The Whitney Museum exhibit Edges of Ailey is breathtaking in its artistic scope and documentation of the life, work and world of Alvin Ailey. Five years in the making, the exhibit’s curator Adrienne Edwards calls it an ‘extravaganza’ and that is not an exaggeration. The exhibition runs through February 9, 2025, and if you are unable to attend, check out the exhibit’s commemorative book published by Yale University Press.
‘Edges of Ailey’ is a testament to the full impact that Ailey had on dance in America and internationally during his life and his legacy that lives on in the bodies generations of choreographers, dancers and multidisciplinary performers. For Black and Brown dancer-choreographers Ailey’s repertory, training, and life continues to inform and inspire a sensibility of what dance could be and should be.
Ailey looked to pioneering black dancer-choreographers Katherine Dunham, Pearl Primas, and lesser known dance teachers of Afro-Caribbean diasporic preservationists. Ailey had an encyclopedic knowledge of modern dance, and he was himself a pioneering fusionist along with acknowledges the architects of contemporary dance from Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn, Merce Cunningham, and Martha Graham.
Ailey’s formal training with gay choreographer Lester Horton, in Los Angeles, is his core movement technique and a jumping off point for him choreographically. As a young dancer in training with the Lester Horton Dance Theatre, Ailey partnered often with the legendary Carmen de Lavallade and in 1954 they both were cast on Broadway in House of Flowers, Later DeLavallade was part of Ailey’s first iterations of what would become the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT).
The exhibit is an intimate portrait of Alvin, his aesthetic in dance inseparable from his identity as a gay man, just as any other aspect of his personality. Several male black dancers weigh in on what Ailey’s life has meant to them are expressed in’ Edges of Ailey.’
Ailey grew up in the era when men could be arrested for being gay and jailed under ‘sodomy’ laws. Even as a renowned international choreographer, he was not publicly out for fear it would somehow hurt the company. This was especially true in the early 60s, when he scrambled to keep the company afloat. Privately, everyone knew and the ’Edges’ of the title include the private barriers he overcame as a gay man.
As an adult Ailey was living the gay life, had many lovers, but was not out publicly. Meanwhile, in his work there is an unmistakable gay sensibility, however layered, an honest physicality, visceral emotional expression that is undeniable. He accepted his gay identity early on, but he remained in the closet for much of his life. He had to survive as a Black gay man in a viciously homophobic America of the 50s & 60s.
Ailey’s relationship with the women in his company is equally inspiring. There is a transcript of Edwards interviewing women who danced in the early years of AAADT including Masazumi Chaya, Sylvia Waters and Judith Jamison. Jamison was Ailey’s muse outside of Revelations. ‘Cry’ a solo he created for Jamison in the mid-70s in tribute to his mother, is one of his most famous and admired works.
Ailey’s death from AIDS in 1989 could have meant the demise of his company. Fortunately, his muse and AAADT star for many years, Jamison, at his request, took over as the company’s artistic director for 25 years. . Jamison died earlier this fall, so her words here about the early years with Ailey are particularly moving.
There is a section of Ailey’s personal handwritten notes, personal documents of a work-a-day choreographer and AAADT’s founding artistic director. It is a fascinating glimpse of his harried work-a-day (& night) life Ailey maintained.
A year-by-year chronology of the company repertory, tours, press, highlights, and lowlights chart the vision, drive, successes and in some cases defeats for Ailey. Laced through are pages of private photographs of the company traversing the world and several of Ailey, a maestro in command, but otherwise, at ease in the world he created.
Edwards’ also moderates a conversation (transcribed in the book) with dance scholars, choreographers, art historians, and dance writers about Ailey’s creative influence vis a vis the era of modernism and appropriation of Black dance arts by white choreographers (past and present).
For those who miss ‘Edges of Ailey’ at the Whitney, the commemorative is experiencing the next best thing. For dance scholars and students this is a must read, for photography buffs, this book is a must see and a masterclass in what dance photography can achieve. The transfers are fine and the gallery of prints represent Ailey’s choreographic range of dozens of works including – Revelations, Masekela Language, The River, Cry, Four Saints in Three Acts, Gymnopedies, Mass, Hidden Rites, Pas de Duke, Black Brown and Biege, Blues Suite, Hermit Songs, Choral Dances, For Bird-With Love, et.al.
The exhibition runs through February 2025 and each week there will be performance events in the Whitney’s Theater, next to the 5th floor galleries, with participating choreographers staging Ailey revivals and commissions inspired by Ailey’s belief in building a platform for Black and modern dancers and choreographers.
The performance collective includes works by Kyle Abraham (A.I.M); Ron K Brown/EVIDENCE; Trajal Harrell; Bill T Jones, Ralph Lemon, Kevin Beasley, Sarah Michelson. Okwui Okpokwasili; Peter Born/Sweet Variant; Will Rawls; Matthew Rushing; Yusha-Marie Surzano; Jowale Willa Jo Zollar. There will also be ongoing live performances by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, and students from various dance schools.
The sad news last month of Judith Jamison’s death brings a special poignancy to this volume. Ailey chose her as the only person who could take the company forward aesthetically and commercially in his absence and she fulfilled that role for 25 years magnificently. The many photographs of Jamison in performance and behind the scenes captivates and the ones from ‘Cry’ indeed bring tears.