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JUDITH JAMISON: UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
By Elizabeth Zimmer
Born in 1943, she was the daughter of parents raised in the segregated South who met and married in Philadelphia. Always tall and very active, she entered dance classes at the age of six, at the school run by Marion Cuyjet, herself a product of the thriving black cultural scene in Philadelphia. Jamison's mother had wanted to be a concert violinist; instead she channeled her creative energy into raising a daughter whose birthright was all the arts. Her father, an engineer and a pianist, taught her to play the piano and took her to the airport, where, she relates, she would "watch the planes take off and land. I was fascinated; how could an enormous steel bird fly so gracefully? I like the sound of very large engines, the grace of wings, the phenomenon of flight."
On pointe by the time she was eight, she also studied the technique of Katherine Dunham, an anthropologist who'd studied in Africa (and later settled in Haiti). Her parents took her to see touring dance troupes, and her teacher sent her to train with some great artists in New York and Philadelphia. At 14, Jamison began teaching younger students, danced "Giselle" and "Sleeping Beauty" soon after, played in the All-Philadelphia String Ensemble, graduated from Germantown High School, and briefly attended Fisk University, in Nashville. She accomplished all this before returning to dance full time at the Philadelphia Dance Academy. It was during this time that she also studied the Lester Horton technique -- Alvin Ailey's original dance vocabulary -- with Joan Kerr and first saw the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT), featuring Ailey himself.
"When I came onstage you knew I looked like half a battleship," says Jamison in her autobiography, DANCING SPIRIT. At 5'10" she had never been an ingenue; she was always athletic, majestic, maternal. She made her New York debut in "The Four Marys," a work by Agnes de Mille for American Ballet Theatre, in 1965. That same year, after her brief sojourn with de Mille, Jamison sustained herself by doing odd jobs -- including running a log-flume ride at the New York World's Fair -- and then auditioned for a Harry Belafonte television special with Donald McKayle when she was spotted by Ailey, who'd been watching the audition. Three days later he asked her to join his company.
The rest is history. For more than 15 years she was Ailey's muse, confidante, helpmeet. She was just in time for the huge flurry of touring created by funding from the fledgling National Endowment for the Arts, on whose board she (but not Ailey) was later invited to serve. Prior to that, the company's international tours -- to Africa, Italy, Spain, Paris, and Russia -- were sponsored by the State Department as well as aided by the financial backing of Rebekah Harkness, an heiress with a yen for dance.
Excerpted from an essay originally featured on the DANCE IN AMERICA: A HYMN FOR ALVIN AILEY (1999) Web companion.
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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