Know Your History: Alvin Ailey

Alvin Ailey, Jr. (January 5, 1931 – December 1, 1989) was an American choreographer and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York. Ailey is credited with popularizing modern dance and revolutionizing African-American participation in 20th century concert dance. His company gained the nickname “Cultural Ambassador to the World” because of its extensive international touring. Ailey’s choreographic masterpiece Revelations is believed to be the best-known and most often seen modern dance performance.

He was introduced to the Horton Dance company through Carmen, a life long friend. At twenty-two Ailey began full-time study at Horton’s school. He joined Horton’s company in 1953, making his debut in Horton’s Revue Le Bal Caribe. It was during this period that he performed in several Hollywood films. Like all of Horton’s students, Ailey studied other art forms, including painting, acting, music, set design, and costuming, as well as ballet and other forms of modern and ethnic dance.

Horton’s sudden death in November 1953 left the company without an artistic director. The company had outstanding contracts that required new works. When no one else stepped forward, Ailey assumed the role of artistic director. Despite his youth and inexperience (Ailey was only twenty-two and had only choreographed one dance in a workshop) he began choreographing, directing scene and costume designs, and running rehearsal.

Ailey designed his first piece to pay homage to Horton. It was arranged to showcase James Truitte’s physical strength and Carmen de Lavallade’s beauty and dramatic abilities.

In 1954, he and his friend Carmen De Lavallade were invited to New York to dance in the Broadway show, House of Flowers by Truman Capote starring Pearl Bailey and Diahann Carroll. He also appeared in Sing, Man, Sing (1956) starring Harry Belafonte and in Jamaica (1957) with Lena Horne and Ricardo Montalbán. The New York modern dance scene in the fifties was not to Ailey’s taste. He observed the classes of modern dance contemporaries such as Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and José Limón. He felt Graham’s dancing “finicky and strange” and disliked the techniques of both Doris Humphrey and José Limón. Ailey expressed disappointment in not being able to find a technique similar to Horton’s. Not finding a mentor, he began creating works of his own.

Ailey formed his own group, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, in 1958. The group presented its inaugural concert on March 30, 1958. Notable early work included Blues Suite, a piece deriving from blues songs. Ailey’s choreography was a dynamic and vibrant mix growing out of his previous training in ballet, modern dance, jazz, and African dance techniques. Ailey insisted upon a complete theatrical experience, including costumes, lighting, and make-up. A work of intense emotional appeal expressing the pain and anger of African Americans, Blues Suite was an instant success and defined Ailey’s style.

For his signature work, Revelations, Ailey drew upon his “blood memories” of Texas, the blues, spirituals, and gospel. These forces resulted in the creation of his most popular and critically acclaimed work. Ailey originally intended the dance to be the second part of a larger, evening-length survey of African-American music which he began with Blues Suite.

Though Ailey created 79 works for his dancers, he maintained that his company was not merely a showcase for his own work. Today, the company continues Ailey’s vision by performing important works from the past and commissioning new additions to the repertoire. In all, more than 200 works by over 70 choreographers have been performed by the company.

Ailey was proud that his company was multi-racial. While he wanted to give opportunities to black dancers, who were frequently excluded from performances by racist attitudes at the time, he also wanted to rise above issues of negritude. His company always employed artists based solely on artistic talent and integrity regardless of their race.

Ailey continued to create work for his own company and also choreographed for other companies.

In 1962 the U.S. State Department sponsored the Alvin Ailey Dance Company’s first overseas tour. Ailey was suspicious of his government benefactors’ motives. He suspected they were propagandistic, seeking to advertise a false tolerance by showcasing a modern Negro dance group.

In 1970, Ailey was honored by a commission to create The River for American Ballet Theatre. Ailey viewed The River, which he based on the music of composer Duke Ellington, as a chance to work with some of the finest ballet dancers in the world, particularly with the great dramatic ballerina Sallie Wilson. ABT, however, insisted that the leading male role be danced by the only black man, despite misgivings by Ailey and others about the dancer’s talent.

Cry (1971), was one of Ailey’s greatest successes. He dedicated it to his mother and black women everywhere. It became a signature piece for Judith Jamison.

Ailey made use of any combination of dance techniques that best suited the theatrical moment. Valuing eclecticism, he created more a dance style than a technique. He said that what he wanted from a dancer was a long, unbroken leg line and deftly articulated legs and feet (“a ballet bottom”) combined with a dramatically expressive upper torso (“a modern top”). “What I like is the line and technical range that classical ballet gives to the body. But I still want to project to the audience the expressiveness that only modern dance offers, especially for the inner kinds of things.”

Ailey’s dancers came to his company with training from a variety of other schools, from ballet to modern and jazz and later hip-hop. He was unique in that he did not train his dancers in a specific technique before they performed his choreography. He approached his dancers more in the manner of a jazz conductor, requiring them to infuse his choreography with a personal style that best suited their individual talents. This openness to input from dancers heralded a paradigm shift that brought concert dance into harmony with other forms of African-American expression, including big band jazz.

In 1992 Alvin Ailey was inducted into the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame.