29
Apr
Judith Jamison: On Dance and Love
by Sophia Hsu
0 Comments | Posted by thatgirl in Making Waves
You don’t have to be a fan of modern dance to understand the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT). According to Judith Jamison, the Artistic Director, you just have to be human.
“The first thing you do when you’re born is what?” asks Jamison. “You open your mouth first and wave those little chords in the air to make sure people know you’re alive. And you’re breathing, those lungs are moving. Everything is moving. It’s 
within us to move.”
AAADT celebrated movement and connection with its 50th anniversary last year, where Jamison also announced she will be retiring in 2011. The world eagerly awaits her announcement of a predecessor. “I’m looking for someone with great intelligence and great nerve – someone who understands the tradition of the company, but makes choices as an individual. That’s what I did. I couldn’t imitate Alvin (Ailey). All I could do was follow the road map.”
That map laid out AAADT’s mission to bring African American culture to the world. Ailey always believed that dance came from the people, and should be delivered back to the people. She began dancing at the age of 10, training in classical ballet, though her passionate style and muscular figure contradicted the ballerina’s wiry ideal. In 1965, Jamison joined AAADT as a dancer and found international stardom with the company for the next fifteen years; she took over the company in 1989.
Among the most notable of Jamison’s roles is Cry (1971), a 15-minute tour-de-force solo. Dedicated to women everywhere, Cry brilliantly conveys every emotion, role, and contradiction associated with womanhood. In her autobiography Dancing Spirit, Jamison writes, “Exactly where the woman is going through the ballet’s three sections was never explained to me by Alvin. In my interpretation, she represented those women before her who came from the hardships of slavery, through the pain of losing loved ones, through overcoming extraordinary depressions and tribulations. Coming out of a world of pain and trouble, she has found her way – and triumphed.”
Under Jamison’s leadership, AAADT expanded dramatically with developments like the Women’s Choreography Initiative, performances at two Olympic Games, and a historic run in South Africa that ended the cultural boycott of the old apartheid government. Jamison also established a B.F.A. program with Fordham University. As an advocate for arts education, Jamison is committed to advancing programs that bring dance into the community and introduce children to the arts. She is a firm proponent of the power of dance to reach across cultural divides and connect the otherwise-separated.
“[AAADT is] here to celebrate the idea of what the human body can do and how far it can reach into your soul and make you feel differently about yourself. Make you feel good. Make you feel, period,” Jamison proclaims. “Alvin was always about our being recognized – as beautiful, important, distinct, absolutely talented, brilliant people. And, in doing that, it opened a world to who we are as human beings. Everything we do is about giving back to this world. And if we can do it through talent, through movement, through dance, then we are all the more blessed for it.”