My inspiration Alvin Ailey

Ailey’s “Revelations”: Wade in the Water

Alvin Ailey’s Wade in the Water section from his choreographic dance piece “Revelations” was very interesting to me and exciting for me to watch! It started out with the use of rounded arms both being held up is the dancers walked and as a resemblance of birds when the dancers were bending over. The was turning and props such as long pieces of fabric, an umbrella, some kind of pole, and a fabric flag type of thing used by the dancer. The dancer wore white costumes. The movement was very linear except of when the dancers used their arms, which were round at many different points at the beginning of the section. When the actual words of Wade in the Water started being song and/or heard, the dancers’ movement then became more fluid, and they had a sense of water. The dancers’ movements started to use a more African style of movement and their body used more undulations. They used both full body undulations and undulations of the arms. The dancers also used head and neck rolls as well as lengthening of the torso/chest and abdomen. There was also a good use of turns, both triplet turns and arabesques turns. The dancers also always had a sense of length about them, no matter what movement they where carrying-out/performing. It was quite amazing!

Why I Want to Research Alvin Ailey

I am a hip-hop/street dancer. As a dancer who started late in the craft, starting my second semester of my freshman year in college, I heard about Desmond Richardson, who was also a street dancer before being formally and professionally trained. He trained at Alvin Ailey’s school. I’ve always heard great things about the Ailey School of dance and wanted to learn more about it. I also would like to go there one day. As a member of Indiana University’s African American dance company, I have had the pleasure of taking class from Elena Anderson, a dancer and teacher with a very extensive background in the modern dance Horton technique. Alvin Ailey was a student who trained with Lester Horton and became a great dancer and choreographer of the Horton technique! Ailey uses Horton technique as a basis at his school and in many of his choreographic works. Ailey also was a “leading figure in the establishment of modern dance as a popular art form in America” (New York Times). Alvin Ailey “played an important role in establishing black modern dance” (New York Times). He is “arguably the most important black American choreographer in the short history of modern dance”

Events That Occurred During Alvin Ailey’s Career

Alvin Ailey lived through many historic events during his life and particularly through his career as a dancer and with dance. During the major start of his career in 1953, the great modern dance teacher and also Ailey’s teacher, Lester Horton, died. This led him to take over the Horton Dance Company and become artistic director after leaving Los Angeles, California and arriving in New York City. In 1958 Ailey started the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and during this time the music styles of Blues and Rock ’n Roll were popular. A more notable event during Alvin Ailey’s career with dance is the Civil Rights movement which started in 1955 and lasted until 1965, at it peak. Some other events during is time was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 were events as well. Other events that happened during Ailey’s career were the term of President Richard Nixon, his Watergate scandal, and the Vietnam War.

Alvin Ailey Lineage

Alvin Ailey started his career as a dancer at age 18. His first formal training came from Lester Horton at the Horton school in 1949. He studied many forms of dance while attending including ballet, jazz, and modern dance, Horton technique. He also was inspired by Katherine Dunham and was briefly taught by Thelma Robinson, a Dunham Dancer, before attending the Horton school. Upon visiting New York and moving there, as well, Ailey studied with Martha Graham for a short time. He also studied with Doris Humphrey and José Limón and Charles Weidman. Upon watching Martha Graham he said, “her dance was finicky and strange,”(Dancing Revelations) and while observing Humphrey and Limón he hated it. Ailey could not find in the other dance forms what he experienced with Horton and soon returned to the technique he started and was most comfortable with. I loved Horton technique and nothing he learned or experienced could replace it. Although he did like any of the dances within the other modern technique style, that didn’t stop him from using what he learned while choreographing his dances. In his signature pieces “Revelations” there is evidence of Graham technique with the use of contractions and pleating hands. He also took acting class with Stella Adler. Through all his teachers and studying many style of modern dance, as well as ballet, folk, African, and popular dances of the times Alvin Ailey became one of the greatest dance figures of the 20th century and this is all helped him in shaping him as a dancer.

Alvin Ailey’s Works: Form & Content, Impact on Concert Dance

Alvin Ailey’s works took on many forms thought his choreographic career. Ailey used large groups of people in his dances many of his dances. He choreographed dance pieces using trios in certain parts and also utilized partnering and duets. Ailey also choreographed solo dance works in his career as well. The content of Alvin Ailey’s work was also diverse as well. In his early work “Blues Suite,” had content that was “set in and around a barrelhouse, depicts the desperation and joys of life on the edge of poverty in the South” (DeFrantz). This was a group choreographic work. In Ailey’s most recognized work “Cry” a choreographic worked dedicated to his mother. Its content includes the experiences of black women and their resilience and strength. Ailey created this for Judith Jamison, one of his dance muses, and this was a solo choreographic piece. Besides “Cry” Ailey also choreographed other solo pieces like “Witness,” which was also well known. These were some of the forms Alvin Ailey’s works were delivered in and some of the content his work showed and depicted.

Alvin Ailey’s work has made an extremely significant impact on concert dance and dance in general in our present time. His choreographic works are some of the best the 20th century concert dance has experienced. Not only has Ailey’s work proven to be some of the best, but it has also withstood time. One of his greatest master pieces, choreographic works, “Revelations” is one of the most restaged pieces of choreography and concert dance performed to this day. He has given way to many African American dancers of the time and inspired many people, as well as dancers, around the world to dance and/or start dancing. He constantly pushed the boundary and limits of what he can and could set and depicted on stage and he encouraged his students and others to do the same. Alvin Ailey has left a lasting impact on the world of concert dance in this time.

Ailey: Mean, Matter, About, Importance

Alvin Ailey and his works meant a tremendously amount to the world and especially to the world of dance. It was Ailey’s works that impacted concert dance so much and brought black modern dance into what the world knows of it today. It was he who gave black modern dance its most power and placed black modern dance on the map. He made black dance noticed and it has not faded, but gained momentum and had a lasting expression and endured throughout and over this time. Alvin Ailey was a black man, and his choreography was an explosive force that changed the world of dance. This meant that the modern dance world had to recognize African Americans as better than just an average dancer, in fact great dancers and had to acknowledge the creativity, intelligence, strength, artistry, and ability of the black dancers.

Alvin Ailey and his all his work mattered more than words can tell. Through his choreography and dance pieces and master pieces he brought the black experience onto the mainstream stage. He brought the African American expression and lifestyle, and hardships from behind curtains and into the light for all to see and witness. Because of his hard work, he created one of the first black dance companies, the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, and was a leader in giving black dancers a way to express themselves where they were wanted and welcome and when the dance world wouldn’t give them any chances. Alvin Ailey matters because without him modern dance, all modern dance, would not be where it is today.

Ailey’s choreography and dances were about more than just his experiences. They were about his life, his childhood and his experiences growing up. They were about his teacher and mentor, Lester Horton. His dances were about the African American and the black experience. The life, the struggles, the pain, the strength, the passion, the will, the religion, the music, the thoughts, and the endurance of the African American people were what his works were about. His dances were about black women, their strength, their resilient, their beauty, their work, their hardship, and their endurance. They were and protest to discrimination, an example of black artistry and expression, a fight for equality, and leading force. All of these things are what were depicted and translated magnificently through his choreography, dance masterpieces, and his company. This is what Alvin Ailey’s dances were about.

Alvin Ailey and his work are important for many reasons. The first being that with out Ailey modern dance would not be known as extensively as is in today’s world. Because of Ailey’s numerous world tours around the globe, funded by the United States, the world experienced modern dance. He popularized modern dance, not only American modern dance, but black and/or African American modern dance. He gave black people a dancing home where they belonged. He gave African American people inspiration and power. He gave black people a chance. He paved the way not only for other black dancers of his time and generations, but also for generations to come and further more black dance companies as well. With out Alvin Ailey there wouldn’t be a Dallas Black Dance Theater, there wouldn’t be a Complexion Contemporary Ballet Company, there would not be a Philadanco Dance Company, or any other black/African American dance company in our time. With out Alvin Ailey Lester Horton’s modern dance Horton technique would not have survived to become one of the most taught, practiced and used modern dance techniques today. Dance was Alvin Ailey’s passion, his life and his legacy and with out it the world of dance may have been lost. All of these reason and facts are what makes Alvin Ailey such an important figure in the world of modern dance, in the whole dance world, in the world of leaders, and to the African American community and world.