Alvin Ailey

Alvin Ailey

It was really impressive performance I ever seen. I like all programs and their performance was too attractive and interesting. I like lighting and music because it looked very decent with the performance. In addition, they organized it very well. I really like it. The following paragraphs give a few facts about Alvin Ailey and his background.

Alvin Ailey was born in Rogers, Texas on January 5, 1931 and moved to Los Angeles, California at the age of twelve. There, on a junior high school class trip to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, he fell in love with concert dance. Inspired by performances of the Katherine Dunham Dance Company and classes with Lester Horton, Mr Ailey began his formal dance training. It was with Mr. Horton, the founder of the first racially integrated Dance Company in this country, that Mr. Ailey embarked on his professional dance career.

After Horton's death in 1953, Mr. Ailey became the director of the Lester Horton Dance Theater and began to choreograph his own works. In 1954, he and his friend Carmen de Lavallade were invited to New York to dance in the Broadway show, House of Flowers by Truman Capote. In New York, Mr. Ailey studied with many outstanding dance artists, including Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman and took acting classes with Stella Adler. In 1958, Mr. Ailey founded his own company, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. In 1960, he choreographed Revelations, the classic masterpiece of American modern dance based on the religious heritage of his youth.

Throughout his lifetime, Mr. Ailey created some 79 ballets, many of which have appeared in the repertoire of major dance companies, including American Ballet Theatre, The Joffrey Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Paris Opera Ballet and La Scala Ballet. Mr. Ailey died on December 1, 1989. Anna Kisselgoff of The New York Times wrote of Mr. Ailey, "You didn't need to