Celebrating Black History Month: Alvin Ailey
October 27, 2020Alvin Ailey was an American choreographer and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) in New York in 1958. It was a hugely popular, multi-racial modern dance ensemble that popularised modern dance around the world thanks to extensive world tours. According to the AAADT, the company “has gone on to perform for an estimated 23 million people at theaters in 48 states and 71 countries on six continents.”
Born on January 5, 1931, in Rogers, Texas, Ailey became one of the leading figures in 20th-century modern dance. At the age of 12, he left Texas for Los Angeles.
In Los Angeles, Ailey proved to be a gifted student, excelling at languages and athletics. After seeing the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo perform, Ailey was inspired to pursue dancing. He began studying modern dance with Lester Horton in 1949. He joined Horton's dance company the following year. Ailey later drew inspiration from the Black church services he attended as well as the music he heard at the local dance hall.
In 1954, Ailey made his Broadway debut in Truman Capote's short-lived musical House of Flowers. In 1955, he also appeared in The Carefree Tree. Ailey served as the lead dancer in another Broadway musical, Jamaica, starring Lena Horne and Ricardo Montalban in 1957. While in New York, Ailey also had a chance to study dance with Martha Graham and acting with Stella Adler.
Ailey achieved his greatest fame with his own dance company, which he founded in 1958. That same year, he debuted Blues Suite, a piece that drew from his southern roots. Another of his major early works was Revelations, which drew inspiration from the African American music of his youth. The blues, spirituals and gospel songs all informed this dance piece. According to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater website, Revelations came from Ailey's “'blood memories' of his childhood in rural Texas and the Baptist Church.”
In the mid-1960s he stopped performing, but continued to choreograph numerous masterpieces. Ailey's Masakela Language, which probed the experience of being Black in South Africa, premiered in 1969. He also formed the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center — now called the Ailey School — that same year.
Ailey was a pioneer of programs promoting arts in education, particularly those benefiting underserved communities.
In 1988, Ailey was honoured by the Kennedy Center for his contributions to the arts. This prestigious accolade came just a year before the end of his life.
In 2008, the U.S. Congress declared the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater a “vital American cultural ambassador to the world.”
In 2014, he posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, in recognition of his contributions and commitment to civil rights and dance in America.
Although he never publicly declared himself gay, he maintained romantic relationships with men exclusively throughout his adult life. Growing up in the racially hostile South amid the severe economic hardships of the Great Depression, he went on to live his passion publicly as a black male dancer and choreographer and receive international acclaim.
Ailey died at the age of 58 on December 1, 1989, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. At the time, The New York Times reported that he had suffered from “terminal blood dyscrasia, a rare disorder that affects the bone marrow and red blood cells.” It was later revealed that Ailey had died of AIDS.
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