Frank Hatchett: 'Cookies & Milk'

Frank Hatchett’s Jazz dance movements have touched the lives of millions of people. He danced with household names such as Sammy Davis Jr., Eartha Kitt, Harry Belafonte, Pearl Bailey, and Jackie Gleason in his early years dancing on television and touring North America and Europe. He has taught pop stars such as Britney Spears, Vanessa Williams, Brooke Shields, Madonna, Olivia Newton-John, Downtown Julie Brown, Justine Bateman, Savion Glover, and many more familiar entertainers. He was known as the “go to guy” to learn Jazz dance in New York City from 1985 until returning to Springfield, MA  in 2010 to recover from brain surgery. Master Dance instructor Sheila Barker said, “Frank was the person to go to if you wanted to really learn about the industry." She said, “He just had that magical 'it' factor. You came out of class high on spirit."

Teaching elite entertainers was only a small portion of his dynamic career that spanned decades from 1967 until his death in 2013. He made a decision to teach during the early 1980s while auditioning for gigs in New York city. Hatchett linked up with JoJo Smith at his studio on Broadway and 55th Street, JoJo's Dance Factory. He made his lessons available across income barriers without deference toward confident Broadway professionals or the uncertain beginners. He formed a partnership with Broadway dancer/choreographer Maurice Hines and started their own dance company simply named Hatchett and Hines. 

In 1985 the founded The Broadway Dance Center which became one of the first ‘drop in’ dance studios in the world. Talking about his approach to teaching he said, “You’ve got to be able to adjust. Mine is not a cookie cutter class. I’ve been criticized for that because people think I will let you get away with stuff. I will let them try things, and I may see something I might not have seen if I hadn’t. I will see that God-gift that they’re not even sure they have and I will tell them to capitalize on it. I give them an opportunity to relax and let it go. But then if they get too far away, they know I’m going to bring them back.” He provided a sense of security and confidence drawn directly from his experience and passion to see his students succeed.

It was Hatchett’s remarkable enthusiasm for Jazz dance that helped keep the form alive and thriving when it was being pushed out of the commercial market by Hip Hop dance in the 1980s. At that time several very well known theatrical Jazz dance choreographers’ careers ended including Bob Fosse, Jack Cole, and Michael Bennett. Hatchett brilliantly responded to the threat of extinction in the marketplace through the invention of a technique he called, “VOP.” In an interview with Dance Magazine he described how he developed the technique. He said, “It was actually developed out of frustration. I was going to auditions, but back then they were not hiring black dancers. I was determined to dance, so I started teaching at a local school and doing little gigs. I was doing a combination of the [Katherine] Dunham technique along with the current dances, creating my own style. I was inspired by a sound in the street or a lady walking a certain way; it would stimulate my creativity.” 

Hatchett’s VOP trademark provided a beacon for young dancers in the industry. He said, “In class, I would try to get that energy from my students. I’d say, “Come on, VOP that battement,” or “VOP that turn,” or “Let’s go 1, 2, 3, VOP, ball change, VOP.” Kids would go to an audition and they would hear that they were great technically but that they had no presence, no projection. That is what I would give them through the VOP. So that’s where it came from, from that word. I didn’t know this then, but the kids would leave and say, “I just left Hatchett and he VOPed me to death.” But really it’s just a style of modern jazz combined with some street or ethnic.”

Hatchett’s VOP teaching technique mixed African, Carribean, East Indian, tap, the Dunham technique, and Hip Hop dance. He talked about how the Dunham technique provided a palette for his teaching. He said, “It’s the same thing we get from ballet—the lines, the placement, the control. But also movements that take us back to the motherland where my students get that feeling of the natural beat of the earth. I find that a lot of times kids will get out there and do everything beautifully, but the movement is on one planet and the music is on another. By incorporating Dunham they can learn to feel the beat.” Hatchett later wrote a book that describes his experience and the development of the VOP technique in 2000 entitled, “Frank Hatchett's Jazz Dance.” It provided an in depth, DIY style, step-by-step guide to learning Jazz dance that had become popular through the 1990s. 

The enthusiasm and appreciation for his efforts span generations of dancers including our own Cailin Manning, the Associate Director of Found Movement group. She writes, “When I think of Frank Hatchett I think of being 10 years old at Broadway Dance Center (the old one) in New York. I also think of ‘cookies and milk’. Not the snack, but the dance move taught by Frank Hatchett. It’s not a codified thing, he just made it up in the moment, but it’s forever ingrained in my mind. I remember the sweat and the smiles and the hip rolls and the isolations. I remember him making me fall even more in love with dance. I am forever grateful to him for teaching me ‘cookies & milk.”

Hatchett received many awards for his achievements and appeared in several National television programs including MTV, Good Morning America, VH1, and CNBC. He received a Fred Astaire award in 2002 and a Lifetime Achievement Award from Dance Teacher Magazine in 2013. He was a Master Teacher for the The Annual Jazz Dance World Congress which continues to thrive in the Jazz Dance industry. For many students Frank Hatchett provided a steady mentor, life coach, and friend. He loved seeing the people in his life find and develop their highest good. A former student and choreographer, Steve Boyd, said, “Frank sees inside people and inspires them to bring out their potential. Frank teaches more than dance; he teaches about life.”