Alvin Ailey American Dance Center

Alvin Ailey Jr. (January 5, 1931 – December 1, 1989) was an American dancer, director, choreographer, and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT). He created AAADT and its affiliated Alvin Ailey American Dance Center (later Ailey School) as havens for nurturing Black artists and expressing the universality of the African-American experience through dance.

A gay man, his work fused theater, modern dance, ballet, and jazz with Black vernacular, creating hope-fueled choreography that continues to spread global awareness of Black life in America. Ailey's choreographic masterpiece '' Revelations'' is recognized as one of the most popular and most performed ballets in the world.

On July 15, 2008, the United States Congress passed a resolution designating AAADT a "vital American cultural ambassador to the World." That same year, in recognition of AAADT's 50th anniversary, then Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared December 4 "Alvin Ailey Day" in New York City, while then-Governor David Paterson honored the organization on behalf of New York State.

Early life and education

Ailey was born in Rogers, Texas, in his maternal grandfather's home, at the height of the Great Depression. As a child in the violently racist and segregated south, during his youth Ailey was barred from interacting with mainstream society. When he was five, Ailey's mother was raped by four white men (one likely an employer), and Ailey recalled seeing members of the Ku Klux Klan as a child.

Abandoned by his father Alvin Ailey when he was three months old, Ailey's mother, Lula Elizabeth, were forced to work in cotton fields and as domestics in white homes — the only employment available to her. By the time Ailey was five, he joined his mother picking cotton. As an escape, Ailey found refuge in the church, sneaking out at night to watch adults dance, and in writing a journal, a practice that he maintained his entire life. Even this could not shield him from a childhood spent moving from town to town as his mother sought employment, being abandoned with relatives whenever she took off on her own.

Looking for greater job prospects, Ailey's mother departed for Los Angeles in 1941. He arrived a year later, enrolling at George Washington Carver Junior High School, and then graduating into Thomas Jefferson High School. He was able to explore the arts in high school, singing in glee club and writing poetry. He also took gymnastics. He frequently attended Lincoln Theatre and the Orpheum Theatre, where he was able to see a variety of African American performers, including Pearl Bailey, Fletcher Henderson, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Pigmeat Markham, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington. In 1946 he had his first experience with concert dance, awakening an until then unknown spark of joy within him, when he saw Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo on a school trip and Katherine Dunham Dance Company's "Tropical Review" on solitary trips to the Los Angeles Philharmonic Auditorium.

Also in high school, Ailey discovered his homosexuality, which added another layer of difference and isolation to his already racially segregated experience. Thus, "like many young gay men eager to corral the sensual impulses of the body, he turned to dance study." He briefly studied tap, followed by exploring "primitive dance" as taught by Dunham dancer Thelma Robinson. Neither of these styles were right for Ailey, possibly due to the physical location and old-fashioned sensibility of the lessons. Therefore, he did not become serious about dance until 1949 when his classmate and friend Carmen De Lavallade dragged him to the Melrose Avenue studio of Lester Horton and he began exploring modern dance.

Ailey studied a wide range of dance styles and techniques — from ballet to Native American inspired movement studies — at Horton's school, which was one of the first racially integrated dance schools in the United States. Though Horton became his mentor, Ailey did not commit to dancing full-time, recognizing the lack of opportunities for black male dancers. Instead, he pursued academic courses, studying romance languages and writing at UCLA (1949), Los Angeles City College (1950-1951), and San Francisco State (1952). During this time, he sporadically returned to Horton to work between courses. Living in San Francisco, he met Maya Angelou, then known as Marguerite Johnson, with whom he formed a nightclub act called "Al and Rita." Eventually, he returned to study dance with Horton in Los Angeles.

Career

Horton Dance Company

Ailey joined Horton's dance company in 1953. While there, he took daily technique classes, studied art and music, and taught children's classes. In 1953, he made his debut in Horton's ''Revue Le Bal Caribe''. In a workshop the summer of 1953, Ailey created his first dance composition, ''Afternoon Blues.'' This work was a three minute solo blues adaptation of ''L’Aprés Midi d’un Faune,'' which he had seen performed by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In this piece, Ailey played the eponymous Faun to a selection from On the Town (musical).

Horton died suddenly November 1953 from a heart attack, leaving the company without leadership. In order to complete the organization's pressing professional engagements, and because no one else was willing to, Ailey took over as artistic director and choreographer. In particular, Horton's company was committed to performing at Jacob's Pillow in the summer of 1954. Ailey worked collaboratively with the Horton company dancers and choreographed based on them, gaining the support of the company's dancers who had much more experience than Ailey. These works included ''According to St. Francis'' (4 June 1954), a tribute to Horton as a "kind of allusion to Lester's life" featuring James Truitte. He also choreographed and directed ''Morning Mourning'' (4 June 1954)'','' a piece based on the work of Tennessee Williams featuring de Lavallade and set to an original score by Gertrude Rivers Robinson. As Horton had done, Ailey designed the sets for ''Morning Mourning'' and collaborated on the lighting. That summer, Ailey also made his first large group piece, ''Creation of the World'' (13 July 1954), set to a score by Darius Milhaud. Under Ailey, the Horton company had commercial engagements on television programs ''Party at Ciro's'', The Red Skelton Show, and the Jack Benny show. Ailey and de Lavallade also performed in a segment of Carmen Jones (film).

Early New York Career

In December, 1954 De Lavallade and Ailey were recruited by Herbert Ross (who had coreographed ''Carmen Jones)'' to join the Broadway show, '' House of Flowers.'' Ross had been hired to replace George Balanchine as the show's choreographer and he wanted to use the pair, who had become known as a famous dance team in Los Angeles, as featured dancers. The show's book was written and adapted by Truman Capote from one of his novellas with music from Harold Arlen and starred Pearl Bailey and Diahann Carroll.

Ailey and De Lavallade met Geoffrey Holder, who performed alongside them in the chorus, during the production. Holder married De Lavallade and became a life-long artistic collaborator with Ailey. After ''House of Flowers'' closed, Ailey appeared in Harry Belafonte's touring revue ''Sing, Man, Sing'' with Mary Hinkson as his dance partner, and the 1957 Broadway musical ''Jamaica'', which starred Lena Horne and Ricardo Montalbán. Throughout the late 1950s, Ailey continued to study dance technique sporadically, learning with the New Dance Group's Hanya Holm, Anna Sokolow, Charles Weidman, and Karel Shook. Drawn to dance, but unable to find a choreographer whose work fulfilled him and wanting to continue the work he had begun at the Horton school, Ailey started gathering dancers to perform his own unique vision of dance.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

The Early Alvin Ailey Dance Theater

In 1958 Ailey founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to present his vision of honoring Black culture through dance. The company had its debut at the 92nd Street YM-YWHA on March 30, 1958 in a concert shared with choreographer Ernest Parham, with headlining guest artist Talley Beatty. The performance included Ailey's first masterpiece, ''Blues Suite'', which drew from Ailey's Texas childhood and ''House of Flowers'', following men and women as they caroused and cavorted over the course of an evening while blues music played in the background until church bells began to ring, signaling a return to mundane life. Ailey danced in the other two premieres at this performance, ''Redonda'' and ''Ode and Homage''. ''Redonda'', which was later retitled ''Cinco Latinos'', brought together five short pieces described as "Latin Theme" in a work similar to Horton's. ''Ode and Homage'', set to a score by Peggy Glanville-Hicks, was a " dance of faith, respectfully dedicated to the memory of Lester Horton."

Following the success of his first concert, Ailey continued choreographing for a shifting roster of dancers who were available for dances at the 92nd Street YM-YWHA, working with designers Normand Maxon, Ves Harper, and Nicola Cernovich. These works included the integrated ''Ariette Oubliée'' (21 December 1958, a choreographic fantasy pantomime set to Debussy's similarly named song cycle and featuring Don Price and de Lavallade. He also choreographed for other companies in collaborations, such as a version of Miss Julie, ''"''Mistress and Manservant," to a score by Ravel for the Shirley Broughton Dance Company.

On January 31, 1960, the AADT premiered several new works at the 92nd Street YM-YWHA. These included ''Sonera'', Ailey's first attempt at choreographing on point. Ailey also reworked ''Creation of the World'' for this performance as a duet for himself and Matt Turney of the Martha Graham Dance Company, which received great acclaim. He also premiered his most popular and critically acclaimed work, '' Revelations.'' In creating ''Revelations,'' Ailey drew upon his "blood memories" of growing up in Texas surrounded by Black people, the church, spirituals, and the blues. The ballet charts the full range of feelings, from the majestic "I Been ’Buked" to the rapturous "Wade in the Water," closing with the electrifying finale, "Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham."
In 1960, Edele Holz offered Ailey rehersal space at what would become the Clark Center for the Performing Arts. Shortly after the center opened in October of that year, AADT had its first concert. This concert included a November 27, 1960 premiered ''Knoxville: Summer of 1915,'' set to music by Samuel Barber and based on ''A Death in the Family'' and ''Three for Now'', set to music by Jimmy Giuffre and John Lewis (pianist), as well as Horton's ''The Beloved'' and John Butler's ''Portrait of Billie.'' The next year, he premiered ''Hermit Songs'' (10 December 1961)''.'' Originally conceived as a group work, it premiered as a solo for Ailey performed to Leontyne Price's recording of Samuel Barber's Hermit Songs. ''Hermit Songs,'' which is based on a loose narrative of a monk's privilege and penance, remained in the AADT's repertoire through 1991.

Ailey's work during this time was different from many other modern dance choreographers of the time. By keeping a focus on narrative, he was able to draw an audience from outside New York City and the avant garde.

Work with the US State Department and Later Work

In the fall of 1961, the US State Department invited the AADT (under the banner of the Lavallade-Ailey American Dance Company) to tour Southeast Asia and Australia as a part of President Kennedy's Special International Program for Cultural Presentations. This led Ailey to assemble a repertory that the State Department would find appropriate, including a new dance, ''Been Here and Gone,'' a suite of folk songs and children's games based on Donald McKayle's ''Games'' (which Ailey had performed in 1956) and his own memories of growing up in Texas. He also assembled a company of ten dancers and four musicians that could travel the world. This tour began on 3 February in Sydney, Australia, and ended on 12 May 1962 in Seoul, South Korea, performing sixty times in thirteen weeks. As necessary, Ailey reworked material to fit the shifting roster of collaborators. Many of the works, including ''Roots of the Blues'' and ''Revelations'' were specifically reworked to feature the headlining de Lavallade. The tour had followups at the World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal in 1966, East & West Africa in 1967, and the Edinburgh Festival in 1968. Biographer Thomas DeFrantz notes how the Ailey company's status as "the sole exponent of an emerging standard of African American concert dance" allowed the U.S. government to covertly mold the "signature style of Afro-American concert dance." He also notes that State Department propaganda aided in promoting the international celebrity of the AADT.

The relationship with the State Department did not go well and ended after a few years. Ailey struggled with the state department tours, which insisted on marketing the company as an "ethnic" company rather than a modern dance company, and were closely supervised by the FBI - the latter referred to Ailey's homosexuality as "lewd and criminal tendencies" and threatened his company with bankruptcy if he showed any signs of effeminate or homosexual behavior while on tour.

Despite their work with the State Department, the company was able to book only a few performances per season in America. For a major concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on 28 April 1963, Ailey reworked movements of ''Revelations'' into "Reflections in D," (set to music by Duke Ellington) which, combined with "Suspensions," and "Gillespiana" made the latest version of ''Three for Now''. Ailey also premiered ''Labyrinth'', telling the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, which was later reborn as ''Ariadne''.

Also in 1963, Ailey began his professional relationship with Duke Ellington. Ellington invited Ailey to perform in ''My People (First Negro Centennial)'', a travelogue history in observance of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. For the August 19 performance, Ailey coreographed three pieces, “The Blues Ain't,” "Light," and "My Mother My Father." While working with Ellington, Ailey and his company were invited to the International Music Festival in Rio de Janeiro. For this performance, feeling the occasion required a new work, Ailey premiered ''Rivers, Streams, and Doors''.

In August 1964, Ailey choreographed a dance, ''The Twelve Gates,'' in honor of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn's golden anniversary. This performance, featuring Truitte and de Lavallade, and with costumes by Holder, was performed for a single week at Jacob's Pillow. In the fall of 1964, Ailey added "American" to his company's name during a three month European tour. In 1965, following physical tensions and negative reviews at the Florentine Festival, Ailey retired from his career as a dancer. Ailey paused choreography until receiving a lucrative commission by the Swedish television for ''Riedaiglia'', which was danced to a commissioned score by Georg Riedel (jazz musician) and relied heavily on television director Lars Egler's direction. This dance immediately won the television award the Grand Prix Italia, and was later broadcast in the United States on ''Ambassadors of Dance.''

In the summer of 1968, Ailey received a Guggenheim Fellowship. With these funds, he created his first work set to pop music, choreographing ''Quintet'' to six songs from Eli and the Thirteenth Confession. This work debuted at the 1968 Edinburgh Festival, and premiered in New York at the Billy Rose Theatre as a part of AAADT's first Broadway season. The next year, he created ''Diversion No.1,'' including dances to Scarborough Fair (ballad) and Oh Happy Day for a program shared with the The 5th Dimension. This work, created to attract audiences to the AAADT's UCLA season, was one of Ailey's most commercial pieces.

In a twelve-day residency at Connecticut College in 1968, Ailey created ''Masekela Langage'', a piece set in South Africa. This work directly addresses racial politics with the intention of drawing a parallel between the Apartheid and the shooting to death of Fred Hampton. This politicism was uncommon for Ailey's work. The piece received immediate acclaim, and is regularly revived by the AAADT.

After a successful week-long engagement at the Billy Rose Theatre, the company was invited to become the resident company at Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1969. This residency included a revival of ''Revelations.'' While working with BAM, he sponsored free classes for children and young adults "geared to channel formidable youth rage into art." Ailey was dissatisfied with the residency due to cramped quarters and BAM directer Harvey Lichtenstein's racialized business tactics.

In 1970, with few bookings on the radar — and on the eve of a tour to Russia as part of a cultural exchange agreement — Ailey announced at a press conference that he was closing the company. In response, the State Department sponsored an Ailey tour of North Africa to tide things over. That August, the company toured to Russia where it was ecstatically received. The AAADT became the first American modern dance company to perform in the Soviet Union. Their performances were broadcast on Moscow television and seen by over 22 million viewers. On closing night, because the Russian audiences would not stop applauding, the company gave over 30 curtain calls. Returning home with news of this triumph, the company performed a two-week engagement at the ANTA Theater. At this performance, he premiered ''Flowers'', set to music by Blind Faith, Pink Floyd, and Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company. ''Flowers,'' which featured Lynn Seymour, depicted the death of a rock star caused by drug addiction, inspired by Joplin's death on October 3, 1970 and dedicated to "a slew of rockers making youth-oriented music." By the end of the January 1971 performance, the entire run was sold out. After 13 years, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre was a monumental success.

In August 1972 the company was briefly renamed Alvin Ailey City Center Dance Theater and became a resident company of New York City Center. In September of that year, Ailey created ''Shaken Angels'', another rock-based piece. This piece, set to recorded music by Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, and Bill Withers, featured Dennis Wayne and Bonnie Mathers in story about a couple "cornered into a relationship of violence and need, smoking pot and mainlining heroin. The work spilled into the audience as Wayne chased Mathis through the aisles, dragging her onto the stage and striking her with a needle.

In 1973, the AAADT headlined the First National Congress on Blacks in Dance, though Ailey sat out of conversaitions on how to advance the public perception and financial profiles of black dance companies.

In 1975, Ailey restaged ''Revelations'' for nineteen dancers for a staging at the New York State Theater from August 12 to 24.

While Ailey choreographed more than 100 ballets for his dancers, he insisted that the company perform pieces by other choreographers rather than stand as a singular vehicle for his voice.

Though AAADT was formed to celebrate African American culture and to provide performances for black dancers, who were frequently denied opportunities due to racist mores of the time, Ailey proudly employed artists based solely on artistic talent and integrity, regardless of their background. In addition to his work as artistic director and choreographer with AADT, Ailey also choreographed ballets for other companies including American Ballet Theatre, Joffrey Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, and The Metropolitan Opera. For American Ballet Theater, he created ''The River'' (1970), one of several choreographies he set to the jazz music of Duke Ellington.

Commercial Work

Throughout his career, Ailey continued to pursue work as a commercial theater choreographer, re-staging ''Carmen Jones'' (August 1959) and Jamaica (1960) for Summer stock theater and staging dances for the theatrical review ''African Holiday'' (1960) and ''Dark Side of the Moon'' (May 1960). These commercial engagements remained segregated, with African American casts generally hired to entertain mostly white audiences. Ailey also studied acting with Stella Adler