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AILEY'S LEGACY
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This time, Citigroup, a major sponsor of the dance company, helped to arrange the trip, which in the past was controlled by the take-no-prisoners Soviet Intourist agency. The fans who once raced down the street after the Ailey dancers crying, "Vodka, vodka," in the hope of a conversation over drinks now lingered to talk amiably at the stage door. And despite Russian journalists' questions about the influence of ballet on the Ailey repertory, there was a greater comfort level with the look of the dances.
"We opened doors," Jamison says of the earlier Russian tours. Such staples of modern technique as flat backs, lateral presses, and coccyx balances might still seem a little foreign, Jamison said. But now, she added, "they've [Russian audiences] been exposed to a whole lot of things."
And this time, the Ailey dancers left New York not from temporary headquarters provided by the YWCA in a former hotel, but from an entire eight-story building intended, as one of its architects put it, to be "a canvas for the artists to express themselves." Inside, there are 12 studios, a black-box theater that has already become a popular space for dance artists to present their seasons, administrative offices, a library, and physical therapy rooms. Outside, larger-than-life Ailey stars hover over the bustle of city traffic in depictions on striking shades that can cover huge windows looking in on the center's numerous dance classes and rehearsals.
What would Ailey, a dreamer who made do with a succession of temporary homes, have made of all this? "He had a high-pitched, tickly laugh when he was beside himself," Jamison says. "That's what I think he would do. I think he'd be bowled over that this actually happened, from his idea. He'd just be totally tickled. ... I can hear him laughing right now."
But his down-home kindness and sense of the individual have not been lost in all the glass and steel. Last December, an elegant old Catalan lady who had come to New York from Barcelona to see her beloved Ailey company walked by to look at the new headquarters. On the spur of the moment, she asked at the front desk if she could be shown around, and to her amazement a young man from the administrative offices came downstairs and took great pains to show her everything.
"If you don't feel Alvin's generosity and his embrace when you come in, then we've failed," Jamison says when told of the visit. "So part of his embrace is, yeah, someone came and took her around 77,000 square feet of building. Alvin would have done the same thing."
Top banner photos: Clifton Brown, Matthew Rushing, and Dwana Adiaha Smallwood; Dwana Adiaha Smallwood; and Matthew Rushing (all photos by Paul Kolnik -- Thirteen/WNET).
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Artistic Director Judith Jamison with senior members of the company (photo by Paul Kolnik -- Thirteen/WNET). |
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Dancer Clifton Brown joined AAADT in 1999 (photo by Paul Kolnik -- Thirteen/WNET). |
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A DVD of the film is available from CustomFlix.com/210784. |
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