Dance in Film · 2020
Uprooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance (2020)
Khadifa Wong’s feature restores jazz dance’s African American lineage by confronting how appropriation, racism, and commercial codification obscured artists from Katherine Dunham and the Nicholas Brothers to contemporary practitioners.
Uprooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance is a 2020 dance documentary centred on ballroom and social dance. For dancers, it's a chance to see the style performed on screen — the phrasing, partnering, and musicality that the same dances carry onto a real floor.
Jump to the 6 indexed dance sequences ↓
Where to watch: Prime Video subscription and the Apple TV U.S. title listing were verified 2026-08-08; institutional rentals and licenses are available through GOOD DOCS. Availability varies by territory.
The dance sequences in Uprooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance
6 sequences, 6 with a timestamp — what is danced, by whom, and where to find it.
- 00:07:21
Juba and Shika roots with Camille A. Brown’s Pattin’ Juba
Pattin’ JubaDanced by Camille A. Brown
Brown turning the film’s origin story into a vivid, percussive Pattin’ Juba demonstration.
The passage connects named Nigerian Juba and Shika dances to the transatlantic history of jazz movement, while Brown’s embodied interpretation keeps the argument from remaining only verbal.
Watch this sequence · Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Docuseek/GOOD DOCS provides timecoded captions for the 93-minute distributor cut. Prime Video and JustWatch showed current U.S. access on 2026-08-15; availability can change. The opened official Vimeo trailer is promotional, not a scene excerpt. The transcript anchors the Juba/Shika discussion; the independent review confirms Brown’s performed Pattin’ Juba passage, so the onset is medium-confidence rather than a claimed start for the entire performance.
- 00:10:32
Cakewalk as subversive plantation satire
CakewalkThe elegant-looking court-dance parody carrying a hidden critique of slaveholders.
The film frames cakewalk as enslaved Africans’ parody of European court dance and then names it as a foundation of Broadway dancing and jazz, linking social resistance to theatrical lineage.
Watch this sequence · Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Docuseek/GOOD DOCS provides timecoded captions for the 93-minute distributor cut. Prime Video and JustWatch showed current U.S. access on 2026-08-15; availability can change. The opened official Vimeo trailer is promotional, not a scene excerpt. Cakewalk is absent from the supplied 381-style taxonomy, so no approximate key is assigned.
A packed interracial ballroom where individual inventions circulate through the whole Lindy Hop community.
The Savoy sequence joins integration history to the dance’s communal improvisation: dancers learn in the club, add a signature, and influence everyone around them.
Watch this sequence · Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Docuseek/GOOD DOCS provides timecoded captions for the 93-minute distributor cut. Prime Video and JustWatch showed current U.S. access on 2026-08-15; availability can change. The opened official Vimeo trailer is promotional, not a scene excerpt.
- 00:18:11
Jason Samuels Smith tap demonstration and lineage
Tap danceDanced by Jason Samuels Smith
Samuels Smith’s fierce footwork interrupting the historical argument with live percussive proof.
Samuels Smith’s tapping gives physical force to the film’s account of tap as expressive communication born from African and Irish rhythmic exchange rather than uncomplicated entertainment.
Watch this sequence · Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Docuseek/GOOD DOCS provides timecoded captions for the 93-minute distributor cut. Prime Video and JustWatch showed current U.S. access on 2026-08-15; availability can change. The opened official Vimeo trailer is promotional, not a scene excerpt. The transcript anchors the tap section and the independent review confirms Smith’s performed tapping; generic tap dance has no exact dance_key in the supplied taxonomy.
Danced by Katherine Dunham (archival footage) · Choreography Katherine Dunham
Dunham’s archival movement embodying the African heartbeat that interviewees call central to American dance.
The profile places Dunham’s Afro-Caribbean research, anthropology, modern dance, and ballet synthesis beside Jack Cole’s codification story, correcting a narrowed lineage of American jazz dance.
Watch this sequence · Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Docuseek/GOOD DOCS provides timecoded captions for the 93-minute distributor cut. Prime Video and JustWatch showed current U.S. access on 2026-08-15; availability can change. The opened official Vimeo trailer is promotional, not a scene excerpt. The existing LODance historical progress verifies the exact katherine-dunham Legend slug.
Danced by E. Moncell Durden; unidentified archival dancers
Old jazz-era shapes and modern breaker vocabulary appearing as related generations of the same movement culture.
Durden directly compares breakers’ steps with earlier eccentric jazz movement, turning the film’s lineage thesis into a movement-by-movement visual argument rather than a loose genre association.
Watch this sequence · Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Docuseek/GOOD DOCS provides timecoded captions for the 93-minute distributor cut. Prime Video and JustWatch showed current U.S. access on 2026-08-15; availability can change. The opened official Vimeo trailer is promotional, not a scene excerpt.
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