these movements with a single step (over two musical beats), two steps (over two musical beats — for example, a step on the left and then closing the right foot to the left), or neglect to teach any specific footwork. Similarly, many Modern Jive moves start with both partners stepping away from each other, then both partners close towards each other, and then the move finishes with both partners stepping apart — this yields a general feel of repeatedly moving apart and then together. Obviously, experienced dancers may blur move boundaries so that start and end positions become less obvious.
Modern Jive is mostly danced to 4/4 music, with tempo of approximately 27–40 bars per minute, i.e. 108–160 beats per minute.
How Modern Is Modern Jive
How Old Is Modern Jive
Jive was developed as part of international (ballroom and) latin dancing during the 1960s in the UK — taming the wilder elements from social Rock'n'Roll, Jitterbug and Lindy Hop into a more constrained and simplified six beat basic. Modern Jive was developed in the 1980s, and is modern by virtue of being twenty years younger — so in fact in the twenty first century “modern” jive is actually older now, than was the dance it modernised, i.e. ballroom jive.
New And Improved
The terms new and modern have been applied many times to indicate that a dance style is different from, newer than, and “improved” from its predecessors. For example:
New Vogue is a term for an Australian set of sequence dances, developed to replace the English old time dances [Old Time Dancing].
[Ballroom Dancing] (originally published in 1936) refers to modern ballroom dancing to differentiate it from old time dancing [Old Time Dancing]. A cursory examination seems to show that modern ballroom dancing is a significantly different dance style, e.g. “modern” waltz tempo is given as 31 bars a minute, whereas old-time waltz tempo is given as 42 bars per minute.
[Tango With Flavio] uses the term “Modern Tango” to include tango figures that were once banned.
[Oxford Dictionary Of Dance] doesn't list Modern Jive (or any of the trademarked names) but does list “modern dance” as “A term used… to denote theatrical dance, not based on the academic school of classical ballet.”
However, if Modern Jive is viewed as a “street dance” constantly open to reinvention, then there's no reason not to consider it as modern in the sense that it can be kept up to date — but in that case Modern Jive is probably no more modern than say salsa or Lindy Hop, e.g. there are hip-hop styles of all three dances.
Modern Jive History
Some historical questions about Modern Jive in the internet era can be answered by examining the Ceroc website at the Internet Archive.
- 1980
The first Ceroc event took place in London at Porchester Hall, organised by James Cronin and helpers [Ceroc].
- 1986
The [Dance With Me Henry] television programme features Ceroc demonstrated by James Cronin, including a clip of Michel Gay teaching a class.
- 1988
I started dancing Modern Jive as “Ceroc” in 1988 at Michel Gay's Bristol class.
The first publication describing Modern Jive was produced by Andy Galloway: [The Dance Manual].
- 1989
Ceroc® was trademarked in the UK [UK Online Trademark Search].
- 1990
The [How To Jive With Jive Bunny] video was produced by Christine Keeble (with Simon de Lisle as demonstrator).
- 1991
Michel Gay's Bristol Ceroc class becomes Bristol Leroc.
Ceroc Enterprises Ltd. was founded by Sylvia Coleman and James Cronin, the first official Ceroc teacher-training course took place, and the first Ceroc franchise opened in Norwich [Ceroc].
The LeRoc Federation was formed [LeRoc French Jive Federation].
Nicky Haslam exported Modern Jive to the antipodes.
- 1992
Ceroc Scotland opened in September in Glasgow.
- 1995
The [Le Jive, Le Video — The Complete Instruction Video] video was produced by Robert Austin and Claire Hilliard.
- 1996
The LeRoc Federation set up an examination scheme for teachers [LeRoc French Jive Federation].
- 1997
Mo'jive® was trademarked in the UK [UK Online Trademark Search].
- 1998
The first “major” Modern Jive book was produced by Robert Austin and Claire Hilliard: [Learn To Dance Modern Jive].
- 2001
The first UK Jive competition was held at Blackpool on March 3.
- 2003
[Beginners Modern Jive — The Easy Way To Learn] notes that there are almost 100 Ceroc® venues with over 120 classes a week, attended by roughly 40,000 dancers a month.
Ceroc Enterprises was sold by Sylvia Coleman and James Cronin, to Mike Ellard in September.
The first British Open LeRoc Championships (BritRoc) was held on October 12.
- 2004
JiveBug (Fleet) (including the Monster Jive Cocktail weekend event) became a Ceroc® franchise in January — trading as CerocPlus.
- 2005
On June 20, Rebel Roc was acquired by Ceroc Dance. The ex-Rebel Roc venues are now listed on the Ceroc Surrey website.
On October 14, the Jive Krazy Saturday freestyles at Bramshaw (in the New Forest) were taken over by Ceroc Salisbury.
- 2006
Modern Jive Companies
Although dancing is considered as a hobby, Modern Jive classes are (lifestyle) businesses and are subject to all normal competition issues (plus, personality clashes, “politics”, etc.). At a practical level, this can affect the “hobby” dancer in several ways:
Trademarked names — individual Modern Jive organisations may have different (trademarked) names, making it difficult to locate classes. A rough guide is to look for organisation names that combine an entry from the following lists:
Blitz, Blues, Boogie, Ce, Club, Cosmopolitan, Dance, De, Easy, Eu, French, Fusion, Ginger, Go, Hipsters, Jag, Jazz, Jitterbug, Jive, Jivin, Jules, Jump, Just, La, Latin, Le, Live, Love, Lyve, Mo, Mr', Modern, Nu, Pulse, Rebel, Riviera, Roc, Rocsters, Rock, Simply, Strictly, Swing.
Addiction, Alive, Bop, Bug, City, Club, Connection, Dan, Dance, Dizzy, Fever, Freestyle, Fusion, Hive, Jam, Jive, Jivin, Jiving, Krazy, Live, Madness, Party, Plus, Riot, Roc, Rock, Step, Style, Swing, Time, Vibe.
Similarly, umbrella groups such as The Dance Matrix may be able to refer you to a nearby dance class for particular dance forms in the UK, e.g. ballroom, latin, or jive.
General dance magazines such as The Dancing Times and Dance Today! are available in the UK. Similarly, more specialised magazines listing classes and events are sometimes available, e.g. Dance Diary covers dance events in the South East of England, whereas the free Dance Vine magazine is more wide ranging.
General listings magazines often feature dance events e.g. Venue in the South West of England often has adverts for dance classes and events.
Alternatively, try websites such as [Modern Jive] or [UK Jive], or contact umbrella groups such as the LeRoc French Jive Federation or Ceroc “HQ” may be able to place you in contact with a nearby Modern Jive class in the UK — or visit the links page (http://www.afterfive.co.uk/) on this website (AfterFive).
Flyers may not be distributed for other organisations' events (or may only do so if events don't clash, or if there is a reciprocal arrangement). Similarly, some clubs may be sensitive if you indiscriminately invite fellow dancers to other events.
Policies may change due to clubs leaving (or joining) franchises.
Clubs may expire for a variety of reasons — lack of support, owner-partners may split or divorce, etc.
Teachers may be “ineligible” to teach at certain venues (which may mandate specific teacher-training courses, irrespective of a teacher's other achievements).
Bruce Lee's treatise on martial arts [Tao Of Jeet Kune Do] has some eloquent views about strict adherence to particular [martial] art forms:
Take what is useful and develop from there.
The second-hand artist blindly following his sensei or sifu accepts his pattern. As a result, his action and, more importantly, his thinking become mechanical. His responses become automatic, according to set patterns, making him narrow and limited.
Just as yellow leaves may be gold coins to stop the crying children, thus, the so-called secret moves and contorted positions appease the unknowledgeable (martial) artist.
Teaching may be presented as “the one true way”, to foster strong brand loyalties — but may constrain creativity.
Organisations (and performers) are obviously entitled to defend their copyrighted material, but this often limits distribution of other perceived intellectual property, e.g. preventing dancers using video cameras at events they are attending — even if they are not videoing classes. Similarly, official event videos are not necessarily a guarantee of a complete record, e.g. classes may not be recorded or cabaret performances may be truncated so that routines are not shown in their entirety — to maintain some level of “confidentiality”.
Historically, some organisations (no names, no pack drill) have attempted to protect themselves by requiring dancers to sign a non-disclosure agreement, as part of the membership agreement. Quoting from a 1998 membership agreement:
4. You acknowledge and agree that Company is possessed of detailed technical and confidential information concerning the dance “——” (and the steps thereof) and that the instruction and information given in —— dance classes includes such information and that you will not at any time hereafter disclose any said information to any third party for commercial purpose or usage or otherwise use commercially the said instruction and information.
5. Without prejudice to the generality of Clause 4 above and for the purposes of furtherance of the said agreement as to confidentiality you agree (notwithstanding that you use a different title) you shall not during membership or for a period of 12 months from cessation howsoever of membership in the United Kingdom teach, publish, or broadcast for commercial gain or otherwise the method of the dance described by us as —— to any third party.
Luckily, this non-disclosure concept seems to have been dropped from current, i.e. 2003, membership agreements — which makes it less troublesome when asked: “How do you do that move?”
Few businesses will recommend their competitors — however, it may be advisable as a dancer to try a selection of classes (and teachers) to obtain an overall impression of Modern Jive (or any other dance)
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