Ailey Ascending by Alvin Alley America Dance T...

Through Lester’s school and the paid work that Lester facilitated, Alvin became acquainted with many of the great talents in dance, theatre, and music, such as Harry Belafonte, Katherine Dunham, and Jimmy Truitte. He also spent a significant amount of time in the local theatres watching the vaudeville shows and big bands that performed in them. Pushing against the stigma that male dancers were gay, Ailey began attending classes with Horton after being persuaded by Carmen.

Carmen de Lavallade was a schoolmate of Alvin and the two met after Carmen performed a dance solo. There were a few individuals that influenced Ailey’s decision to follow the path of an artist. This was where Ailey became acquainted with dance and the Lester Horton Dance Company. When he was a teenager, Alvin’s mother moved to Los Angeles in search of higher wage employment. Ailey later attributed his own struggles with self-esteem to the acts of racial violence so prevalent in his formative years in the South. None was ever held accountable for this attack. As a child, he heard a rumor that his mother had been attacked and raped by four white men in the town. She didn’t know that he saw her on that day until he was well into adulthood. He remembers his mother returning home battered and in tears. One of Alvin’s most startling memories of his early years was an attack on his mother, Mrs. As a child, Alvin discovered a talent for foreign languages that he honed throughout adolescence and early adulthood. Fortunately, she had a strong family network that provided support in the form of housing and childcare. With work being difficult to find for everyone, Ailey’s mother found the difficulty intensified by being black and a woman. As a result, his mother worked odd jobs, but few were steady. His father, Alvin Ailey Sr., was not present during his youth. He was born during the Great Depression and raised by a single mother. His dance theatre was revolutionary in its inception and critically acclaimed for its repertoire.īorn in 1931, in Rogers, Texas, Alvin began his life during a time of economic crisis and racial segregation. His legacy, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre (AAADT) can be credited with training and employing dancers whose body types vary from the standard imposed by the traditional ballet world. Ballets such as Revelations, Blues Suite, and Cry are among the most famous.

“That’s my perception of what dance should be-a popular form, wrenched from the hands of the elite” (Ailey, 101).Īlvin Ailey was an American dancer and choreographer whose work has been and continues to be performed around the world.

Ailey Ascending by Alvin Alley America Dance T...