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(orchestra playing "The Star-Spangled Banner")
♪ O'er the land of the free ♪
♪ And the home of the brave! ♪
- [Announcer] The John F. Kennedy Center
for the Performing Arts, honoring Alvin Ailey.
(audience applause)
- Alvin Ailey has a passion for movement that reveals
the meaning of things.
His is a choreography of the heart,
drawing a whole new public to modern dance.
Alvin Ailey is Black and
he's universal.
The very spirit that has made him a Pied Piper
of modern dance.
And that's his genius.
(audience clapping)
♪ You better run ♪ (exciting fast music)
♪ Run on for a long time ♪
♪ I said, run home for a long time ♪
♪ Let me tell you God almighty gonna cut you down ♪
♪ Go tell that liar ♪
♪ Midnight rider ♪
♪ Gambling rambler ♪
♪ That's right ♪
♪ I tell him God almighty gonna cut him down ♪
♪ Oh yes ♪
♪ One of these days, just mark my word ♪
♪ Oh yes ♪
♪ Your neighbor has gone to work ♪
♪ Oh yes ♪
♪ Woke up, knock on the door ♪
♪ That's all brother, you're not no more ♪
♪ Go tell him, that liar ♪
♪ Midnight rider ♪
♪ Gambling rambler ♪
♪ That's right, tell him God almighty gonna cut him down ♪
(audience clapping) (audience cheering)
(soft organ music)
(traffic humming)
- [Instructor] Rehearsal now beginning.
(crowd chatting)
- Yes sir.
- Hello.
Come on down!
(person cheering)
So, we're embarking on a longer work
that delves into aspects of Mr. Ailey's life,
with the great storyteller, Mr. Rennie Harris.
(audience clapping) (audience cheering)
- Hey, what's happening?
So yeah, we're gonna do something,
we're gonna create.
(audience laughing)
Whatever it is, it gotta be good.
(audience laughing) You know, so...
All right, so Nina and Millie gonna start
showing you guys some of the movement
and what have you, yeah?
Okay, all right, cool.
- Gonna start with irk and jerk.
Uh, huh, ha, ha.
Yeah.
Six, seven, eight, it goes.
Huh, huh, huh, huh.
Yeah, so you're pulling that weight
over to the left, left, and then right, right.
Five, six, seven, eight.
Go ha, ha, ha, ha.
Five, (snapping) six, seven, eight.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
One more time and seven, eight.
Go ha, ha, ha, ha.
- [Rennie] Robert Battle, just called me out of the blue,
and said, I want you to come do a piece
about Mr. Ailey for the 60th anniversary of the company.
- Here we go, top, six, seven, eight, go off the floor.
Ha, ha, ha, ah, ah, ha, ha, go (scatting),
six, seven, and eight.
And step tap, step tap, step tap, (scatting).
Yeah, yes.
- The history of Ailey, it's off the scale.
You know what I mean?
How do you present something like 60 years?
(instructor scatting)
(Rennie scatting) (Rennie snapping)
(instructor scatting) (students stomping)
- Parallel if you can, all right?
We're gonna start with making a vocabulary.
If I can get the movement out, I can create the story.
- [Student] Yeah!
(snapping)
- [Instructor] Two, three, four, five.
(instructor scatting)
- I always felt the dance was a natural part
of what I wanted to express,
that what I could do with my body was a part
of a very important part of me.
And a way to release some of those things in myself
that I had been looking for.
(gentle operatic music)
- There it is.
(operatic music)
♪ Where you gonna run to all of that day ♪
♪ Come to the rock ♪
♪ Rock won't ya hide me ♪
♪ Come to the rock ♪
♪ Rock won't ya hide me ♪
- Yeah, that's a nice clip.
Let's play that again.
(mechanical clicking)
(audio crackling)
- I'm Alvin Ailey.
I'm a choreographer.
I create movement and I'm searching for truth in movement.
For dance to me...
- [Rennie] I just sit there and watch, to find out
what made Mr. Ailey, Mr. Ailey.
- [Alvin] Reflect life.
I choreograph. (soft slow music)
Three, four, five, one, two, four, five, loose fingers.
Show what's in your hand, yes.
Good.
The head accent there, round pump, yes.
Four, five.
- [Interviewer] Sunday, January 17, 1988,
talking with Alvin Ailey.
Do you feel as though you had to sacrifice anything
to stay in dance?
- [Alvin] Everything.
Dance, it's an enormous sacrifice.
I mean, it's a physical sacrifice.
Dancing hurts.
You don't make that much money.
I mean, touring six months out of the year
is disastrous on any kind of personal relation.
It's a tough thing.
You know, you have to be possessed to do dance.
♪♪
I came to New York City in 1954.
(fast upbeat music)
I was a live and springy 24, who loved to dance.
(upbeat jazz music)
It was a catch-as-catch-can dancer's life.
Everybody that I could have ever dreamed of,
was here in New York City and when I got here,
I immediately jumped into classes
with all of them.
I studied with Martha Graham, Charles Weidman, Hanya Holm.
But I was the usual rebel
and I had my own ideas.
I had these creative fires bubbling inside.
Dark, deep things.
Beautiful things inside me that I'd always
been trying to get out.
(train rumbling)
My blood memories.
(distant yelling)
The memories of my parents, uncles and aunts.
Blues and the gospel songs that I knew from Texas.
(chiming music)
I was born in the Depression, 1931.
Tough times, rural country.
(wind whipping)
(soft string music)
(fast upbeat music)
♪ Listen here folks, we wanna sing a little song ♪
♪ Don't get mad, we don't mean no harm ♪
♪ You know, it's tight like that ♪
♪ Beedle-um-Bum ♪
♪ Oh, it's tight like that ♪
♪ Beedle-um-Bum ♪
♪ Oh, ya hear me talkin' to you ♪
♪ I mean it's tight like that ♪
♪ Made a date at the barn about-a half-past-ten ♪
♪ Beedle-um-Bum ♪
♪ Oh, ya hear me talkin' to you ♪
♪ I mean it's tight like that I went to see my gal ♪
♪ Over across the hall ♪
♪ Found another mule kicking in my door ♪
♪ Beedle-um-Bum ♪
♪ Oh, it's tight like that ♪
♪ Beedle-um-Bum ♪
♪ When she whip it, its too bad Jim ♪
♪ You know, it's tight like that ♪
♪ I mean it's tight like that ♪
♪ Bum-bum-biddly got to carry me to town ♪
♪ You know it's tough like that ♪
♪ Beedle-um-Bum ♪
♪ You know it's tight like that ♪
(gentle music)
(gentle guitar music)
♪ I've cried ♪
- [Alvin] So, I made a dance called "Blues Suite."
♪ And the tears rolled down my cheeks ♪
♪ Yes, I've cried ♪
♪ Tear rolled down my cheeks ♪
♪ I think about my baby ♪
♪ Wants me the woman you used to be ♪
- [Alvin] "Blues Suite" is a reflection of that time.
The problems, but the romance.
We as a Black people have made something fantastic.
The fact that Black people get through.
♪ Yes, I've cried ♪
♪ Til the tears rolled down my cheeks ♪
♪ I think about my baby ♪
♪ Wants me the woman you used to be ♪
(students clapping)
- [Instructor] Three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
and two, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
and three, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
and four, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
- Okay, let's try this group and this group here.
Still do what you do.
All right, five, six, seven, eight, and.
- [Instructor] One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight, and.
(students clapping)
- I want you pointing down.
Five, six, seven, eight, and.
- [Instructor] One, two, three, four, six, eight, and.
- Mr. Ailey talked about blood memories.
What his parents went through,
his parents' parents went through,
what his folk went through.
And that was a major key for me.
(gentle string music)
Memory, that was the anchor.
(upbeat swing music)
♪ Don't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing ♪
♪ Doo wah, doo wah, doo wah, doo wah doo wah ♪
♪ Doo wah, doo wah, doo wah ♪
- [Alvin] I moved to Los Angeles when I was 12,
at the beginning of World Word II.
It was a vibrant, alive, a different kind of environment.
(horn honking)
When I was 14, I discovered the theater.
(soft orchestral music)
Where I first saw the Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo.
And here was a new world.
It became my ritual then, to come downtown.
I saw everything that came along.
But there was nobody Black,
nobody to model oneself after.
(upbeat band music)
(people cheering) (man humming)
And then one day, I saw Katherine Dunham.
(woman humming) (people cheering)
(people singing in Spanish)
I couldn't believe that here are Black people
on a legitimate stage.
(ethereal music)
I was just taken into another realm.
And here was this unbelievable creature.
And male dancers who were just superb.
The jumps, the agility, the sensuality
of what they did blew me away.
And the material.
What she was doing was Afro-Caribbean.
It was blues, it was spirituals.
And it touched something Texas in me.
But my gym teacher decided that I should
be on the football team.
So he made me a right tackle.
And I said, "Coach, you know,
I have these people running and knocking me down
and this is not gonna work."
He said, "What's wrong with you?
You some kind of a sissy?"
And I wanted to say, "Yes!" (laughing)
(ethereal music)
- I saw Alvin in the gymnastics class.
They had free exercises.
You know, it was all slow motion.
It was more like dancing, actually.
And he was beautiful.
But he didn't dare let anybody know that he wanted
to be a dancer, because he would be teased or humiliated.
(soft piano music)
But I told him, you oughta be a dancer.
- Alvin was the kid who was handsome.
He was charismatic.
We became fast friends.
We went to parties together.
We were always in each other's company.
And then realizing that we both had an interest in dance,
that propelled me to follow him to the Horton School
to watch his class with Carmen
and we walked through those doors.
It's like you're going into a different world.
(upbeat music)
- [Alvin]. It was just a complete education.
Lester taught us to justify movement.
Not just to do a step but to feel something about the step.
Not just to do a plie, but to give it some kind of emotion.
- Lester induced us to
to search and Alvin did.
He went to his resources.
(ethereal music)
He drew on his experiences and that was his beginning.
(upbeat percussive music)
(clapping)
(muffled singing)
- [Rennie] I see the dancer as the physical historian.
The dancer holds the information from the past,
the present, and the future.
Why a particular movement was relevant or important,
why it was valued in my community.
(muffled singing)
They have this information stored in their body.
(ethereal music)
- [Pastor] If the Lord gets ready,
Child, you've got to move.
The Lord gets ready, you got to move.
You got to move, you got to move.
Every Sunday, we were at church.
Praise God to the almighty.
Our beautiful Black songs from the churches.
The joy of these people,
of my aunts and uncles exploding in church.
It's something that was always with me.
I remember there was this procession of people
all in white.
They sang "Wade in the Water."
♪ Wade in the water ♪
- [Alvin] I came up with a piece.
An evening long saga of the Black experience.
(distant choral singing)
♪ I've been 'buked and I've been scorned ♪
♪ Yes, I've been 'buked ♪
♪ and I've been scorned ♪
♪ Children ♪
♪ I've been 'buked ♪
♪ and I've been scorned ♪
♪ I've been talked about ♪
♪ show's you're born ♪
♪ There is trouble all over this world ♪
♪ Yes, there is trouble all over this world ♪
♪ Children ♪
♪ I've been 'buked ♪
♪ and I've been scorned ♪
♪ I've been talked about ♪
♪ show's you're born ♪
- I was moved to tears, seeing "Revelations."
I was studying ballet.
I was studying modern dance.
And this was more of
a reenactment of life.
♪ Oh fix me, Jesus ♪
♪ Oh, fix me, Jesus ♪
♪ Oh, fix me, Lord ♪
♪ Fix me, Jesus ♪
♪ Fix me ♪
- Here was something where these were human beings
and they were dancing with joy
and passion and anger and sorrow.
♪ Fix me, Jesus ♪
♪ Oh, fix me, Lord ♪
♪ Fix me, Jesus ♪
♪ Fix me ♪
- I thought to myself, wow.
This is what I wanna do.
♪ Oh, sinner man ♪
♪ Oh ♪
♪ Where you gonna run to ♪
♪ All of that ♪
♪ Run, run, run, run ♪
♪ Run to the rock, rock won't ya hide me ♪
♪ All on that day ♪
♪ Run, run ♪
♪ The Lord said sinner man, the rock will be a melting ♪
♪ The Lord said sinner man ♪
- Alvin entertained my thoughts and dreams
that a Black boy could actually dance.
♪ You run to the sea ♪
♪ Sea won't ya hide me ♪
♪ Run to the sea, sea won't ya hide me ♪
♪ All ♪
- It was a universe that I could go into.
I could escape to, that would allow me to do
anything that I wanted to.
(swelling choral music)
(upbeat music)
♪ Wade in the water ♪
♪ Wade in the water, children ♪
♪ Wade in the water ♪
♪ God's a gonna trouble the water ♪
♪ Why don't you wade in the water ♪
♪ Wade in the water, children ♪
♪ Wade in the water ♪
♪ God's a gonna trouble the water ♪
♪ See that man all dressed in white ♪
♪ God's a gonna trouble the water ♪
♪ Oh, it looks like a band of the Israelites ♪
♪ God's a trouble ♪
- [Judith] All the familiarity of my African American-ness
was all identified in "Revelations."
♪ Wade in the water ♪
- [Judith] The narrative of church.
That was important to me.
♪ See that ♪
- What took me away was the prowess and the technique
and the fluidity and the
excellence in the dance that I saw.
In the dance.
That was the miracle.
♪ Trouble the water ♪
♪ Oh he gonna trouble the water ♪
♪ Oh he's gonna trouble the water ♪
(audience applause)
(airplane engine roaring)
(harmonizing)
♪♪
(cars honking)
- I came to New York to be in a ballet
called The Four Marys, with the American Ballet Theater.
(soft music)
It was a wonderful place to be in.
But when The Four Marys was over,
there were no more positions.
You were very specially a guest artist there.
You know, you could move
into this neighborhood for a minute
but after you finished doing your gig, please move out.
But what was coming next?
I did not know.
- [Alvin] I was sitting on these steps watching an audition,
and Judi was one of many girls that inspired the set.
I couldn't help but notice her.
The length of the legs, the feet,
the back, those arms, that head.
I said, "Oh my God, she's here."
(soft music)
- I failed that audition so miserable, I was so terrible.
And I ran up the steps, and there was a man
sitting on the steps who I couldn't even see who it was,
it was Alvin Ailey.
And he called me,
and asked me to join the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
Boom, that was it.
- And, one, two, three, four
one, two, three, four
one, two, three
one, two three
one, two, one, two, one.
One, two, one, two,
one, two, one, two, one.
(feet stomping)
One, two, three, four.
Three, four, one, two, three, four.
one, two, three, one, two, one, two.
(fingers snap)
- Dancing with Alvin was hard.
- One, two, three, four,
one, two, three, one, two, three.
One two one two one.
- [Dancer] Great! - Argh!
- Good job.
Yeah, yeah...
Count 18 and then start.
- He would give you that look.
You were wrong, you did wrong, this is the look
(laughing)
And that was Alvin.
- He would say things famously like,
"Would you do my choreography?"
But he was also terribly encouraging.
The exchanges that all of us had
were full of large embraces.
If he was talking to you from 50 feet away,
you would feel that embrace.
You would feel that comfort in knowing
that you could make an absolute fool of yourself.
You know, you would feel safe to extend yourself enough
so that you felt free.
- Right.
I'm sorry to your left.
- [Alvin] I love the idea of people
coming and working together.
I loved the idea of the discipline.
- Open and settle your break very quickly.
You and I, as choreographers start
with an empty space and a body or two
and we say "carve this space."
I love creating something where there was nothing before.
♪♪
- Dance dilutes folk.
♪♪
How it affects the body, how it affects society,
and how it's healing.
As choreographers we are the ones that are reaching out,
navigating the spirit.
(upbeat music)
♪♪
- Mr. Ailey,
he was the train moving to spaces and shifting geographies
and people.
And we needed that bullet train.
(upbeat music)
♪♪
- I wanted to do the kind of dance
that could be done for the man on the streets,
the people.
I wanted to show the black people
that they could come down to these concert halls
that it was part of their culture being done there.
And that it was universal.
(soft music)
- The upcoming major, major event
was like a the seven or nine week tour of one-nighters
throughout the United States.
And Alvin was in a frenzied state.
- A friend of mine recommended me as a stage manager to Alvin.
And I said, "How much do they pay?"
And she said, "Oh they don't have any money."
I said, "Okay well you know I'll volunteer
and let's see how it goes."
And right after that,
all of us, including Alvin were on a bus.
- One bus.
Costumes, lighting, everything one bus.
- The ladder was down the center aisle.
The stools for "Revelations" were underneath.
- The luggage, fans everything.
We travel six, seven hours a day.
And you were doing a state a night.
And you'd drive up, get there, jump off and rehearse.
♪♪
Perform, find some place to eat after the performance,
and this was before fast food really.
You know, we're like truck stops, there we go.
- Go to bed get up the next morning.
Same thing all over again in another town.
(soft music)
(applause)
- It was a multi-racial company.
I was very concerned about the treatment
arriving at a hotel, or motel.
I don't wanna hear anything about we don't have any rooms.
- One time in Kirksville, Missouri
this hotel was absolutely dreadful.
After the performance the next day,
we passed the Holiday Inn.
And we were wondering,
why weren't we in that hotel?
- I sent pictures and reviews,
to the hotels where the company's going
so it won't be as surprise when they get there.
I didn't want them to have to go through that.
- It was whirlwind, when the tours came in.
(man speaking French)
The European tours, Paris.
London after that.
- [Interviewer] You had a very great success last time,
in Holland hadn't you?
- Yes we did.
- This is our first performance anywhere with the new group.
- [Interviewer] Are you nervous?
- But of course.
(reporter speaking French)
- [Interviewer] In the studio with me I have Alvin Ailey
the the artistic director of the American Dance theater.
- [Alvin] Thank you very much, it's nice to be here.
- [Reporter] The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater,
is one of the most important contemporary dance companies
in the world.
(soft music)
♪♪
- People were just, oh my God
they never seen anything like it.
(applause)
They loved the company, they really did.
(applause)
In Stuttgart, Germany
they wouldn't let us off the stage.
It was about eighty some bows that we had to do.
I've never seen people, stand up,
take their shoes off and hit the wall.
No matter what we did, those people would not go home.
Take their shoes off, bang on the wall chairs.
They were going to stay there all night if possible.
(soft music)
- They were wonderful times
because we were kind of a family.
- We all loved Alvin,
but we weren't around Alvin during the day.
Seldom saw Alvin.
It was like, Alvin was here, the company was here.
Something was happening with him.
One time I came up onstage
and Alvin came up onstage
and he grabbed me and he
rolled up into the curtain.
The curtain we rolled up...
I say, "Alvin of what are you...
What is wrong with you?"
He said, "I don't know,
I don't know."
It's like another person inside the person.
It wasn't the Alvin that we see all the time.
- He needed a person that he could talk to.
A partner or a someone.
Alvin did not have that.
- He would have relationships, but intermittent.
That kind of one-on-one relationship, he didn't have,
except with his mother.
I was an only child, also the same as Alvin
so I understood that.
My relationship was always with the company
with the Ailey company, that became family to me.
As it was to Alvin.
- He had this idea and this vision.
Alvin was driven to work.
♪ There is a house ♪
♪ It's been the ruin ♪
♪ of many a poor boy ♪
♪ And God, I know I'm one. ♪
- We didn't have to go out on the street and protest,
our protest was on the stage.
♪ If I ever listened ♪
♪ What my mama said ♪
♪ I'd have been at home today ♪
- This was Alvin's art.
This is what he took up as his crusade.
♪♪
- This is our march to freedom.
(soft music)
- The death of Fred Hampton.
The police had just broken into his apartment
in the middle of the night, Shot him point blank range.
- There was a photograph in the newspaper,
of this young black man in this tiny room,
like a rat with all these police holes around him.
I mean, I can't get over that
I'm a black man living in this.
You know what I mean?
If you're being followed by a search light,
if you're being chased by the police.
♪♪
(Alvin vocalizing to the music)
Masekela came from a very deep feeling
of you know, rage and anger about the situation.
- Nice.
♪♪
Nice stop the music, would you?
Yeah, no.
Let's try the...
I want to feel like you're in jail.
Like you're behind bars.
And I wanna feel all the anger and the cutting.
I wanna feel like you've being pressed down
when we take the arabesque.
I want to feel the sense of cursing at the outside room.
Yeah, let's try it again.
Very difficult to do on the floors.
Yes.
(soft music)
♪♪
- Choreography was his catharsis.
And a lot of times I've felt
that even the woman in the black dress was really him.
(upbeat music)
- The character he created on me,
dies in the arms of the patron.
And Alvin's saying,
"Thank you ladies and gentlemen."
There was a deadly silence.
- Thank you.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
- Fuck it, yeah.
You came here to be entertained.
But I have to tell my truth.
♪♪
(indistinct whispering)
♪♪
- To me, it's not back then.
Everything I'm talking about is actually happening today.
♪♪
I'm still feeling the same way as anyone would feel
if you felt like you were unwanted as a culture.
(dramatic music)
♪♪
(soft music)
- [Interviewer] Did mama have something to do with you
going into dance or did she support this?
- [Alvin] When the the dance bug bit me
she said, "You go and do whatever you wanted to do."
- [Interviewer] You enjoy seeing his company...
- Oh boy he's the biggest thrill of my life.
And he still has farther to go.
So that's why he's just keeping on.
(soft music)
♪♪
Mrs. Cooper, working somebody's house cleaning,
and decide to go to Los Angeles
to make life for him.
You know that Alvin knows that.
(soft music)
♪ Been on a train ♪
- The black women who would encourage you,
♪ The whistle blows ♪
who would be there always.
♪ on a train north ♪
Who were so supportive that you could not fail.
♪ The whistle blows ♪
♪ I saw a man ♪
- I get these images.
♪ he died slow ♪
♪♪
He would say things like you're scrubbing floors,
you're tending a baby, you're a queen.
♪ and I'm never gonna be the same ♪
- I had no inclination that this was dedicated
to all black women, especially our mothers.
That that this was a birthday gift to his mom.
But you could hear the importance in the music.
♪ Gonna soothe ♪
♪ my pain ♪
- The angst in her voice.
♪ No no ♪
♪ Damn you mister and I dragged him out the door ♪
♪ No no ♪
♪ Damn you mister and I dragged him out the door ♪
And you just survive inside of what he's giving you
and what the music is telling you.
You know, you live in those moments.
♪ I suspect there's a dream going on ♪
♪ in a moment or two ♪
♪ I still hear his words he says ♪
- Identity was a strong message.
Being able to say through the choreography,
"I am", was a very very
important theme,
that ran through the dances.
"I am."
Stand in your own being no matter what.
It's very important to have that
because it transcends dance,
and it opens the person to a new realization
or consciousness of who they are
and how to be who they are.
(upbeat music)
♪♪
♪ I wanna go where the northwind blows ♪
♪ Wind Blows, wind blows ♪
♪ I wanna know what the falcon knows yeah ♪
♪ Falcon knows, falcon knows ♪
- That whole last section.
I didn't know how I did it.
I couldn't feel it from here down.
I mean, it was like, okay
I know there's something there holding me up,
and just plow on through it.
(upbeat music)
♪ I don't want no store bought bed ♪
♪ I want the clouds over my head ♪
♪ Be free ♪
♪ Ain't no time to be afraid ♪
♪ Yeah, mother save your child ♪
- And when it comes to that last step,
you dig down in there like you have never dug it before.
♪ In the sky, in the sky ♪
♪ I want those clouds over my head ♪
♪ Over my head ♪ ♪ Over my head ♪
♪ I don't want no store bought bed ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ No more bed ♪ ♪ No more bed ♪
No matter what others may think of you,
this is who you are.
How important is that to you to be able to say
through your movement, through your being, I am.
(applause)
Thunderous applause.
Alvin stood right next to me.
The curtain had been down
for a little bit and people were still applauding.
I'm like dripping in sweat.
I'm going like, whoa got through that one.
And he says to me, "Now what?"
Like what is he going to do next?
What next?
(soft music)
♪♪
- You have the anxiety of creating,
you have the euphoria, of a creation being successful.
(soft music)
Alvin, I think he took on too much.
- [Reporter] Some say the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
is the most innovative dance company in the world.
Its popularity and dazzling performances
have been experienced by 10 million people,
43 States, 44 countries on six continents.
My guest is the world renowned choreographer
and artistic director, Alvin Ailey.
Good to have you here.
Thank you, it's nice to be here.
(Alvin speaking French}
- [Reporter] Alvin Ailey, director of the
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater who's just returned
from a very successful tour in the Soviet Union.
- We are adding Mr. Aileys piece at...
- Every fall, every spring time,
every season, there you are
at the mill, grinding it out.
(soft music)
- The problem is that if you're a black
anything in this country we wanna put you into a bag.
People sometimes say well you know, why is he doing that?
No why can't he stick to the blues to the spirituals?
I'm also a 20th century American
and I respond to Bach and Ellington,
Denswell Britain, and Simon Barber.
And why shouldn't I?
So I don't like to be pinned down as a choreographer.
(soft music)
- Oftentimes isolated, black creators are used.
Everybody used him.
As see, this is the progress we're making.
See, we're not racist.
We have Alvin Ailey.
(soft music)
- When you were making "Revelations"
did you know that you'd be doing it forever?
- (laughing) No.
- [Harry] Does it bother you?
- (laughing) In a way it does.
Isn't that strange? Maybe I can't accept success because,
every time I see, I see "Revelations" now,
after all these years, man since 1960,
I mean, I saw it in Atlanta the other night
and everybody had come to see "Revelations"
and it still worked.
(light music)
- They wanted something that they could feel uplifted by.
What about the troubled artist who was oftentimes turned in
and barbed, who is confused and looking for form.
Looking for form.
(soft music)
- [Reporter] Let's go to the ballet.
- [Alvin] You have this creature, this wounded animal.
(soft music)
She's angry at herself.
She's angry at probably at her creative forces.
She's angry at, like all creative artists,
at not doing exactly with herself what she wanted to do.
She's angry at the society around her.
She's angry at the world that that allowed this thing
to happen to her, whatever it is she's allowed.
She's angry at the weakness in herself.
(soft music)
- This was a very vulnerable thing to witness
but I saw him really trying to go in search of,
I believe, what had probably made him a choreographer.
He wanted a poetry.
- Creation is a very lonely place.
Lonely in the fact that nobody can help you.
He was possessed and he had to serve that god.
- Alvin is very private.
(soft music)
I've worked with him long time
and he invited me to his house only once.
He wanted to open up a door for me to more close to him.
Somehow I feel I wanted him to be up
had to put in a pedestal?
I mean, I wanted him to be there.
It's not the here with me.
- Sometimes your name becomes bigger than yourself.
Alvin Ailey.
Do you really know who that is or what is?
You see a name, but I don't see a man.
(light music)
♪♪
(soft music)
♪♪
- He was working at a feverish pitch,
this stream of consciousness.
He was totally immersed.
♪♪
(soft music)
♪♪
(soft music)
♪♪
(soft music)
- He was exhausted from trying to meet
the demands of the board, the community everything.
Oh, do another ballet. Oh, doing this. Oh do that.
He talked to me at times about the company
not being the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
it could be the American Dance Theater.
And I remember saying to him, what are you talking about?
Where are you going?
(train roaring)
- One day, my telephone rang a voice said,
"you know, Alvin is running around, throwing things around
and everybody has cleared out of the office."
Alvin pushed the door open, he just looked at me.
A look that I had never seen from him before.
I said, "Alvin, what do you want me to do?"
So he said,
"all I want you to do is take care of the company."
So, I said,
"well, I am always going to do just that.
You don't have to worry about that."
Then he disappeared.
Alvin's not well.
(soft music)
- I believe that there's always something one's gift,
one's genius separates one from his colleagues,
his community.
I believe that he had that demon,
that demon that says that, if I have gotten this far,
it's because I have pulled one over on somebody
and that any day now I'm going to be found out.
I think it's going to something like a self-loathing
that comes with not feeling worthy,
even though you've proven it.
If you look at Revelations is one the great dances
of the 20th century.
(soft piano music)
Who could love him or were they loving
what he represented.
His gift, his fame what have you.
(soft music)
Who could love him.
♪♪
- He made a nice duet for me.
It was so much fun.
I think he discovered different way.
It's not a new Alvin, but something...
Like a winter passed, you know, took off the jacket.
- See now if I had known about this television thing
I would've done my hair like yours Rodney
(laughing)
I would have been up until five o'clock
in the morning, twisting and turning.
- [Rodney] I just wash it. I don't do anything.
- You don't do anything to it?
You did it yourself?
- [Rodney] I don't do anything, I just don't comb it.
- No, I mean, how did it get that way.
- [Rodney] I just,
- You twisted it.
- [Rodney] No.
- Rodney, now no, no, no, no, no.
You're among friends.
(organ music)
- He wasn't letting go. And that was a good thing.
It was a sense of renewal.
The only direction to go is forward into the future.
- [interviewer] What are the aims and goals
of the American Dance Theater.
- To provide a place of beauty and excitement,
a place where other choreographers experiment,
to provide a place where,
where people can come and feel like they can add themselves
and then reap benefits of what they've put in.
I want it to be easier than it was for me.
- I had been invited to come and make a work
for the Ailey Company.
Around this time, Arnie Zane, my companion and I,
were already on the cover of Dance Magazine.
Many people were saying we were the flavor
of the month of the downtown Avant Garde Dance.
We were doing something that was oftentimes improvisational.
And I think he wanted some of that.
More than anything. I think he wanted to stay
in touch with new developments in the field.
And I'm proud to say that he took me seriously
in that regard.
I remember him coming in and seeing the rough housing,
gestural language of Fever Swamp and him saying to me
something that moves me very much right now.
He said, "don't hurt my boys Bill,
don't hurt my boys."
When he said, boys it meant that he loved them.
He loved them because he was no longer lonely.
And he had actually been given the wherewithal to open
up this field to people like himself.
My boys.
- All right so, I said, "do you hear Michael?"
You're here. You're facing this way.
Jackie is bringing you here. Okay.
So here's the deal. You guys are blades of grass.
You're black folk Who've been murdered.
You become part of the soil.
And then the gatherer is come and Step over you.
And they start gathering the souls, right?
Putting, gathering them back
so they can regenerate, got me?
So that's, what's happened. So, so this is slow.
(Soft music) Right, right.
- Resurrection, every time a dancer walks in.
There's another piece of him being resurrected.
Mr. Ailey' was just watching this whole cycle happen,
and helping to guide helping to push through.
(soft music)
- I was walking across 57th street and
I saw Alvin.
I said, "hi, Alvin, how's everything."
He said, "it's all right. It's all right."
But he didn't speak about anything. It was like that.
So I said, "well, okay.
I hope to see you may I'll come to the season. " Like that.
He just looked thinner to me and a little drawn.
He wasn't reacting in a way that I was used to.
- People's appearances were changing.
They were getting thinner and, and um,
and they were dying around you.
And I guess all you could hope for
that it wasn't you.
And you prayed that it wasn't anybody close to you.
(soft music)
- Alvin wanted me to meet him at this restaurant.
We were picking over stuff,
you know, this food that I wasn't eating,
that he wasn't eating.
Both of us, knew what we were there for,
but he had to declare it anyway.
He said, "would you take over the company?"
(soft music)
I had been told ahead of time that he was very ill.
At that time people were retreating
from saying anything about AIDS related illnesses.
- There were probably people he would imagine,
they would react disfavorably
to having quote this guilty disease.
This disease is in some people's mind
you get what you deserve.
And we have loved you all these years
and giving you this platform to go out and do that dancing
and then, then look at your dirty life and all this,
as we used to hear when I was a child
what's done in the dark will come to the light.
And I purposely taking on the voice
of a Southern Baptist because I'm sure,
be it that his mother, be that many people around him.
There was this feeling that, as I say
men are men on the early stage and women are women
on the early stage and they are exemplary
and they are the survivors of, of racism and slavery.
And they are beautiful and they are strong
and they will live forever and leap higher and higher.
Are you telling me that they have sex
and they have sex that could kill them.
You telling me Mr. Ailey himself?
Oh, that's too much. That's too much.
We have to edit that out of the history.
And he participated in the editing of it.
He was alone.
What community of gay people was he with that could say,
"Alvin then this is happening to us."
(soft music)
- When he got ill, they put a couch in the studio.
He wasn't really working with us anymore.
He couldn't, but he wanted to be around us.
So as opposed to lay at home, he would just lay
in the couch or just kind of lounge around them,
Just be with us.
(soft music)
There's a denial that you want to have about your friend.
You always want to think that could be a miracle.
Cause miracles do happen.
Some people do get better.
People do heal.
So it is possible.
It could happen, he could pull through this,
miracles do happen.
- Hey Alvin, what's up. Now listening here.
You got to hurry up and get better.
I'm waiting on you because you know,
I'm trying to do this but I need to be inspired.
I need your inspiration brother
you got to get out of here.
You understand what I'm saying?
- Hi, we miss you hope you're feeling better (smooching)
- we want you to get better so you can come back
and reprimand us again.
(soft music)
(laughing)
- I remember we were opening on December the third, I think.
And Alvin died on the first.
Oh God, I wish he'd been able to come to this opening
but we put on...
(groaning and sighing)
But I called George Faison.
I said, George (groaning)
that moved me a great deal.
I said, we've got to celebrate Alvin.
And he put together a wonderful performance.
And at the end, after Revelations and bows
all of a sudden I had let down a big picture of Alvin
and there's absolute quiet in the theater.
The entire theater rose at once
and just quietly stood there.
And the dancers had been given flowers and they all turned
and put them in front of the Alvin's picture.
And we brought the curtain down.
With the performance the next night, we kept going.
(soft music)
♪♪
- Mr Ailey?
Mr Ailey!
- You see in films that people do (exhaling)
and there's this dramatic death rattle.
And goes like (exhaling) like this.
Alvin breathed in and never breathed out.
That was it.
We're his breath out.
We are his breath out.
We are.
Yeah, so that's what, we're floating on.
That what we're living on, the (exhaling)
♪ Alive, alive I know he is ♪
(upbeat music)
♪ Alive, oh yeah ♪
♪ He is, he is risen ♪
(upbeat music)
♪♪
♪ He's alive, alive alive alive alive ♪
♪ Alive alive alive alive ♪
(upbeat music)
♪ I am free, I am free, free indeed, oh free indeed ♪
♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah ♪
♪ It's a new life for me here ♪
♪ It's new life for me here ♪
♪ It's a new dawn it's a new day ♪
♪ It's a new life for me here, it's a new dawn ♪
♪ It's a new day it's a new life for me ♪
♪ Ooh ooh ooh ooh ♪
♪♪