Today is World AIDS Day and each year that passes I take time out to think of the members of my family I lost to AIDS and to salute family and friends who are living with the virus.
I salute those activists, researchers, social workers, doctors and nurses, and caregivers who continue to fight, educate and organize.
I also want to pay tribute to those whose lives uplifted spirits. We can all use spiritual refreshment in times of pain, struggle and strife.
I often write about music in this context. Today I am thinking of dance which is music in movement.
Alvin Ailey, choreographer and dancer, died of AIDS on December 1, 1989. His life and work, as he lived it was a gift to us all.
Biography
Born on January 5, 1931, in Rogers, Texas, Alvin Ailey became one of the leading figures in 20th century modern dance. His mother was only a teenager when he was born and his father left the family early on. He grew up poor in the small Texas town of Navasota. Ailey later drew inspiration from the black church services he attended as well as the music he heard at the local dance hall. At the age of 12, he left Texas for Los Angeles.
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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 1960s, Ailey took his company on the road. The U.S. State Department sponsored his tour, which helped create his international reputation. He stopped performing in the mid-1960s, but he continued to choreograph numerous masterpieces. Ailey's Masakela Language, which probed the experience 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. In 1974, Ailey used the music of Duke Ellington as the backdrop for Night Creature. He also expanded his dance company by establishing the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble that same year. During his long career, Ailey choreographed close to 80 ballets.
Ailey’s Cry (clip)
Dedicated to "all black women everywhere—especially our mothers," the piece depicts the struggles of different generations of black American women. It begins with the unwrapping of a long white scarf that becomes many things during the course of the dance, and ends with an expression of belief and happiness danced to the late 1960s song, "Right On, Be Free." Of this and of all his works Ailey told John Gruen in The Private World of Ballet, "I am trying to express something that I feel about people, life, the human spirit, the beauty of things.…"
Judith Jameison talks about Cry
Alvin Ailey died at age of 58 on December 1, 1989, in Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. This was a time when there was still virulent AIDS stigma (which we have not erased) To protect his mother — he had it announced that he had died of a blood disorder.
After Ailey’s death 4,500 people attended a memorial service in his honor at St. John the divine in NYC.
Some of the most moving reminiscences in the two-hour service were from Carmen de Lavallade, Mr. Ailey's first partner, and Judith Jamison, a former star of the Ailey troupe. Miss de Lavallade talked of Mr. Ailey's earliest years in dance and of his dance legacy. ''He gave you an open chest of gems, of jewels,'' she said, addressing the young dancers in the audience. ''And all you have to do is dip in your hand and take. Take it and use it and pass it on.'' Miss Jamison said: ''He gave me legs until I could stand on my own as a dancer and a choreographer. He made us believe we could fly.'' Joy in Touring Recalled
The writer Maya Angelou read a poem for Mr. Ailey, and Paul Szilard, his manager, recalled Mr. Ailey's delight in the company's many international tours. The Rev. Dr. Robert Polk, who officiated at the ceremoney with the Very Rev. James Parks Morton, dean of the cathedral, and Canon Joel A. Gibson, talked of hearing Mr. Ailey plan a European tour when the company ''couldn't afford to get to J.F.K.''
There was music from Ashford and Simpson. Dudley Williams danced Mr. Ailey's ''Song for You.'' An excerpt from his ''Cry'' was performed by Donna Wood, and excerpts from ''Revelations,'' a modern-dance classic by Mr. Ailey, were danced by Mari Kajiwara, John Parks and the company.
As the dancers moved to the beat of the spiritual ''Rocka My Soul,'' to which the finale of ''Revelations'' is performed, Mr. Ailey's mother and brother and several others began to clap along. And soon the vast church was filled with the sound of rhythmic clapping.
Revelations
Using African-American spirituals, song-sermons, gospel songs and holy blues, Alvin Ailey’s Revelations fervently explores the places of deepest grief and holiest joy in the soul.
More than just a popular dance work, it has become a cultural treasure, beloved by generations of fans. Seeing Revelations for the first time or the hundredth can be a transcendent experience, with audiences cheering, singing along and dancing in their seats from the opening notes of the plaintive “I Been ’Buked” to the rousing “Wade in the Water” and the triumphant finale, “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham.”
Ailey said that one of America’s richest treasures was the African-American cultural heritage —“sometimes sorrowful, sometimes jubilant, but always hopeful.” This enduring classic is a tribute to that tradition, born out of the choreographer’s “blood memories” of his childhood in rural Texas and the Baptist Church. But since its premiere in 1960, the ballet has been performed continuously around the globe, transcending barriers of faith and nationality, and appealing to universal emotions, making it the most widely-seen modern dance work in the world.
Robert Battle, artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater talks about Ailey — his life, his work and his activism.
Ailey’s spirit lives on — in dancers around the world, and in the hearts and memories of those of us who had the chance to see him perform.
Somewhere — he is choreographing clouds and the wind.