ALVIN AILEY DANCE THEATRE
by
MURPHY
BROWNE
"My
feelings about myself have been terrible. The whole of where I came
from, the Brazos Valley in Texas, picking cotton with my mother and
not with my father, living through the 1930s, the lack of a father,
not having enough food sometimes, going around to those churches and
the Dew Drop Inns, all left an enormous stain and a sense of
inferiority that lasted for many years. That's one the worst things
about racism, what it does to young people. It tears down your
insides so that no matter what you achieve, no matter what you write
or choreograph, you feel it's not quite enough. One of the processes
of your life is to constantly break that down, to constantly reaffirm
that I Am Somebody."
Excerpt
from "Revelations: The Autobiography of Alvin Ailey"
published 1995
Alvin
Ailey Jr. is the founder (1958) of the world renowned Alvin Ailey
Dance Theater. On March 30, 1958 a group of young, African American
modern dancers performed for the first time as members of the Alvin
Ailey American Dance Theater. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
grew from that performance in March 1958 at the 92nd Street Y in New
York City. Alvin Ailey's genius and the group of young African
American dancers changed American modern dance. On the weekend of
March 4 and 5, 2016 Torontonians had the opportunity to experience
the legacy and the genius of Alvin Ailey's compositions and
choreography. Those who attended the performances left with some
insight into what Ailey lived as a child. His life was shaped by
surviving and overcoming the White supremacist culture into which he
was born. Those early experiences shaped the man and affected his
entire life and his art. Ailey channelled his “blood memories”
into extraordinary compositions like “Revelations,” “Blues
Suite” and “Cry.”
Alvin Ailey Jr. was born on January 5, 1931 to Alvin Ailey Sr. and Lula Elizabeth Ailey. Like many African Americans born in the Brazos Valley at that time he was not born in a hospital; he was born in a house owned by his grandfather Henry Ailey. At birth he joined 12 other members of his extended family living in the Ailey home; his parents, grandfather, aunt, her 8 children and her son in law. Alvin Ailey Sr. disappeared from his son's life when he was about four years old. Ailey's first memory of life was "being glued to my mother's hip as we thrashed through terrain looking for a place to call home." According to Ailey during his early childhood he and his mother walked barefooted through the mud always looking for a place to call home. They lived in the homes of several relatives; aunts, cousins and grandparents "not truly belonging anywhere" in those early years. In Rogers, Texas where they lived for a while he described: "There was a black school, all run down, at the bottom of the hill. At the top was this gleaming castle, the school where the white children went." This was the situation throughout the southern United States during Jim Crow and legal segregation. Although African Americans were compelled to pay taxes the "separate but equal" law was a fallacy. It was definitely separate and unequal as experienced by African Americans in every walk of life.
Ailey in his autobiography "Revelations" remembered that during his childhood Texas was a charter member of the racist south. "In the twenty five years before my birth, some forty five black men and women were lynched in Texas. Lynchings occurred in several cities including Houston, Beaumont, Paris, Waco, Palestine, Newton, Fort Worth, Huntsville and Navasota." When Ailey was about five years old he had to live with the trauma of knowing that his mother had been raped by four White men as she finished working "in some white people's kitchen." African American women had two choices of work, pick cotton or domestic work in the home of a White family. The women were always at risk of being raped regardless of where they worked. As a five year old child he could only note his mother's bruised body and her sobbing in pain and fear. He pretended to be asleep and listened as she related the horrific attack to her sisters and women from her church.
The church was a place of comfort for many African Americans who had to deal with the fear of the murderous and terrorist Ku Klux Klan. The women also lived with the fear and in many cases the reality of being raped by members of the White families where they were forced to work to survive. African American women like Ailey’s mother were vulnerable because there was no way to hold their rapists accountable. They had no protection. However there were some African American women who did risk their lives, livelihood and the lives of their families by resisting in various ways. In the 2010 published book “At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance- a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power” White American history professor Danielle McGuire researched and wrote about some of the women who resisted. Rosa Parks was an activist before December 1, 1955 and the book documents her activism in encouraging and supporting African American women to press charges when they were raped by White men. In the case of Gertrude Perkins in 1949 her rapists were two White policemen who were tried but found not guilty because the jurors were all White men who felt that raping an African American woman was not a crime as long as the rapist was a White man.
African Americans including Ailey lived under these horrific conditions and these “experiences” framed their self perception. African Americans at that time living in the southern states were so oppressed because of living in a “fish bowl” around White people that Saturdays and Sundays they “cut loose” in their own communities. In his autobiography “Revelations” Ailey recalled those early experiences of living in the south: "After picking cotton all week or otherwise working for white people, black people would get all dressed up on Saturday night and go off to one of the Dew Drop Inns, where Tampa Red and Big Boy Crudup would be playing funky blues music. Black people were joyful in both church and the Dew Drop Inns in spite of their miserable living conditions."
Ailey’s seminal and iconic “Revelations” tells the story of his early life experiences in the church; from water baptism to singing in the church which offered some comfort to a people who experienced being “buked and scorned.” Ailey was 29 years old when he choreographed “Revelations” using “African-American spirituals, song-sermons, gospel songs and holy blues.” The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater website offers this description of the seminal work: “Alvin Ailey’s Revelations fervently explores the places of deepest grief and holiest joy in the soul.” Ailey choreographed “Cry” in 1971 for his mother’s birthday. In describing “Cry” the Ailey Dance Theater website offers: “Ailey dedicated this piece to "all black women everywhere--especially our mothers." In this three part solo, the dancer, clad in a white leotard and long ruffled skirt, brings the audience on a journey of bitter sorrow, brutal hardship and ecstatic joy.” Perhaps Ailey was remembering his mother’s sorrow and crying after she was raped by four White men and he as a five year could offer no comfort but just silently listen to her as she related the details of the traumatic attack to her sisters and women from her church.
Ailey’s “Blues Suite” evokes the childhood he remembered: “With the rumble of a train and the toll of distant bells, a cast of vividly-drawn characters from the barrelhouses and fields of Alvin Ailey’s southern childhood are summoned to dance and revel through one long, sultry night. Ailey’s first masterpiece poignantly evokes the sorrow, humor and humanity of the blues, those heartfelt songs that he called “hymns to the secular regions of the soul.”” Ailey’s “blood memories” were shared with the audience who attended the performances of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater with flawless dancing by the members of the company. The lighting, the costumes, the movement of the dancers elicited standing ovations. The dancers brilliantly interpreted and presented Ailey’s vision and upheld his legacy. I had the opportunity to listen to two of the talented and dedicated dancers; Rachel McLaren the fourth child of a Jamaican mother and Yannick LeBrun who was born in Cayenne which is a South American country and a neighbour to Guyana. They graciously shared their limited time and answered questions at a media event. I look forward to being awed again by these brilliantly talented dancers as they give life to the vision of an African American pioneer and visionary who proved that in spite of White supremacy, terror and fear he did “constantly reaffirm I Am Somebody.”
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