“You’re either a dancer or not a dancer. You’re either good or you’re not. Martha Graham said something profound like that,” said Judith Jamison when defining talent on Monday in a Presidential Lecture produced by the Stanford Humanities Center, after teaching a master class to Stanford students earlier that day. “Can you not breathe another day if you don’t dance?” asked Jamison – beyond the practical aspects of training and knowledge, she stressed there should be an urgency to express through movement what cannot be articulated with words.
Artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) since 1989, Jamison embodies an iconic image of American dance history in the second half of the 20th century. She was born and raised in Philadelphia at a time when black girls were not allowed to take ballet classes in any established studio and when men refused to touch them in partnering classes in New York. College brought Jamison south to Tennessee during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, but she soon found her way to New York to pursue a career in dance.
Over the years, Jamison has worked with illustrious choreographers and dancers including Antony Tudor, Agnes de Mille and Mikhail Baryshnikov (with whom she danced the 1976 duet “Pas de Duke,” choreographed by Alvin Ailey to music by Duke Ellington).
She joined Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater when the company was still in its infancy, and developed a deep and spiritual artistic relationship with its founder. Ailey created the solo “Cry” for Jamison in 1971, which electrified audiences and propelled her to international acclaim.
It was Jamison who was called to return to the company when Ailey’s health began to fail, and to whom he chose to hand the reigns upon his death.
“We are living on Alvin’s resonance,” Jamison said of the fundamental allegiance to Ailey’s original goals. “My stamp on the company was to continue to foster the things that were at its foundation and build on them.” She expects the same attitude from her chosen successor, Robert Battle, who will take over when she steps down in July.
At the core of AAADT’s mission are a number of programs designed to reach past the main company performances: a school, second company and joint B.F.A. program with Fordham University in New York offer young dancers the opportunity to train and transition from student to professional. And an extensive Arts in Education program – including Ailey camps across the nation and the Revelations curriculum – engages children of all backgrounds in movement and dance.
Monday night, Jamison remembered tours that, from the early days, “brought people from so many walks of life together – people of all races, colors and creeds sitting one beside the other in the theatre.” The goal has always been to connect with audiences and communities, to use movement of bodies as a form of expression to convey truths and to incite enthusiasm by making dance “accessible, but not easy.”
The relationships AAADT and other companies build with the communities they serve, Jamison believes, are crucial to the future of dance. She strives to cultivate audiences that flock to theaters not only for repertory classics, but also to see and support new works and choreographic experiments by both established and fledgling artists. “As long as there are enough dreamers devoted to excellence without restraint,” dance will evolve and flourish, she said.
AAADT’s North American tour will arrive at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley March 29 through April 3, 2011. Three distinct programs will feature “Cry,” the quintessential “Revelations” and works by its artistic director-to-be, Robert Battle.