Alvin Ailey Jr. (January 5, 1931 – December 1, 1989) was an American dancer, director, choreographer, and activist. He founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) in 1958, and the Clark Center for the Performing Arts in 1959. 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.
Ailey's work fused theater, modern dance, ballet, and jazz with Black vernacular, creating hope-fueled choreography that is credited with spreading global awareness of Black life in America. His 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.
Ailey was born to Alvin Ailey and Lula Elizabeth Cliff in Rogers, Texas, in his maternal grandfather's home on January 5, 1931, at the height of the Great Depression. Growing up in the violently racist and segregated south, Ailey was barred from interacting with mainstream society during his youth. 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.
The elder Alvin Ailey abandoned the young Alvin and Lula shortly after Alvin was born, leaving Lula to work in cotton fields and as a domestic in white homes — the only employment available to her. By the time Ailey was five, he joined his mother picking cotton. After white men raped Lula in 1936, Ailey began to fear white men. 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. Ailey was able to explore the arts in high school, singing in glee club and writing poetry. He also took gymnastics. Ailey frequently attended the Lincoln and Orpheum Theatres, 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, Ailey had his first experience with concert dance 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. This awakened an until then unknown spark of joy within Ailey.
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." Ailey 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 Ailey 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 University (1952). During this time, Ailey sporadically returned to Horton to work between courses. Living in San Francisco, he met Maya Angelou, then known as Marguerite Johnson, with whom Ailey formed a nightclub act called "Al and Rita". Eventually, he returned to study dance with Horton in Los Angeles.
Ailey joined Horton's dance company in 1953. While there, he took daily technique classes, studied art and music, and taught children's classes. That same year, 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.
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 nobody 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.
In December 1954, De Lavallade and Ailey were recruited by Herbert Ross (who had choreographed 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 with Cristyne Lawson as his collaborator and dance partner, 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".