Dancing Revelations: Alvin Ailey's Embodiment of African American Culture

319 Pages·2004·4.39 MB·English

by  Thomas F. DeFrantz

DANCING
REVELATIONS
THOMAS F. DEFRANTZ
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Alvin Ailey’s
Embodiment
of African
American
Culture
1
2004
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D A N C I N G R E V E L A T I O N S
T H O M A S F. D E F R A N T Z
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1
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Copyright © 2004by Oxford University Press,Inc.
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All rights reserved.No part ofthis publication may be reproduced,
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without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
DeFrantz,Thomas
Dancing revelations :Alvin Ailey’s embodiment ofAfrican American
culture / Thomas F.DeFrantz.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-515419-3
1. Ailey,Alivn. 2. Dancers—United States—Biography. 3. Choreographers—
United States—Biography. 4. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
5. African American dance. I. Title.
GV1785.A38D44 2003
792.8'028'092—dc21 2002156670
Credits:
Photographs:frontispiece and pages 5,8,19,47,63,95,101courtesy and copyright by
Jack Mitchell;cover illustration and pages 11,12,courtesy and copyright by J.Peter
Happel;page 43courtesy Harvard Theater Collection,The Houghton Library,
copyright by Alix Jeffry;page 55courtesy and copyright by Howard Morehead;pages
123,145,149,175,courtesy Time-Life,copyright by Martha Swope;pages 126,129,183
courtesy and copyright by Rosemary Winckley;pages 139,207courtesy ofthe Dance
Collection,New York Public Library;page 158courtesy and copyright by Judy
Cameron;pages 165,167,194,215,224courtesy and copyright by Johan Elbers;page 186
courtesy and copyright by Fred Fehl;page 210courtesy and copyright by Jack
Vartoogian;page 237courtesy and copyright by JosefAstor.All other photographs
author’s collection and courtesy ofAlvin Ailey American Dance Theater archives.
Lyrics:“He Ain’t Heavy,”copyright 1969,renewed 1997,Harrison Music Corp.and
Jenny Music,all rights reserved,used by permission;“A Song For You,”copyright
1970,Irving Music,Inc.,all rights reserved,used by permission.
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
on acid-free paper
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To Alvin Ailey, who speaks to us all, still.
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A friend asked me ifI liked Ailey’s work;I blanched at the question.I could not
have spent years thinking through Ailey’s achievement,hunkered over newspa-
per clippings and programs in an airless room at the Alvin Ailey Dance Foun-
dation offices,viewing this work repeatedly on videotape and,thankfully,in live
performances, without an enormous admiration and respect for his accom-
plishment.This study is a testament to that respect.
This study also provides a stabilizing narrative ofAiley’s creative work,one
that places him at the center ofa consideration ofconcert dance practice in the
United States.Since he showed his first choreography in the 1950s,professional
dance critics have consistently found fault with Ailey’s process and product.My
project does not involve rehearsing the “problems”in Ailey’s work as a chore-
ographer,nor am I looking for chinks in the armor ofa widely celebrated Afri-
can American cultural institution. Rather, following art historian Richard J.
Powell’s summation,I hope to provide an interpretation ofAiley’s work that ac-
knowledges its particular aesthetics and cultural processes in formation “from
an a prioriposition ofcultural wholeness,conscious historicity,and an inherent
and unapologetic humanity.”1This study follows a lead set by Ailey himselfin
its variety ofapproaches and propositions about the place ofconcert dance in
contemporary African American life.
Above all,Ailey was aware ofhis position and potential as an African Amer-
ican man born in working-class,segregated,Depression-era Texas.To under-
P
stand Ailey’s achievement,we must look to the world he inherited and the de- R
grees to which he transformed that world through his work.I do not compare E
Ailey’s work to that of Martha Graham, George Balanchine, or Merce Cun- F
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ningham as ifAiley,like them,had been born into an educated,middle-class
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white milieu.IfAiley made dances that were important to him,we must be will-
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ing to look to the particular cultural processes and social realities that inspired
him.Ailey’s dances may speak toa wide,global audience,but they speak froman
African American ethos that remains insubstantially documented.
Ailey choreographed more than seventy-five works,most ofwhich exist in
the repertories ofone or more dance companies or have been videotaped and
archived at the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center.I consider underly-
ing compositional structures in relation to the overall dance event.To better un-
derstand the role ofinteraction between Ailey and his dancers,I have paid close
attention to published interviews,oral histories,and televised accounts given by
dancers who have both worked with Ailey and danced his choreographies.In ad-
dition,I conducted several interviews with former Ailey company dancers.
The study is organized according to the parallel development of Ailey’s
choreographic themes and his company.Theoretical concerns are developed in
reference to particular dance works or performances.Ofspecial significance to
this study are modifications Ailey effected to his own choreography.For exam-
ple, Revelations, his signature work, has endured three distinct guises in its
nearly forty-year history. An analysis of changes in its appearance points to
changes in Ailey’s conception of his company and its purpose as a bearer of
African American culture.
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Preface
I take the time to describe several ofAiley’s works so that the reader might
sense what I see as I appreciate these compositions.The limits ofmovement de-
scription may become readily apparent,but I find this technique useful,espe-
cially to discussions ofwork long gone or not easily accessible to a general au-
dience.The descriptions also intend to give the impression ofhow these dances
“feel”to a dance researcher at the beginning ofthe twenty-first century.
I rely on critical accounts contemporary to the premieres ofAiley’s chore-
ography for at least two reasons:to provide the reader with a sense ofwhat writ-
ers present at performances chose to document oftheir immediate opinions of
Ailey’s work,and to offer a sense ofthe strangely consistent degradation Ailey
suffered at the pens ofsome ofthose critics.This study does not concern itself
primarily with the divide between the largely white New York dance critics co-
hort and Ailey’s largely African American company and aesthetic interest.But
that divide surely did exist,and according to Ailey’s allies,the virulent attacks
writers routinely launched against his enterprise troubled him deeply.Certainly,
negative critical opinions of Ailey’s choreography or company are not inten-
tionally racist simply because they come from white writers;at times,negative
opinions from any quarter are helpful to the process ofimproving performance.
But,as the several examples ofnegative criticism in the manuscript that follow
bear out,many ofAiley’s (white) critics engaged a purposefully dismissive and
derisive tone that deserves more explication than this text allows.
In addition to historical analysis,the manuscript includes a series ofshort,
self-contained essays that constitute a counternarrative to the main body of
writing.I intend for these breaks to resonate with black musical practice,in
which an insistent beat is interrupted by a flash ofcontradictory rhythmic ideas.
For me,the break is the most significant gesture ofAfrican American perfor-
mance,as it contains both the tie to a ubiquitous rhythmic flow and the poten-
tial for complete anarchy and disruption.The break creates a liminoid space that
allows listeners a place to enter the musical dance.I hope that the manuscript’s
literary breaks will function similarly to periodically revive the interests ofread-
ers who become bored with the cataloguing ofAiley’s life work.
This manuscript veers toward academic language at times,but attempts to
resist staying there for long.Following Ailey’s lead,my effort questions the na-
ture ofthe political and aesthetic in dance performance,but in language that
might be widely understood.My hope is that this manuscript might reach any-
one who has enjoyed a performance by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
and inspire that reader to think more deeply about the ways that performance
has grown from a rich and fertile African American ground.
viii
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This manuscript has benefited from numerable influences,direct and indirect.
I thank everyone who offered encouragement and criticism along the way. I
thank the faculty ofthe Department ofPerformance Studies at New York Uni-
versity,especially Professor James N.Amankulor,who constantly reminded me
to write within the African American grain and to honor all the deities—plus
one more.Marcia B.Siegel shared ofherselfagain and again to push me toward
thinking critically and carefully about dance and its affect.Simply put,she is
without peer as a critic and mentor.
The dissertation that gave rise to this book was funded by a Ford Founda-
tion Fellowship for Dissertation Writing.Additional support to revise the man-
uscript came from a Provost’s Junior Faculty leave and an Old Dominion leave
from the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology.This project was also supported
by an unspeakably opulent residency at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio
Study and Conference Center;thanks to Gianna Celli and her stafffor their su-
perb efforts.I also thank my fellow residents from the summer of1999,whose
ideas added much to the structure ofthe present volume,including Neelan and
Sithi Tiruchelvam, Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, Sissela Bok, and especially
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Nancy Hicks Maynard.Many thanks to James Gibson for referring me to the
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Rockefeller Study Center in the first place.
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I thank everyone at the Ailey organization who helped this project along N
over the years, including the many students and guest faculty in the various O
dance history courses I’ve taught there.I especially thank Denise Jefferson,who W
first unlocked the door to the Ailey archive for me and ignited a passion that led L
to this book;Sylvia Waters,who shared stories and supportive energy at every E
juncture;and several individuals in the Ailey Press and Public Relations Office, D
G
including Molly Browning,Donna Wood Sanders,Cynthia Martin,and Jodi
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Krizer and their many unflappable associates:Vanessa Jordan,Minda Logan,
Delva Haynes,Rubeny Hoyne,Lynette Rizzo,Sergey Gordeev,and Tara Wasser- E
N
man. Thanks also to Anna Marie Forsythe, James Paulson, Karen Arceneau,
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Sathi Pillai,Stephen Brown,Samuel Coleman,and Amadea Edwards.And,of
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course,many,many thanks to Sharon Luckman,executive director of Dance
Theater Foundation,Inc.,and to Judith Jamison,artistic director ofthe Alvin
Ailey American Dance Theater,for their support ofthis project.
Among American dance history and theory scholars,I thank my colleagues
Constance Valis Hill,Susan Manning,Gay Morris,David Gere,Robert Tracy,
Anne Cooper Albright,Ananya Chatterjea,Anna Scott,and especially Richard
C.Green III,John O.Perpener III,and Veta Goler for their responses and prod-
ding.Brenda Dixon Gottschild is a divine inspiration in person and in her writ-
ing;thank you for taking an interest in this work.C.S’thembile West graciously
read portions ofthis manuscript in its earliest form and commented with clar-
ity and enthusiasm that is very much appreciated.Richard Long,Beth Genne,
and Lynn Garafola each allowed me to present sections ofthis manuscript in
public lectures;I thank them as well as the staffand students at Emory Univer-
sity,the University ofMichigan,and Barnard College for those opportunities.
Several librarians and archives contributed time and effort to answer my