Reflections of Alvin - choreographer Alvin Ailey - Abstract

Dance Magazine, Dec, 1998 by Don Mcdonagh

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has expanded its mission over forty years to include outreached and education.

Blues Suite brought the relatively unknown Alvin Ailey to popular attention in 1958, when his ad hoc troupe, Alvin Ailey and Company, first presented his choreography at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. The occasion was to mark the end of what Ailey referred to as his "apprentice years." The troupe consisted of seven dedicated show dancers like himself who had volunteered their faith, talent, and, at times, savings to make the performance possible. They banded together idealistically to dance on a single Sunday afternoon; on Monday evening they returned to paying work in various Broadway musicals.

Now in its fortieth year and known as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, that transitory ensemble has grown to two full-time companies that have performed in forty-eight countries. The senior company was the first modern dance troupe to appear in both the Soviet Union and in the People's Republic of China. A fully staffed school in New York City has an enrollment of 3,500 students; three AileyCamps expand the dance awareness of preteens, while an affiliation with Fordham University offers a degree program. The company's current season at City Center runs from December 2 to January 3, 1999.

Most modern dance companies have historically had difficulty surviving after the passing of the founder, but the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has flourished since Ailey's death on December 1, 1989. Along with the dedication of his successors, Ailey's own 'concept of a repertory company has made continuity possible. He never considered his troupe merely a tool for his personal expression. Almost alone among modern choreographers, Ailey believed that a repertory should be like a gallery that exhibits the works of many artists instead of only one. The company will celebrate its fortieth year by presenting the works of a dozen choreographers, including artistic director Judith Jamison, two present company members, and a guest from France.

Ailey was born in Rogers, Texas, in 1931, and after a little more than a decade of marginal poverty was taken to Los Angeles by his mother, who thought a young black woman like herself could find better-paying work there. This change from rural Texas to a major city provided Ailey the artistic nourishment that ruled the rest of his life. He had the opportunity to see the glamorous Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and the strikingly vibrant Katherine Dunham with her revues Tropics and Le Jazz Hot. Years later he would restage an evening-long program of one of Dunham's revues on his own company.

California afforded him two opportunities that rural Texas of the 1940s did not: to attend a challenging high school and to study with modern dance pioneer Lester Horton. At the time, however, Ailey was more interested in drawing and literature. Later, at Los Angeles City College and UCLA, he developed his bookish interests and his talent for language. In 1949 he transferred to San Francisco State College and studied at the Welland Lathrop--Anna Halprin studio. With dance student Marguerite Angelos, he worked up an act known as "Al and Rita" for local club gigs. After they split up, he began working at the New Orleans Champagne Supper Club, and she later achieved fame as the writer Maya Angelou.

Ailey resumed his studies with Horton after Lon Fontaine, who booked acts, took him to Los Angeles with his group. Horton was totally involved with the whole range of theatrical presentation of dance, an approach that spoke directly to Ailey's own interests. He caught the "red and gold" disease, as Jean Cocteau characterized infatuation with the theater. Horton's theatrically oriented company was the crucible in which Ailey had developed. Its interracial policy made it the first modern dance company to be integrated with Asian, black, and Caucasian members, and it gave Ailey performing experience unavailable elsewhere.

After Horton's death Ailey was chosen to lead the company for its second appearance at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, in 1954. Unfortunately, none of the four dances he had choreographed were well received by reviewers, or by Ted Shawn, the Pillow's founder and autocratic doyen, who made it clear that he thought the more experienced Carmen de Lavallade or James Truitte should have been artistic director. Despite the rebuff, Ailey resolved to make his way in New York City, learning his craft in the practical and professional school of Broadway shows. Four years later Blues Suite, a work pulled from the depths of his own experiences, would reveal a new maturity and theatrical savvy.

The Ailey company in the fifties and sixties would include de Lavallade, the late Truitte, Geoffrey Holder, and other black dancers who had learned their craft from Horton. This season includes a new production by Holder of his Prodigal Prince (1967), choreographed and danced in his own brilliantly hued set and costume designs [see Presstime News, page 32].To this day, the company follows the Horton pattern in its composition and casting. Horton's work as a choreographer has been honored with revivals of Salome (1934) and Liberian Suite (1952), the latter with a score by Duke Ellington. For Ailey, this was a double-barreled acknowledgment of his creative roots. During the nation's bicentennial year of 1976, Ailey conceived and directed "Ailey Celebrates Ellington," a festival of the music and a celebration of Ellington as a classical jazz composer; fourteen dances, half by Ailey and half by other choreographers, were performed. The music was played by the Ellington orchestra under the direction of Duke's son, Mercer. Ailey presented Night Creature (1975); Black, Brown & Beige (1976); The Mooche (1975); Reflections in D (1963); Hidden Rites (1973); Three Black Kings (1976); and Pas de "Duke" (1976). Louis Falco was given free rein to choreograph Caravan, a charming romp to a medley of Ellington themes that was far and away the most elaborately costumed and designed dance of the festival. It was so elaborate and technically so difficult to handle that the company could never afford to tour it. Ailey pulled out all the stops in honor of the composer.