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Billy Siegenfeld

Department of Theatre

Billy Siegenfeld is the artistic director, principal choreographer, and ensemble performing member of Jump Rhythm Jazz Project, a national and international touring company of dancer-singer-actors based in Chicago that celebrates the timeless core of all jazz performance—dancing and singing in high-energy bursts of syncopated rhythm to the music of swinging jazz, the blues, Latin jazz, and soul-driven funk. He is also a Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teacher Excellence at Northwestern.

At Northwestern, in the city of Chicago, and on tour with JRJP, Siegenfeld and members of JRJP teach his original Jump Rhythm Jazz Technique, a "rhythm-first" approach to movement learning that helps transform body and voice into musically articulate, energy-driven percussion instruments. Referring to this approach, Dancer magazine credits Siegenfeld with "inventing the first genuine jazz technique in forty years," and, in 2000, Dance Teacher placed him on the "Twentieth Century Timeline of Major Innovators and Choreographers," both for founding Jump Rhythm Jazz Project and developing the Jump Rhythm Jazz Technique. His choreography has also been performed by Jose Limon Dance Company, Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago, Joffrey II Dancers, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks of Canada, and JazzCool of the Netherlands.

Before joining Northwestern, he divided his time between directing the Dance Program of Hunter College in New York City, choreographing and dancing for the concert stage, performing in musical theatre, including featured roles in the Broadway production of Singin' in the Rain, and performing and teaching for nine years with the Don Redlich Dance Company.

Education

MA	Dance, NYU
BA	Literature, Brown University

Recent Publications

A writer on jazz dance and music, Billy Siegenfeld’s articles, published in Dance Teacher and Dance Magazine, discuss the essential role swing plays in jazz dancing as well as those proposing a pedagogy based on teaching to "the person inside the student."

Recent Awards and Honors

2006	Ruth Page Award for Major Contribution to the Field of Dance
2005	Fulbright Senior Specialist
2005	Jazz Dance World Congress Award for Major Contributions to the Art of Jazz Dance

Recent Grants

Grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, in partnership with JRJP, that partly supported the making of the choreography and vocal arrangements for Siegenfeld’s anti-war piece, The News From Poems.

Courses

360	Jump Rhythm Jazz and Tap Techniques
365	American Rhythm Dancing
365	African American Performance Aesthetic
465-0	Choreography