Judith Jamison, influential dancer and choreographer died at age 81

11/11/2024 6:03

        Judith Jamison, an acclaimed dancer
        and choreographer who for two decades was artistic director of
        the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, died on Saturday in New
        York at the age of 81.
        
        Her death came after a brief illness, according to a post on
        the company's Instagram page.
        
        Jamison grew up in Philadelphia and began dancing at the age
        of six, she said in a 2019 TED talk. She joined Ailey's modern
        dance company in 1965, when few Black women were prominent in
        American dance, and performed there for 15 years.
        
        In 1971, she premiered "Cry," a 17-minute solo that Ailey
        dedicated "to all Black women everywhere—especially our
        mothers," and which became a signature of the company, according
        to its website.
        
        Ailey said of Jamison in his 1995 autobiography that "with
        'Cry' she became herself. Once she found this contact, this
        release, she poured her being into everybody who came to see her
        perform."
        
        Jamison performed on Broadway and formed her own dance
        company before returning to serve as artistic director for the
        Ailey troupe from 1989 to 2011.
        
        "I felt prepared to carry (the company) forward. Alvin and I
        were like parts of the same tree. He, the roots and the trunk,
        and we were the branches. I was his muse. We were all his
        muses," she said in the TED talk.
        
        Jamison received a Kennedy Center Honor, National Medal of
        Arts, and numerous other awards.