What is frank hatchett known for

Frank Hatchett (December 7, 1935 – December 23, 2013)

Frank Hatchett, who died on Monday at Springfield’s Baystate Medical Center at the age of 78, was the master of the jazz dance.

From the Dunbar Community Center in the city’s Mason Square neighborhood where he honed his skills, to New York’s Broadway Dance Center which he founded in 1985, Hatchett’s influence on a generation of American jazz dancers is matchless.

Hatchett helped stars like Madonna, Janet Jackson and Jennifer Lopez develop their moves, and is mentioned in the same breath as iconic choreographers Bob Fosse and Jerome Robbins. But his legacy may be just as long-lasting in Springfield where former students are passing it on to a new generation of dancers.

His students at the Dunbar were perhaps the first to learn his signature move, the “VOP, which was once described as a “verbal incarnation of a feeling” and another time as a “sort of rib cage-should-hip grind.”Hatchett once explained it this wa Frank hatchett wikipedia.