The Alvin Ailey and his American Theater - Assignment Example

Alvin Ailey Alvin Ailey, who is the choreographer that came up with the Alvin Ailey American Theater far back in the year1958, was born on 5 January 1931 (Gitenstein 7). His parents were Alvin and Elizabeth. During these years, the parents were living in Rogers, Texas, which was just a small town, and so Alvin is said to be born there. Ailey had no sibling, as he was the only child to the couple. His father engaged himself with manual work, an indication of not a very good background for Ailey. His childhood seemed not very smooth as the father left him and his mother when he was only a few months old (Gitenstein 8). Alvin and his mother, Elizabeth, shifted to Navasota, Texas when he was only six years old. As for his education, he attended a school for the whites, where he felt so much discriminated and undermined, as there was so much of racism. He attended a church for the blacks named as Black Baptism Church. Here, only people of a specific race were accommodated. This also happened in theatres and anything that surrounded the place. In their childhood therefore, Ailey and his generation mates grew feeling singled out from the society. Ailey and his mother moved from Navasota to Los Angeles in the year 1942 (Gitenstein 12-14). The ensuing part of his childhood seemed better as his mother got a better job with an aircraft factory and Ailey joined high school as a result. In high school, Ailey decided to join football players in the school’s gymnastics team. This was due to his great passion for athletics in those times. Though Ailey never believed in himself when it came to dancing skills, he always admired the dancers as he watched them perfect their dancing skills at school. He also loved the music that he used to hear at the local dancehalls. His favorite dancers were Gene Kelly, who were in the industry for over fifty years, from 1912 to 1996, and Fred Astaire, from 1899 to 1987 (Gitenstein 16-19). He made up his mind to take part in the dancing lessons that were going on at a neighbor’s home. Ailey’s strong passion for dancing was created after visiting a modern dance school, which was operated by Lester Horton. He was persuaded to make the visit by his good friend called Carmen. There he realized that the dance company was the first and only institution to acknowledge members from any race. To him, it was much pleasing to be in a place where racism is not an issue of concern. Ailey decided to train there as a dancer for a whole month. What inspired him even more was the performance of Ballet Carlo and Katherine Dance Company. He was not so certain though, as he was not aware of the opportunities that would be available for him as a member of the great dancers. After one month of dancing affairs, he left the company for school. In high school, he studied hard and graduated in the year 1948. Later on after the graduation, Ailey felt he would put into consideration becoming a teacher. For this reason, he decided to join the University of California, where he had qualified as per the intake requirements. This University was situated at Los Angeles, where he lived with his mother. There he settled for a course in languages, as he was very strong and talented in the area right from his high school studies. During his time of study, Horton decided to sponsor him as his mentor in 1949, and he found his way back to the dance school. There he trained again for a whole year before leaving for Francisco State College. Even before the end of his dance training, Ailey had an opportunity to perform in San Francisco at California. He later went back to complete his training at the Horton school. His significance in performance in this company began to show up in 1953. In this year, Horton decided to move his company to the east so as to take part in a performance that took place in New York City. Ailey was with him and working closely. Later on in 1953, the company’s director, Horton, died and Ailey took over as the new director for the company as young as he was (Gitenstein 21-22). Ailey expressed his cherished desires to follow Horton’s path by choreographing two presentations to be showed at the Jacob’s Pillow dance Festival in Becket, at Massachusetts. This served a challenge as the job was poorly reviewed by the manager of the festival, leading to cut off of the troupe. Even after the unfortunate happening, Ailey’s dancing career was not interrupted. He was invited in a musical presentation based on Truman Capote’s book, House of Flowers, by a Broadway producer (Fleming 26-28). This indicates that not one idea but circumstances prompted him to continue with the path of dancing. Even as he was performing in the show, he went on with his dancing classes specifically the Ballet and acting classes. Ailey took part in the musical productions in the 1950s and 1960s including the Broadway production. He also played major roles in some of them such as the ‘Tiger Burning Bright’. In Hebrew Association for the young men and women in New York City, in 1958, Ailey combined with another dancer, whom they shared an interest in choreographing, to recruit dancers for good performance. In this Association, modern dances and the new choreographers’ outputs were presented. Ailey presented his first major work named as the “Blue Suite”, which was animated by blues music. His performance was significantly good and recognized by many. After that, he organized the second concert, which characterized his works and later the third, which emerged as his best performance in terms of fame. It was named Revelation (Fleming 109). It was composed of a reflection of the African American religious life. In the year 1959, Ailey set up the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater with a humble beginning of only eight black dancers. This shows that he had specific contributions to dance. After a life span of one year, the theatre made great progress, as it became major dance company in in the New York City. In his 1960s, Ailey left dancing for choreography (Fleming 70). He was vertically challenged and struggled a lot. For this reason, he decided to give up on dancing. Since he was the director of the dance company, it was his duty to supervise business details and progress. Ailey faced financial constrains in running the company even after receiving financial help from the private and public organizations. This was a sign that offering modern dance around the world was just not enough. Ailey was however crowned the best soloist in modern dance. In addition, he accommodated people of different races in his company. The company later developed and shifted to Brooklyn New York as a resident dance company. It worked in the line of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which was a center of arts and had three theaters. In the 1960s, the company made a presentation in Southeast Asia and Australia which was an international cultural program created by President John F. Kennedy (Fleming 124). It later proceeded to Brazil and West Africa for performances. On and on the company made progress towards fame. Ailey worked on numerous projects together with many other artists working in the same dimension as his. These artists included Duke Ellington. By 1970s, he had made the company one of the most famous dance troupes in America. Here again he stopped dancing and hesitated his participation in choreographic works to attend to a fund raising operation which was associated with his ever growing dance company. This is another contribution that he made towards dance. It all expressed his zeal for dancing and moving his company to greater heights as far as dancing is concerned. His dancing career continued up to the year 1980, when he suffered from health breakdowns and was admitted to hospital for a number of weeks. He kept pressing on regardless of the illness and even received medal awards. This was in spite of some financial problems. He later died of blood disorder on 1 December 1989. This condition is believed to be a stress related illness. This shows that his struggle with his company was real, meaning it was not at all easy to make the progress Ailey made with his company. This solitary struggle had set him apart from public concentration. Though Ailey accepted to be interviewed from different sectors, he happened to decidedly choose to remain secretive as far as his private life was concerned. He would never offer any information on how he lived. The only questions Ailey answered were job related questions about his dancing history and company for that matter. This is why it is yet to be fully confirmed on whether Ailey had a wife and children or not. Before Ailey’s death, he was interviewed about his mission in the dance company, and he stated that the essence of this company was to keep the dancers alive, well fed and to stimulate their experience in dancing. Ailey also mentioned that he would never be associated with racism as his mission was to initiate an attitude in the public that everyone is a human being just like any other, regardless of the color. After the death of Ailey, Judith Jamison took over as the newly appointed director of the company. Works Cited Fleming, Robert. Alvin Ailey. Los Angeles, Calif: Melrose Square Pub, 1998. Print. Gitenstein, Judy. Alvin Ailey. New York: Rosen Central, 2006. Print. Read More