Alvin ailey former dancers
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As a teen, Alvin Ailey studied with renowned dancer, choreographer, and teacher Lester Horton. After three years of performing and training with the Lester Horton Dancers, Ailey became a choreographer and later director of the company when Lester Horton suddenly died in 1953. Equipped with his preeminent training and influence from Horton, Ailey decided to open his own dance company. He established the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) in 1958. He also created ballets for other notable companies including the American Ballet Theatre, Royal Danish Ballet, London Festival Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet, and Paris Opera Ballet among many others.
As common practice at the time, Ailey maintained a closeted persona regarding his sexuality but would utilize his art as an outlet for it. His choreographed ballets for AAADT exhibited imagery reminiscent with male and female homosexuality such as juxtaposing same-sex partnering with religious and hypermasculine archetypes. Such examples include AAADT performances of Quintet (1968), Streams (1970), Flowers (1971), a
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Biography
1931 - 1989
"One of the processes of your life is to constantly break down that inferiority, to constantly reaffirm that I Am Somebody."
- Alvin Ailey
Born in poverty in rural Texas, where racial segregation was still in full force, Alvin Ailey grew into a gifted choreographer who drew inspiration from African-American culture and went on to become an American icon. After serving as Artistic Director of his mentor Lester Horton’s Dance Theater Company, and studying with Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey and others, Ailey gathered together a group of black dancers and, in 1958, founded Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. In 1960 he debuted his choreographic masterpiece, Revelations. Inspired by his "blood memories" of Texas, the blues, spirituals and gospel, Revelations is believed to be one of the best-known and most often seen modern dance performances ever created. Ailey combined elements from ballet, modern, jazz, African ritual and contemporary dances. Each dancer’s uniqueness was important to his choreography – a paradigm shift that brought concert d
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Alvin Ailey, Founder
Please Credit Photo: Alvin Ailey. Photo by Jack Mitchell. (©) Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, Inc. and Smithsonian Institution
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Alvin Ailey was born on January 5, 1931, in Rogers, Texas. His experiences of life in the rural South would later inspire some of his most memorable works. Mr. Ailey was introduced to dance in Los Angeles by performances of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, and his formal dance training began with an introduction to Lester Horton’s classes by his friend Carmen de Lavallade. Horton, the founder of one of the first racially-integrated dance companies in the United States, became a mentor for Mr. Ailey as he embarked on his professional career. After Horton’s death in 1953, Mr. Ailey became director of the Lester Horton Dance Theater and began to choreograph his own works. In the 1950s and 60s, Mr. Ailey performed in four Broadway shows, including House of Flowers and Jamaica.
In 1958, he led a group of young black modern dancers in a
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