Judith Jamison: Remembering the Trailblazing Dance Legend

A celebration of life is being planned for Judith Jamison, a pioneering figure in modern dance and culture who helped to break down barriers for future generations.

Alvin Ailey’s artistic director emerita died “peacefully” Saturday after a brief illness, surrounded by close friends at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, according to Christopher Zunner, managing director of public relations for the dance theater. “We remember and are grateful for her artistry, humanity and incredible light, which inspired us all,” he said.

Details of the celebration will be shared at a later date.

The Philadelphian was discovered by Agnes de Mille and made her American Ballet Theatre debut in 1964. Even as a child she was such a mass of energy that her mother enrolled her in dancing school at the age of 6. “I can’t remember not dancing,” Jamison told WWD in 1973. “I never could sit still. I was a bed jumper. I had to use all that pent-up energy somehow.”

Jamison joined the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater the following year for what would be a transformative debut. Commanding with her poise and strength in that first performance in Talley Beatty’s “Congo Tango Palace,” Jamison became Ailey’s muse and a breakout star. From 1965 to 1980, Ailey created numerous roles for her, including the 1971 “Cry,” which was a birthday gift for his mother and “all Black women everywhere, especially our mothers.”

In 1972, Jamison became the first Black woman to land the cover of Dance magazine. Her dexterity could be seen dancing with a lion in the ballet Mikhail Baryshnikov set to the music of Duke Ellington in the 1976 “Pas de Duke.” In 1989 at Ailey’s request — months before his death — Jamison returned to the troupe to succeed him as artistic director, a leadership role that she would maintain through 2011.

She choreographed 10 ballets, commissioned 20 company premieres, 32 new productions and 38 world premieres. Her leadership emboldened the dancers and included two historic engagements in South Africa and a 50-city international tour for the company’s 50th anniversary. For that landmark, Mattel tapped Jamison to design the first Barbie inspired by dance — wearing a white lace costume inspired by Ailey’s “Revelations.”

Her idea for the Ailey organization’s permanent home was realized in 2005 with the opening of The Joan Weill Center for Dance, named after its chairman emerita Joan Weill. In 1999, Jamison won an Emmy for her work on “A Hymn for Alvin Ailey,” a PBS “Great Performances” documentary. That same year she was honored beside standout talents like Stevie Wonder and Jason Robards by the Kennedy Center for her lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts. And in 2015, Jamison was saluted along with other arts and culture icons like Karl Ove Knausgaard and Gloria Steinem at the 2015 New York Public Library Lion’s gala.

Misty Copeland, who became the first African American female principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre in 2015, described Jamison on Monday as “a monumental force in the arts, shattering barriers and redefining the dance world,” she said. “As a visionary dancer and artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, she forged a path for Black artists, inspiring generations with her unmatched artistry, leadership and unwavering dedication to cultural transformation.”

After exiting the Ailey troupe in 1980 to appear on Broadway in “Sophisticated Ladies,” she made some guest appearances with European dance companies and formed her own company, The Jamison Project. Choreography, starting a workshop for young dancers at Maurice Hines’ studio that Ailey later welcomed in his own school and teaching at Jacob’s Pillow were a few of her side gigs. Jamison explained to WWD in 1984, “I don’t teach technique. I teach me. That’s what I know.”

To prepare for her return to American dance in 1984, she endured a 16-day diet of apples, tofu and kelp to shed 17 pounds. By her own account in a WWD interview, she said that Miles Davis had told her she had been asleep for two-and-a-half years. “Now I’m awake again,” she said at that time.

Known to talk at top speed, unselfconsciously and with gusto, and with her hands moving nearly choreographically, Jamison told WWD that one of the most glorious times that she had ever had was when she was dancing constantly in 1984. “I love that kind of activity. It keeps my brain from atrophying and my body from going into slumber,” she said, slowly uttering those last few words and toppling to one side for effect — before springing back upright. With her long neck and 5-foot, 10-inch physique, Jamison had an eye for the arresting shape and unexpected gesture. Her ardor for Ailey led to a brief marriage with a former dancer, Miguel Godreau, that was annulled in 1974.

With a 6-foot TV screen, Jamison rightfully predicted in 1984 that videos would be “a whole new outlet for dancers and choreographers.” But she cautioned that all of the gimmicks that were being used to make them not upstage the dancing. She also said that everyone would use break dancing until they got sick of it. “What bothers me is the exposure will hurt the kids on the street corners. If they can’t do all the tricks on the screen, they won’t get their pennies.”

Jamison hoped that the media would pick up on whatever the next trend would be and the provenance of dance. Breakdancing, for example, is “just a progression of the Philly Bop, The Slop and The Chicken. Poor people have been doing those dances for years and nobody noticed. Maybe now the choreographers will notice the evolution and do something with the steps,” she said in the 1984 WWD interview.

Having first met Jamison at one of the Ailey performances, when she was new to the company, Bethann Hardison said they were mistaken for each other so frequently that at a certain point, each just politely acknowledged whomever would greet them as the other. “It was easier,” Hardison said with a laugh. After attending a 1976 White House state dinner in honor of Finland’s then-President Urho Kekkonen, Hardison received an autographed photograph of herself dancing with former President Gerald Ford that thanked “Judith” for the dance. (Jamison had visited the White House the year before.)

As for her lasting contributions, Hardison praised Jamison’s “demand of excellence from her dancers. There were some dancers that came along in the Alvin Ailey troupe that really stood out. What she was able to do was make it even more significant with the individual dancers within the company.”

The Alvin Ailey Dance Theater now encompasses the Ailey Extension, the Ailey Arts in Education & Community program and the Alvin Ailey B.F.A. program at Fordham University.

Impressed by how Jamison was able to go from a leading dancer to lead the company, Hardison credited Jamison with saving it after Ailey’s death in 1989 and enthused about the second company. “She was such a kind person too. People can recognize the genius of her especially in ‘Revelations,’ one of the most renowned dances that she did,” Hardison said. “Dancers so often are the lowest man on the totem pole [in the arts]. They get the least amount of respect and it’s a difficult career. It’s so strict as an art form, from ballet to jazz to modern. You don’t get a lot of fanfare or a lot of attention. Also, you don’t make a lot of money. It’s really a commitment. It’s deep.”

Jamison spoke of the profession’s financial challenges, noting in an interview with WWD in 1973 that she had modeled Stavropoulos gowns for photographs “as if I could afford them.”

Fashion designer B Michael said Monday that despite not having had the honor of meeting Ailey, “it was the formidable presence of Judith Jamison” who formed his impression of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. “Clearly recalling” attending his first Ailey opening gala in 2002, the designer joined Susan Fales Hill (who was dressed in a custom chocolate-brown, double-faced silk jersey gown with a feather bordered train that he has designed) and André Leon Talley. When Jamison appeared on stage, as the artistic director of the company, B Michael said he was mesmerized by her stature, movement and even the way she spoke. “She wasn’t even dancing, yet I was spellbound,” he said.

Throughout the years that followed, he got to know Jamison more personally, and was able to share and experience her dynamic with Cicely Tyson. B Michael said, “For me, Judith Jamison never ceased being an artist, no matter what the setting was. She was authentic. Her trailblazing career is relevant in today’s world, and the arts.”