Alvin Ailey, BAM and Shange

I am really interested in Alvin Ailey’s ballet, Revelations, which Shange mentions in “why I had to dance” in Lost in Language and Sound. Growing up it was a tradition between my mother and I to go see Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater each year around Christmas when they perform at City Center. My mother would always choose a performance date on which they would be performing Revelations. Even before I was able to understand the importance of the ballet, I was aware that something about this piece in particular was sacred to many black dancers and black people who enjoy dance.

I was aware that Revelations pays homage to the resilience of black spirituality and the work that religion does to create community and hope among black people in America, but I had not thought about the importance of when the piece had its debut until we started talking about the Black Arts Movement. Ailey grew up in segregated Texas during the Great Depression and he and his young mother struggled to survive. No matter how much he and his mother moved around to find work she always made sure he attended church. He found solace in the black church, by which his piece was inspired. Revelations was first performed on January 31st, 1960, during the Civil Rights Movement. Although the Black Arts Movement did not begin until the middle of the 60s, Ailey’s Revelations seems to follow similar ideas outlined in the movement’s ideology.

The various sections in Revelations celebrate black spirituals and faith, and portray African American’s hope for freedom and human rights. When we read about the Black Arts Movement it made me think about whether or not Revelations would be included among the movement’s idea of artistry that “speaks directly to the needs and aspirations of Black America…[and] proposes a radical reordering of the western cultural aesthetic,” (Neal, 55). I am not sure if Revelations is radical, but I think that Ailey’s work tells an important narrative of black religious experience in America which includes hope and the questioning of one’s faith. Also, because Ailey’s company was created for black dancers it provided an opportunity for dancers of color who were often not wanted in white lead companies. Still, his choreography is heavily based on the technique of Lester Horton who was a white man. I am not sure if figures such as Larry Neal and Leroi Jones would agree with Ailey’s use of a dance technique created by a white man, even though this man did not believe in discrimination against dancers based on race.

Alvin Ailey created a company and school that gave (and continues to give) black dancers a space of their own in which they will not be seen as the “other.” He gave black dancers a space in which their bodies and their art form is beautiful and elegant. His company and school affirms black bodies in retaliation of other spaces in which black dancers are seen as less capable than white dancers. In the dance community is it easy for dancers to become self conscious of their bodies and their ability to fit into the idea of the “proper” dancer. In my personal experience taking dance class at Alvin Ailey and other black owned dance schools in New York, I found that as a black child I was encouraged to have pride in myself and in my blackness and to recognize that African American culture utilizes dance as a liberating art form. As Shange says,  I discovered that “there really were headdresses and sequins for a girl like me,” (Lost in Language and Sound, 54).