March 4th, 2010 by soullldiva

“To dance, put your hand on your heart and listen to the sound of your soul.”    Eugene Louis “Luigi” Facciuto

Luigi Facciuto is a true father of modern Jazz dance (he is even sometimes referred to as “father jazz”). He was a very accomplished dancer when he moved to Los Angeles in the 1950′s to further his career. Instead, he became paralyzed after a serious car accident. He recovered enough to begin working at the dance bar again, but when he would leave the bar and attempt to dance out on the floor, his injuries did not enable him to have the same balance and coordination that he had before the accident.

But that did not stop him. He did so well at the bar, he thought “well, I’ll just take the bar out on to the floor with me!” And he created the very first formal Jazz technique. It’s a technique that I’ve been schooled in for the past 10 years, and if you’ve ever heard a teacher tell you to “push down to go up,” then you’ve used the Luigi technique. So, when you go up on your toes (or releve), you don’t just use your calf muscles to pop up. You “pull up” from the top of your head and “push down” within the space around you. This is the biggest part of the Luigi technique, the opposition. You “pull away left to go right” and so on. It’s an excellent technique and really allows for breath and reach in dance steps.

I love the quote from him above. He overcame the very worst kind of obstacles for a dancer and artist, and he certainly knows the sound of his soul. Because it is the soul of a dancer. Thanks for the technique Luigi. And the love of dance.

You can learn more about Luigi here.