Judith Jamison is bringing her internationally renowned group to Birmingham. Diane Parkes gets a rare audience.
For the past 20 years Judith Jamison has led the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater across the world.
After being personally asked by Ailey to take over the helm at the New York company, her mark is everywhere.
From the pieces she has choreographed to the massive portrait of her made out of tiny tiles which adorns one wall of the company’s new base in midtown Manhattan, she is part of the lifeblood of AAADT.
Having become a foremost figure for dance in the US, and indeed across the globe, gaining admittance to the hallowed ground which is her office is no mean task.
I have flown to New York as part of a Dance Consortium visit in preparation for the company’s UK tour later this year and am the only one to be allocated a “slot” with Ms Jamison.
Sitting regally behind her immense desk, Jamison is surrounded by an eclectic mix of objects, books and papers including a copy of Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom and a Barbie doll which she helped to design to celebrate the 50th anniversary of her dance company.
Smiling broadly, she says hello and then warns me “You have two minutes” before asking a member of staff to move a pot plant which is sitting between us.
In many ways AAADT has become as much Jamison’s project as it was Ailey’s. Over the years in which she has been its artistic director she has taken it to international standing, organised the planning and erection of its base and ensured Ailey’s legacy lives on.
But it was announced in April that 67-year-old Jamison is to step down as artistic director and hand the baton over to up-and-coming choreographer Robert Battle, who also happens to be in the office when I arrive.
Brought up in Philadelphia, Jamison was discovered by Agnes de Mille and first performed with American Ballet Theatre in 1964.
A year later she danced with Alvin Ailey – becoming one of the company’s star performers for the next 15 years.
Ailey created some of his most famous roles for her including his emotional solo Cry and Pas de Duke which saw Jamison performing with ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov to music by Duke Ellington.
When Ailey was dying he asked her to take over his company and Jamison became artistic director in 1989.
She is often quoted as saying that Ailey left her a “road map” for the company which he had founded in 1958.
I ask her what she means by this.
“He left a very clear plan because Alvin was always trying to celebrate the human experience through dance,” says Jamison.
“The incentive for what we were doing was love of the craft of dancing and, through that, being able to connect to people and express their humanity.
“The heartbeat of this company is the heartbeat of a person. We are trying to connect with the soul and intimate experience of the body and mind because this is the experience of living.
“Alvin’s work crosses boundaries. It crosses families and generations – it is cross cultural, cross racial, cross everything. People of all backgrounds love the idea of this dance.”
Jamison admits that when Ailey asked her to take over the company it was in some ways a leap of faith but she believes he saw something in her which convinced him she was the right person.
“He asked me to continue to be true to his legacy,” she says. “He was very good at seeing people for who they really could be. He saw in me, Judith Jamison, not just an artist but someone who could be trusted to take the company forward.”
Part of that onward process is the glass emporium in which we are seated. Sited on 55th Street and 9th Avenue, the state-of-the-art building not
only houses rehearsal and performance spaces, it has become a visual symbol for the company. With dance and fitness classes open to local people, AAADT is attempting to be part of its local neighbourhood and to build on its community spirit.
“Alvin always wanted the company to have its own four walls and he always called New York the company’s home,” says Jamison. “It was always the intention to have a permanent residence. I am really proud that this building happened on my watch.”
It is while we are discussing the building and its fabulous views over Manhattan, that Jamison reminds me we have “one minute”.
Jamison was determined to continue the company’s reputation for new and dynamic work. Over the past two decades she has created many pieces including Reminiscin’, set to music by Ella Fitzgerald, Joni Mitchell and George and Ira Gershwin, which was performed at Birmingham’s Hippodrome Theatre in 2005.
But taking over AAADT meant not only looking inwards but also fostering new talent from different sources. The company has performed more than 200 works by more than 70 choreographers across the globe.
Jamison’s enormous contribution to the development of the company has been recognised on the current tour which comes to the UK in the autumn.
Marking the 20th anniversary of her directorship, the season features her piece Hymn, which she created as a tribute to Ailey, plus a new work by Christopher Huggins which is currently in preparation.
Due to be performed at Birmingham Hippodrome in October, it also features the company’s signature work Revelations. Created by Ailey in 1960, the tour celebrates the 50th anniversary of the work which always concludes an AAADT performance.
Set to African-American spirituals, Revelations charts the African-American journey from slavery into freedom and from sorrow to joy.
Jamison says that even after all these years that piece, in which she performed a lead role for many years, still touches her.
“I have seen it more than anyone else has seen it and it remains a testament to someone who felt the human experience,” she says. “When I watch Revelations I feel elated by it. It takes me back to the church background where I grew up.
“Anyone who was brought up in a black church background can identify with the joy and the suffering and everything in between that happens emotionally when you have this group of congregants, this group of faithful people, together. It is full of the spirit of people.
“When you see people at these churches singing and clapping their hands they really are joyful. It is something felt and sensed in the heart. It comes from the heart.
“But you don’t need to have been brought up with this background to understand it. There are many people in the company who can still connect with it and with its journey of the human spirit. And the audience connects with it. It doesn’t matter what their background is, they still experience that joy.”
While AAADT has remained true to its founder’s creations, it has also worked with a wide range of choreographers over the years. Jamison says this was part of Ailey’s vision.
“Alvin always envisaged the company as a repertory company. He didn’t want just one choreographer or one voice.
‘‘The company acted as a fertile ground for his peers and Alvin was always paying attention to the ideas of other choreographers. He was always interested in the future of dance.”
Which is why the company has also worked with choreographers as diverse as Rennie Harris, David Parsons, Ulysses Dove, Hans van Manen and Twyla Tharp.
There have also been a number of collaborations with choreographer Robert Battle – who is to take over Jamison’s role of artistic director at AAADT next year.
Battle, who first worked with the younger branch AAADT II, has created works including Mood Indigo, Juba and In/Side for the company and worked with Jamison and Rennie Harris for Love Stories in 2004.
But Jamison, who published her autobiography Dancing Spirit, has no plans to disappear completely.
“I will be emeritus from next July and Robert will take the full mantle but I will still be here and will probably be even busier,” she says. “I always have a lot to say and do. There is writing and coaching and nurturing young talent to ensure a future for dance.”
And Robert, who will also be touring with the company when it comes to the UK, says he appreciates her involvement.
“I feel very much that I am not alone in taking over the company,” he says. “Miss Jamison told me that when she took over from Alvin Ailey people would talk about her stepping into his shoes but she saw it more as sitting on his shoulders. It is the same for me.
“I am excited and optimistic about what is to come. This is a company which is very personal, like a big family, and it is led from the heart.”
* Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater perform a mixed bill at Birmingham Hippodrome on October 5-6. For tickets contact 0844 338 5000 or see www.birminghamhippodrome.com
