The Place, London
September 20, 2025
Jazz Arts ReWired was created in 2024 by Dollie Henry and Paul Jenkins, the co-founders of BOP Jazz Theatre Company (BOP stands for Body of People), as a celebration of everything jazz.
For this year’s Jazz Arts ReWired convention, the performance programme comprised ten short, individual, and distinctively different pieces from BOP Jazz Theatre UK, Griot Dance Collective, Lukas Hunt Creations, The Ovonlen-Jones Ensemble and Footnotes Dance, and from five emerging Jazz choreographers selected for the JAR25 Emerging Jazz Artist platform (JME Dance Company, MM Jazz Company, The Royal Court (NicolaMac with BRIT School Dancers, FFI (Fully Functioning Individuals Dance Group) and Noel Rodriguez).
The pieces all drew on African cultural traditions and, as one might expect, used jazz music. Jenkins, who is a jazz music artist, composed the accompaniment for five of the dances.
The quality of the dancing was excellent, with the men out-performing the women in cleanness of lines, and wonderfully precise syncopation, which perfectly matched the style and mood of the music.
All ten choreographies were creative and interesting, with two particularly so. Bye/Dark Eyes by the The Ovonlen-Jones Ensemble is a duet choreographed by Joel Ovonlen-Jones and Lana Williams based on a based around a jazz and very athletic interpretation of tennis. Inner Demons by Lukas Hunt of Lukas Hunt Creations, with Conn Williams, Tobias Richards and Gustave Die stood out from the rest for quality of performance and emotional engagement.
The BOP Jazz Theatre Company also presented a piece, choreographed by Henry, Daughters of Eve. While enjoyable and pleasing, this did feel a little light compared to the other nine dances. The choreography, centred on a circle formation, was less jazz and more classical, with often repeated dance phrases and steps.
The lighting by Angelo Sagnelli, was appropriate throughout, as were the costumes, which were not credited.
Once again, Jazz ReWired was an enjoyable evening of uplifting jazz music and skilled creative dance, which showed the great potential jazz dance has to infiltrate the higher echelons of the dance world. Hopefully, we will see a lot more this in the years ahead.