Joe Skinner: For some artists, their creative spark hits them at a very young age. And for a lot of professions, you need to train from a very young age. For a ballerina, it can be as early as 5 years old to start developing the flexibility and skills needed. And for dancer Alicia Graf Mack, her mind was set on dance even earlier than that.
Alicia Graf Mack: I always say I grew up dancing. I think I was dancing in the womb. You know, it’s part of my DNA. And my parents recognized that I was a mover, I think probably from the time I could walk. And at two and a half years old, they put me in a dance class. They knew exactly what I needed at the time. And from the time that I knew that a ballerina was a real thing, not just like a fairytale sort of creature, that there are ballerinas that actually walk this earth, I knew that that is what I wanted to do.
Joe Skinner: In fact, Alicia has an old home video from when she was in a small performing arts group back in 1983, at the age of 4:
Archival Video: We have a nice tall gal. What’s your name? Alicia. Alicia, that is a beautiful name, how do you spell that? A-L-I-C-I-A.
Alicia Graf Mack: We sang and we learned some choreography and the teacher was dedicated to enhancing lives through music and movement.
Archival Video: What do you like to do besides all your dancing and singing and playing around? Ballerina!
Alicia Graf Mack: Very clearly, I just said, Ballerina! That is what I want to be. And that has not changed, even though my abilities and my body now, I’m mid-forties, you know, and passing on the torch to very capable young people. But, that dancer’s heart has not changed or wavered. In fact, I think it’s gotten stronger over the years.
Joe Skinner: I’m Joe Skinner, and this is American Masters: Creative Spark. In each episode, our guest breaks down their creative journey behind a single work of art. But instead of a single work of art, this week we’ll look at the journey that dancer Alicia Graf Mack took to earn top positions at both Juilliard and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, two of the most respected dance institutions in the country.
Alicia Graf Mack: I had a videotape of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater that I watched until it warped. Specifically, a woman named Donna Wood performing “Cry.” Which was one of Ailey’s signature solos.
Joe Skinner: “Cry” is a 16-minute dance solo choreographed by Alvin Ailey in 1971. He originally choreographed it as a birthday present for his mother, and dedicated it to all Black women everywhere.
Alicia Graf Mack: You see this woman going through this journey from struggle to triumph, and watching Donna Wood perform it with such dignity. and grace and just this fierce boldness that she had – it really touched me. I was drawn to trying to see as many tall Black dancers as I could when I was young, because I just didn’t really see them in my immediate kind of path. You can immediately see that she was a statuesque, very tall, light-skinned Black woman like myself. Something else that stood out to me was in the video, she had her hair in cornrows and I had never seen a classically trained dancer presented with cornrows in her hair. Something in her eyes spoke to me. You know, oftentimes we say video can’t capture dance the way that you kind of experience it when you see it live. But because they were able to do close ups of her face, I was drawn to her character.
Joe Skinner (Interview): What’s the earliest memory you have of seeing a performance that you just thought, wow, like I want to be on stage at some point?
Alicia Graf Mack: I’m from Columbia, Maryland, so we would go to the Kennedy center. We would go to the Lyric in Baltimore. We would go to local performances. But I think one of the most formative experiences that I had was the first time that I saw Dance Theatre of Harlem. The curtain rose and this beautiful brown ballerina in brown tights that matched her skin color and brown pointe shoes stood right in front of me and was bourréing, which means like little runs on pointe across the floor, and I remember in that moment, the tears just came down my eyes. As much dance as I had seen, that was the first time I saw a black ballerina on stage who looked like me. And I connected immediately with her, her name is Christina Johnson, and I just sat there and wept because she was so beautiful. And I realized when seeing her that it was possible for me. I stand at nearly six feet tall, which is very unusual for a dancer. And I am a Black woman. And so the odds were very much against me in terms of making a life as a professional ballerina. But when you see that one person, you realize that the cliche of representation matters is so real. The next day they taught a master class at my school. I was 11. And they signed my pointe shoes, “maybe we’ll see you at Dance Theatre of Harlem one day.”
Joe Skinner: With her goals literally emblazoned into her shoes, Alicia trained. And trained. And trained.
Alicia Graf Mack: My coach, Donna Pidel, came to my school, and she trained me in ballet for about six months. And she pulled me aside and she said, “Do you want to be a professional dancer?” I said, “Yes, of course, there’s nothing else in the world that I want to do.” And she said, “Okay, well we’re going to get to work.” And she trained me like an Olympic athlete. I studied dance from probably 3:30 until about 9:30 in the evening, and then I would go home and do my homework and do all the things. Donna Pidel also believed that it was important to train well rounded dancers. So although most of my hours were spent studying classical ballet, I also took a modern class a week, a jazz class, and I had a deep love for all different types of movement, for sure. And then I was preparing for international competitions. So sometimes I would train in the morning at 5 o’clock. So I would say I trained like an Olympic athlete to prepare to start a career at 17 years old.
Joe Skinner: The dancer who signed Alicia’s shoes – Christina Johnson – also started her career at 17 years old, and ended up at the Dance Theatre of Harlem by age 19. And like her idol before her, the hard work paid off for Alicia Graf Mack. That inscription on her shoes that said, “Maybe we’ll see you at Dance Theatre of Harlem,” proved to be prophetic.
Alicia Graf Mack: At 17 years old, I was recruited to join the Dance Theatre of Harlem. These moments there, they’re real. They are the sign that our steps are ordered, that there is a destiny that we are meant to fulfill.
Joe Skinner: Arthur Mitchell was the first ever Black principal dancer in a major ballet company. After hearing of Martin Luther King, Jr’s assassination in 1968, Mitchell was inspired to start a classical ballet school for children in Harlem.
Alicia Graf Mack: When I walked into the Dance Theatre of Harlem and Arthur Mitchell saw me in all my six foot beauty, even when I put my pointe shoes on, standing at 6’4, he never once said, “you might be too tall.” He said, “we have lots of tall, you know, partners for you here.” I never had to fight to feel a sense of belonging. I only had to do the thing that I was hired to do.
Joe Skinner: Alicia has likened working at the Dance Theatre of Harlem with “stepping into Wakanda.” Quickly she started getting principal dancer roles.
Alicia Graf Mack: I had danced for Dance Theatre of Harlem for three years, and I was kind of having a meteoric rise there. And all of a sudden my body fought against me. I had spent so much time training, dedicating my life, sacrificing so much as a young person to achieve this dream that I realized I had no identity outside of being a dancer. That was most definitely the most difficult period in my life.
Joe Skinner: Alicia’s knees had been swelling up like grapefruit. And on some days, she had trouble even walking. She was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, or AS, an autoimmune disease that is a form of arthritis.
Alicia Graf Mack: When I could not dance, I hit rock bottom and it took me about a year to realize you’re fighting against something that’s not going to heal in terms of my autoimmune disease. You know, the mechanical injuries, sort of, you know, cartilage tears and things like that, those things heal. But, this is chronic and it’s not going to go away. And I realized that I needed to figure out who Alicia is outside of being a dancer.
Joe Skinner: So Alicia left dance behind and attended the Columbia University School of General Studies.
Alicia Graf Mack: It’s a really beautiful community. And during that time, I discovered myself. I got to experience life. Like, I had a boyfriend for the first time ever. I had time to be with my family. I used my love to communicate, I figured out how to do it, through my writing, through my ability to analyse. That’s what made me want to be a history major.
Joe Skinner: She went on to get her BA in history and found herself on a path towards a corporate career. She even had a gig at JP Morgan ready to go, but then she started to dance again.
Alicia Graf Mack: I really learned that I could survive without it. In my senior year, I realized, I didn’t want to survive without it though. My body started to feel better. I started taking classes here and there until I realized, whoa, I’m spending a lot of time training. My parents were like, “you’re going back to dance, what are you doing?” “I have to try!” And that’s what I did. And of course, dancing is more than just steps. So, coming back, With maturity, having known the world a little bit more, having known myself a little bit more, I became such a seasoned artist. And that would not have happened without all of these, you know, roadblocks that stood in my way.
Joe Skinner: Alicia found herself back in the dance world, and soon enough, she reached another one of her career milestones.
Alicia Graf Mack: I realized that at some point in my life, I needed to dance for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
Joe Skinner: Alvin Ailey was a trailblazing choreographer who founded his studio in 1958 at just 27 years old. His work fuses together theater, ballet, modern dance and jazz with a focus on the Black experience. If you follow the dance world at all, I’m sure you know about his masterpiece, “Revelations,” which is one of the most popular ballets in the world. In her time at the company, Alicia was under the artistic direction of Judith Jamison, who had also been a principal dancer at the company. Here’s Jamison in an outtake from our American Masters documentary on Alvin Ailey:
Judith Jamison (Archival): With Alvin Ailey, you have an undying will, that comes from your depths, to do what you do, or you don’t do it. And that’s what he had.
Alicia Graf Mack: I’ll try not to get emotional. Because the feelings are still pretty raw.
Joe Skinner: In a tragic turn of fate, Judith Jamison passed away just days before my conversation with Alicia.
Alicia Graf Mack: Judith Jameson was my north star. I kept a poster of her in my bedroom growing up, like she was my Michael Jordan. I joined the company under her direction. And she lived up to every ounce of expectation or, you know, that I had for someone of her stature. She would give incredible notes and corrections. And she would say it in the voice of Ailey. And I have this funny story – in ballet we turn out, right? Our feet are always pointed outwards, and you’re always aiming to have almost 180-degree turnout, like a straight line. In modern dance, that sort of turnout is used, but, uh, not as, it’s not as prevalent in, uh, in modern dance. So the first thing you do in “Revelations,” is the section called, “I’ve Been Buked,” and the curtain goes up and everybody’s standing in second position with their feet turned out. So coming from a ballet background, I was trying to really turn out my feet, you know? And in rehearsal, she said to me, “you know, Mr. Ailey really didn’t have turnout, so you don’t have to do it like that. And if you try to stand like that, sweetie. you’re going to fall over.” So, you know, she would say things, I was like wow she is the direct descendent of someone who set our world in motion. I never had to fight to feel a sense of belonging. I walked into the door and I was accepted for exactly who I am. I didn’t have to prove anything to anyone regarding my race, my size, how I looked.
Joe Skinner: After bouncing back and forth with more injuries, and years of success dancing at Ailey, including performances for Beyonce, John Legend, Andre 3000, and Alicia Keys, Alicia Graf Mack went on to become the first woman of color to serve as the director of the dance division at Juilliard School in 2018. It was here that she had the opportunity to pass along her experiences as a dancer to the next generation.
Joe Skinner (Interview): It feels to me like the curriculum that you’ve built at Juilliard is really stressing that there’s more to dance, more to life than just dance and how that can actually make you a much better dancer in the long run, right?
Alicia Graf Mack: Yes, and this is building upon a tradition that has always been at Juilliard. The founder of the division, Martha Hill, she created something that had never been done before, in 1951, which was to place equal emphasis on ballet and modern dance. So you’re creating these hybrid artists that are sort of like chameleons. And it creates not only a very exciting electric dance. sort of dancer, but also it creates longevity in their careers. So a dancer could start in a ballet company and when they feel ready, they can move to a modern dance company. They could go to Broadway. They could do commercial work. They could do all of these things because the time that they spent at Juilliard was so diverse in the material, in the languages that they studied. So we look for dancers that meet the mark in terms of professionalism, technical proficiency, the ability to communicate, the courage to study something deeply for four years, but also finding that spark, that intangible thing that exists in that student, no matter their size, their shape, where they come from, their socioeconomic background, their race. That’s what makes them special. Then they really have something to say. And that’s the type of artist that we are interested in lifting up and then kind of launching out into the world.
Joe Skinner (Interview): What has been sort of historically outdated about the field of dance and what do you hope to see as change that you’re bringing to that and you and your peers are bringing to that?
Alicia Graf Mack: What I think is so beautiful about the tradition and the craft that I feel like I hold in my heart and in my hands is that it is built on tradition, and it is alive. So that means it’s always changing. And to provide a relevant curriculum for the students, I always want to make sure that we’re reflecting the field as it is, but also the field as we want it to be. For me, ballet that has existed for hundreds and hundreds of years is one of the most beautiful technologies in existence. But I think that our culture sometimes then is layered on top of that beautiful technology, and sometimes it tells stories that could be outdated. So something like, you’re learning classical ballet and there are certain norms, or you’re learning ballet and there are certain norms that have come across because of choreography. Where a woman is partnered by a man, or that women wear a tutu and men wear tights. And we, in the 21st century, want to be open to addressing these ideas, but also holding onto the beautiful technology, which is these codified forms of movement. Taking those away and erasing the whole, the field of ballet, does not serve us, but it is figuring out ways to allow young people to enter into this understanding, learn this brilliant technology so they can tell their own stories. So some of the things that we’ve done at Juilliard is addressing what was gender based classes, pointe work that has typically been reserved for female dancers, and, men’s class, which has been reserved for men. At Juilliard, we have pointe class and we have allegro, and those are skills-based courses. Anyone that comes to Juilliard and is studying dance can take any of those classes. And it is a way to understand your body and understand the language without preconceived notions of who the dancer is. We want the dancer to find who they are for us. Instead of the opposite way around of putting a dancer into a box because of a tradition that may not serve us anymore.
Joe Skinner (Interview): I can’t help but feel the echoes of this kind of conversation and discourse to everything going on in culture at this moment.
Alicia Graf Mack: Yeah, and I think being at an institution of higher learning is a privilege because we can have these conversations. It’s all about discourse. It’s all about innovation. It’s all about understanding the past so that we can honor the tradition, honor the foundations, honor the people, even if they were flawed, even if they lived in a time or generation that didn’t think the way that we do now. What are the things that made their legacy enduring? We hold on to those things. And then, you know, we move forward. But that’s how time moves forward. That’s how we move forward. Lucky are we, that we are artists, that it is our job to speak truth to the moment. So let’s study, let’s do the work, and we will carry on. And that’s how civilizations move forward. When you look back at, like, the great civilizations of the world, or various periods of time, you look at their art. You learn their music. You see what paintings were made. You read literature. That’s the culture. We are the keepers of the culture, so let’s do it with excellence. That was what I hoped to impart on the students, and I know that they will carry that ideal forward.
Joe Skinner: Today, Alicia Graf Mack leads the next generation of dancers at Juilliard, and you can see some of that work now at their annual Spring Dances program, which is coming up soon from March 26th-29th. You can learn more about the show on the Juilliard website. But that’s not the end of her story. After the break, some surprising news that brings Alicia Graf Mack’s career in full circle.
Shortly after our first interview, headlines popped up in the New York Times: Alvin Ailey Dance Chooses Alicia Graf Mack to be Next Leader. She’s set to become the fourth artistic director, after Alvin Ailey, Judith Jamison, and Robert Battle before her. We had to talk about it.
Joe Skinner (Interview): Great to see you again.
Alicia Graf Mack: Nice to see you again, too.
Joe Skinner (Interview): So how does it feel to be the fourth artistic director of Alvin Ailey?
Alicia Graf Mack: Wow. It is surreal, because as I explained to you before, I grew up idolizing the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. It was a company that I was familiar with since I was a kid and specifically I had a poster of Judith Jamison, who was a star in the company under Alvin Ailey, and he asked her to take over the company when he became ill. And, you know, to kind of carry on her torch and his torch and Robert Battle’s flame is just an incredible privilege and honor and I’m very excited to start this. Absolutely.
Joe Skinner (Interview): So what vision would say each of them brought to Alvin Ailey? I mean, I expected over so many years for there to be more than four artistic directors. I’m kind of surprised that there’s only been three prior to you. They must have each had their own unique vision.
Alicia Graf Mack: Absolutely. I think that, Judith Jamieson and Robert Battle, who actually is an alum of the Juilliard School, they are singular artists, and both of them rooted their journeys in the path that Alvin Ailey set out. We call it the blueprint. You know, even as a dancer, we understood what the mission of the company was. And firstly, it is to share our humanity through the art form of dance. To uplift and share stories from Black lives and Black culture and to expand the possibilities of the field of dance. There is a famous quote that says, “dance came from the people and we’re going to give it back to the people.” That’s an Alvin Ailey quote.
Joe Skinner (Interview): What does it mean to make dance for the people?
Alicia Graf Mack: I think that there is a wonderful level of accessibility in the works that the company performs. I think that all of the dances are rooted in stories of real people, or even if the movement is more abstract, or the idea around a piece is more abstract, it’s something that anyone can understand. It’s something that anyone can feel. Often times when people go to see Alvin Ailey, they’re there for an experience. They want to be uplifted. They’re ready to be transported in that moment. So, there never is something that’s so abstract or so kind of like heady that you wouldn’t be able to enjoy the experience and take something from the experience. So it’s for the every person and not to be presented as an elitist art form.
Joe Skinner (Interview): You know, obviously we’re all an accumulation of our past experiences. And so I’m curious how the hard work you’ve been doing at Juilliard is going to influence your approach when you go to Ailey. And what will you bring from Juilliard to Ailey?
Alicia Graf Mack: I will bring so much. I have learned so much in this role. And the thing that I will carry the most from my experience at Juilliard is the excellence, the incredible talent. And just the sheer hunger of these young artists who are ready to break out and dance in the field. They give me so much hope for the field that I love. And, I know that with these young people coming out of Juilliard and all of these incredible institutions, that we will have so many beautiful artists to watch as the Ailey Company moves forward.
Joe Skinner: And that’s our show. A big thank you to Alicia Graf Mack for taking the time to talk with us twice. Listen to more American Masters: Creative Spark wherever you get your podcasts, and don’t forget to rate and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also listen on our site at pbs.org/americanmasters. American Masters: Creative Spark is a production of the WNET Group, media made possible by all of you. This episode was produced by me, Joe Skinner. Our executive producer is Michael Kantor.
