These dancers were real people, with stories that are our stories… communicating universal themes of struggle, challenge, love, growth, and hope. - LA Dance Review
ABOUT THE COMPANY
Founded in 1993 by choreographer Pat Taylor, Los Angeles-based JazzAntiqua Dance & Music Ensemble celebrates the jazz tradition as a vital thread in the cultural fabric of African American history and heritage, and a defining element of the American experience. Dedicated to jazz arts education, preservation and creation, JazzAntiqua embraces "the movement in the music" -- the physical embodiment of the jazz aesthetic and the lineage, language and continuum embedded therein; the socio-political nuances across time; and ultimately the joy, self-determination, community and freedom at the heart of this extraordinary, life-affirming expression.
JazzAntiqua's mission and programs have been recognized with funding and support from the Doolittle Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Black Art Futures Fund, California Arts Council, California Humanities, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Toyota, USA, and many individual donors.
The company has been presented at the Playboy Jazz Festival (Hollywood Bowl), Music Center of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County Musuem of Art, California African American Museum, The Jazz Bakery, Irvine Barclay Theater, Ford Amphitheatre, CIAEI Theater (Brazil), Dance Mission Theater, Watts Towers Jazz Festival, Laney College, Mesa Performing Arts Center, and many other distinguished venues.
Feature stories and articles about JazzAntiqua have appeared in the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Weekly Newspapers, Dance Teacher Now, Dance Spirit, Dance and Los Angeles Magazines.
JazzAntiqua is in residence at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center / Ebony Repertory Theatre.