Dance Magazine - Dance Magazine Awards: Sylvia Waters
Once, while on tour, Alvin Ailey noticed a young company member gazing wistfully out of the bus window. "She must be thinking about her son," he said to himself. And Sylvia Waters was.
Once, while on tour, Alvin Ailey noticed a young company member gazing wistfully out of the bus window. "She must be thinking about her son," he said to himself. And Sylvia Waters was.
A conversation with Judith Jamison, Arts Director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
Sylvia Waters and Judith Jamison
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was founded in 1958. Choreographer, dancer, and director Alvin Ailey played an important role in cultivating opportunities for African-American modern dancers, presenting choreography that explored a wide range of the black experience.
It was almost three decades ago that the late, great choreographer Alvin Ailey asked his good friend and former dancer Judith Jamison to take over his young and esteemed company.
In a well-known segment of Alvin Ailey's signature dance, ''Revelations,'' performed to the spiritual ''Wade in the Water,'' dancers wave swaths of billowy blue fabric to simulate a river.
The Ailey company's tour leaves South Africa dancing in the aisles.