{"id":67,"date":"2008-03-01T12:49:42","date_gmt":"2008-03-01T19:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=67"},"modified":"2008-03-01T12:49:42","modified_gmt":"2008-03-01T19:49:42","slug":"judith-jamison-to-retire-from-alvin-ailey-dance-theater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2008\/03\/01\/judith-jamison-to-retire-from-alvin-ailey-dance-theater\/","title":{"rendered":"Judith Jamison to Retire from Alvin Ailey Dance Theater"},"content":{"rendered":"

from the New York Times<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

February 29, 2008
\nBy JENNIFER DUNNING<\/a><\/p>\n

Judith Jamison<\/a>, artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater<\/a>, announced on Thursday that she would retire in 2011. She plans to maintain her connection to the company, which she joined as a dancer in 1965, as artistic director emerita.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/p>\n

Judith Jamison working on stage with the dancer
\nMatthew Rushing at New York City Center in 2007. More Photos<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The 30-member Ailey troupe now has a 42-week work year, with 9 weeks devoted to international touring in 2007-8 and 14 weeks touring in the United States, as well as seasons at City Center in Manhattan and the Brooklyn Academy of Music<\/a>. The company\u2019s school trains 3,000 students a year from 21 countries, independent of classes for the general public, and has a long-established junior troupe, Ailey II, and dance camps in seven American cities. Under Ms. Jamison, a bachelor of fine arts program for dancers was established with Fordham University<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Like Ailey, Ms. Jamison is an immensely private person with a warm, down-home public persona and an irrepressible sense of humor. Her long association with Ailey has enabled her to speak easily about his humanist take on the arts and their importance. Dance comes from the people, he said frequently, and it should always be delivered back to the people.<\/p>\n

Ms. Jamison was a tall ballet-trained dancer from Philadelphia when Ailey spotted her in a disastrously unsuccessful audition with the choreographer Donald McKayle and invited her to join his company. She was his \u201cgangly girl with no hair,\u201d his beauty, Ailey would later say, and his classic piece \u201cCry,\u201d created for her, summed up her qualities.<\/p>\n

She became a star in her 15 years dancing with the Ailey company, which she left in 1980 to perform on Broadway in \u201cSophisticated Ladies.\u201d With Ailey\u2019s encouragement, she eventually created a modern-dance troupe of her own.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlvin took care of me, my artistic self and my human being self,\u201d Ms. Jamison said. \u201cHe merged those two into what you saw onstage. That, to me, was his greatest gift. The choreography, yes, but understanding who I was as a person. And he did that for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

[ click to read full article in the NY Times<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from the New York Times February 29, 2008 By JENNIFER DUNNING Judith Jamison, artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, announced on Thursday that she would retire in 2011. She plans to maintain her connection to the company, which she joined as a dancer in 1965, as artistic director emerita. Judith Jamison working […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}