Judith Jamison, the artistic director of the famed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, was touring Brazil in September when she learned that she was to receive a prestigious Kennedy Center honor.
Even there, the spirit of her mentor Alvin Ailey, who died of AIDS in 1989, loomed large.
“I didn’t believe it until my assistant faxed the announcement to me,” recalls Jamison, who’s set to receive the award Dec. 5 after launching the company’s 41st season Wednesday – a decade to the day since its founder died.
“I looked at a picture of Alvin that was right near the fax machine and I started to cry.”
Ailey himself was given the Kennedy award 11 years ago, and Jamison was in attendance at the ceremony. “I was so proud of him,” she says. “I just remember that moment being so very special.”
Jamison is being saluted for her “unique and valuable contribution to the cultural life of the nation,” according the award announcement. Along with actors Sean Connery and Jason Robards, comedian Victor Borge and singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder, she will be presented with the honor by President Clinton during a gala performance at the White House.
Sitting in her office at the Alvin Ailey studios, enthroned on a chair designed to cater to the hip replacement she underwent four years ago, the statuesque 56-year-old reflected on a “special” year.
In addition to the Kennedy Center citation, Jamison celebrated her 10th anniversary as artistic director this year and won an Emmy for outstanding choreography for her work on the PBS documentary “A Hymn for Alvin Ailey.”
The company opens its new season Wednesday at New York’s City Center.
“The theme for this season is an arc that goes from the past to the future,” she says. “Every piece we’re doing is rooted in the past – we’re all standing on other choreographers’ shoulders – but we’re also looking at where we’re going.”
The month-long engagement will feature an eclectic repertory of 23 ballets, including three world premieres by Ronald K. Brown, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Donald McKayle, and new productions of vintage works, including Jamison’s own “Divining,” Bill T. Jones’ “Fever Swamp” and John Butler’s signature pas de deux, “After Eden.”
Ailey’s classic “Revelations” will be revived, and the troupe will commemorate the centennial of Duke Ellington’s birth with a series of tribute dances.
Jamison stopped dancing publicly two years ago but insists she doesn’t miss it.
“My body doesn’t want to perform any more,” she says. “I’ll sit out in the audience in wonderment and look at my dancers. They are phenomenal.”
The Philadelphia-born Jamison began dancing with the Ailey company in 1965. She left in 1980 to form her own troupe, the Jamison Project, but returned to helm the company after Ailey’s death.
“I feel that when a person who you worked with and loved so much dies, they don’t really die,” she says. “When the physical self dies, all the ideas and the energy are still there and we live with that energy and that creativity.”
While Ailey’s influence continues to inform the work of the company, Jamison has put her own stamp on it.
“I’ve never approached anything as trying to step into somebody’s shoes because of the individual that I am, which Alvin nurtured,” she says. “There was a space that Alvin created and he knew I was very capable of filling that space.
“I think it’s very important that I have the perspective I have from working with him. He planted the seeds for all this – he just didn’t know it was going to grow into this kind of tree. I’m here to be the caretaker of that tree.”
Under Jamison’s stewardship, the Ailey has branched out far beyond its core 31-member troupe.
The Ailey Dance Center annually trains 3,500 dance students from all over the world; it sponsors AileyCamp, a national program that combines dance classes with personal development workshops; and collaborates with Fordham University to present a B.A. degree program offering students the opportunity to combine dance training with a liberal arts education.
Jamison’s vision for the future is clear. She wants this already accessible company – which was recently featured in an American Express commercial – to embrace technology in an effort to take live dance to new audiences.
“There’s a crossover that has to happen,” she says. “It’s about having us in venues that might not necessarily be concert stages. It’s being able to make a ballet available on DVD.
“There’s no reason why we shouldn’t get as much publicity as Michael Jordan.”