- Title: GERMANY: ALVIN AILEY'S AMERICAN DANCE THEATRE CONTINUE EUROPEAN TOUR.
- Date: 20th October 2000
- Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) DANCER KEVIN.E.BOSEMAN (STANDING NEXT TO DANCER LINDA CACERES) SAYS, "When Mr Ailey started the company in 1958 there wasn't the venue there is today for dancers of colour to perform. So definitely he has allowed us the chance, you know, 42 years later to be African American or Linda is Spanish, Latin American and you know, he's given us the opportunity to take his message and the American message of dance and the African American message of dance and fuse it together and take it all over the world for anyone and everyone to appreciate and get an understanding of ".
- Embargoed: 4th November 2000 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: ALTE OPER, FRANKFURT, GERMANY
- Country: Germany
- Topics: Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA8LP8PVM1QK7B3ZSNB082WVQV6
- Story Text: In 1958 in New York City, the Afro-American dancer Alvin Ailey set up his own dance company dedicated to the preservation of a unique black cultural expression and its enrichment of modern American dance. At the time it was a radical move in a society rife with discrimination. Forty-two years later Ailey is gone, but his legacy lives on in the shape of his American Dance Theatre - currently touring in Europe. Reuters caught up with them in Frankfurt.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater began life in 1958 after the African American dancer Alvin Ailey decided he had a vision to share with the world: "Certainly Alvin Ailey wanted to form his own company in 1958. He was a young man, he had studied dance for a very short time in California, with a man named Lester Horton,"
says Judith Jamison, the current Artistic Director of the company.
"Horton technique is what the company's last work on the program 'Revelations', which everybody loves, is based on. But Alvin in 1958 knew he had something to say choreographically and he decided to put on a work at the YMHA (Young Men's Hebrew Association) on 92nd street, with a few of his friends.
"This developed 42 years later of course, from 8 dancers to 31, and we've certainly been around the world a few times and we still have the same message and that is that dance should be accessible".
But what started in 1958 as a radical expression of African American culture has been tempered slightly by changes in society and by what is now a multi-cultural dance troupe: "When Mr Ailey started the company in 1958 there wasn't the venue there is today for dancers of colour to perform, "
says troup dancer Kevin E. Boseman.
"So definitely he has allowed us the chance, you know, 42 years later to be African American or Linda (Caceres, fellow dancer) is Spanish, Latin American and you know, he's given us the opportunity to take his message and the American message of dance and the African American message of dance and fuse it together and take it all over the world for anyone and everyone to appreciate and get an understanding of".
After Alvin Ailey died in 1989, Artistic Director Judith Jamison who is a veteran of the company, having been the company's principle dancer for fifteen years, took the helm.
Indeed in 1971, Ailey wrote the autobiographical solo work 'Cry' for her.
She has helped to keep the company on course; keeping alive the spirit of its founder whilst allowing it to develop: "I've got an extraordinary variety of dancers, a variety of repertory, there are 180 ballets in the repertory and all of them having something different to say. And I think this cornucopia is one of the most important things about the Ailey company," she says.
But Jamison is keen to point out that the company represents the experience of modern dance generally and not just the African American experience.
And whilst one associates the music of artists such as Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker with the company's repertory, more and more international works such as 'Polish Pieces' by Dutch choreographer Hans van Manen are being introduced into the line up.
It seems that Ailey's dream like the rest of the world must move with the times.
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