Auditorium Theatre 2018-19 Issue 3 Alvin Ailey

8 | AUDITORIUM THEATRE 2018-19 | March 6 - March 30, 2019 1971 – The company performs at City Center in New York for the first time. Ailey choreographs Cry for Jamison as a birthday present for his mother. The piece is dedicated to "all black women everywhere – especially our mothers." 1972 – Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater becomes New York City Center's first resident modern dance company. Ailey choreographs Carmen for the Metropolitan Opera. Jamison becomes a presidential appointee to the National Endowment for the Arts. 1976 – Ailey choreographs Pas de Duke for Jamison and Mikhail Baryshnikov. He receives the prestigious Spingarn Award from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). 1977 – The Ailey company performs at President Jimmy Carter’s inaugural gala at the White House. 1982 – Ailey receives the United Nations Peace Medal. 1983 – The Ailey company celebrates its 25 th anniversary with a special program that causes the New York Times to proclaim that “Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is not just a company, it is a school of thought.” 1984 – Jamison premieres her first ballet, Divining , set on the Ailey company. 1985 – Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is the first modern dance company to go on a United States-sponsored tour of the People’s Republic of China. 1987 – Ailey receives the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award, a huge commemoration in the modern dance arena. 1988 – Ailey receives the Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime contribution to American culture through the performing arts. He also receives New York City’s Handel Medallion, an award given to individuals for their contributions to the city’s cultural landscape. 1989 – Ailey asks Jamison to succeed him as Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Ailey dies at the age of 58. At his funeral, poet Maya Angelou reads “For Alvin Ailey” and dancers from the Ailey company perform excerpts from Revelations and Cry . “Eyes may have been filled with tears but faces were smiling,” the Washington Post reports. “America buried Alvin Ailey as the king of dance that he was. And it was clear … that he lives on. In the hearts and minds of the millions who saw and loved his work, in the fond memories of his friends and family. But most of all, and forever, in the dancers and the dance.” Judith Jamison in Alvin Ailey’s Cry . JACK MITCHELL MAX WALDMAN JACK VARTOOGIAN Judith Jamison, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Alvin Ailey. Judith Jamison and Alvin Ailey.