"Creator of Movement"

As a dance student, I first learned of this choreographer in my modern dance class. Watching the infamous pieces, Revelations and Cry, I created an interested in learning more about this creator. The emotions that were evoked during the visual stimulation were pure and very deep. He is one of the most influential choreographers in history and continues to be one of the best in the present and guaranteed in the future.

The world of modern dance was introduced to Alvin Ailey by the works of Katherine Dunham, Martha Graham, and Ruth St. Denis. Modern dance was not an art form that was glorified in those times (1940s-1960s), but the walls were being built through classical ballet. Like Dunham and Graham, Ailey created pieces that involved emotion through movement. Ailey would take simple movements and exaggerate them by creating a story of representation. His movements were almost animalistic, but yet very graceful given the specific emotion. The South was magnified in his pieces, describing the pain, triumph, and love of his history during times of racial discrimination and enslavement.

Every February, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater tours here in south Florida, an event that I attend yearly. The very first performances I witness in my modern dance class many years ago, still evoke the same emotions today.

Enjoy the piece, Cry (split into two parts)...originally performed by the critically acclaimed Judith Jamison, whom is now the artistic director of the AAADT.

Part I


Part II