As the meticulous mix of gospel and jazz music reverberates inside the vibrant red walls of New York City’s Whitney Museum, patrons explore the life and legacy of one of modern dance’s most prominent figures, Alvin Ailey (1931-1989). As a renowned choreographer from humble beginnings, Ailey strived to uplift the African American experience through the language of modern dance. ‘Edges of Ailey’ beautifully captures every aspect of this message in its contents.
The exhibit will inhabit the fifth and third floors of the Whitney museum from September 25th, to February 9th, 2025, bestowing a glimpse of black empowerment, faith, and art onto its visitors. The two floors exist in parallel to one another, but have contrasting content. The fifth floor contains still art, such as portraits, journal entries, and choreographic archives, while the third floor provides space for frequent performances by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and other select ensembles.
Created by the Whitney museum’s senior curator, Adrienne Edwards, ‘Edges of Ailey’ portrays the legend’s life as more than a name and a company. The exhibit showcases him as a profound and multifaceted person who was victim to the norms of the mid-20th century just as much as he attempted to defy them. Conceived of Ailey’s own thoughts as well as his greatest inspirations across the the fields of dance, music, art, and literature, “it’s a recreation of the environment he grew up in. One that he both fed into and fed from,” said patron Michael Huber.
Edwards described her process to the New Yorker as “trying to get into a headspace of what it would be like to be a gay man in the nineteen-forties and nineteen-fifties, especially during this moment in his life where [he’s] founding this thing and coming of age.” She gives the reason for adding many pieces of art that don’t correlate directly to Ailey’s life as a choreographer, implying that one can’t understand Ailey’s legacy until they understand the reason behind the choices he made.
I entered the fifth floor of the museum on a brisk September night, the space I had walked through on many occasions, but had never seen so open and grand. Ailey’s voice sounded throughout the entire exhibit, engrossing everyone in proximity into his universe, as a video of his dancers performing a simple warm up exercise appeared on a screen wrapping around the room’s perimeter. Soon, the room’s vibe is altered and the film of Ailey’s dancers is replaced with an earlier memory of Ailey’s. A vast landscape of a cotton field covers the screen, and harmonic gospel music begins in the background.
Born in Rogers, Texas in 1931, Ailey grew up in America’s brutal Jim Crow era, working with his mother on cotton fields. He found salvation in his local church, where he experienced baptisms and listened to gospel and blues music, experiences which would later manifest themselves as “blood memories” in his choreographic style.
On the floor, against the back wall of the exhibit and underneath the screen, sat a large sculpture titled, River. The piece shows a series of metal chains and ropes bonded together. While there are slight implications to slavery, the structure more so shows the strength that is produced when things come together, portraying Ailey’s ultimate goal to build strength in the black community, unifying people through captivating movement.
Beyond the piece River, water is a recurring motif throughout the exhibit’s sculptures and paintings, referencing both the notorious middle passage, a brutal stage of the Atlantic slave trade, as well as the salvation achieved through ablutions, the custom of washing and one’s body, and ridding oneself of the past.
In 1941, Ailey and his mother left Texas. They moved to Los Angeles among the six million Black people who traveled from the rural American South to more progressive urban areas during the Great Migration. Upon his arrival to the flourishing artistic city of Los Angeles, the young Ailey was captivated by performances from Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and Katherine Dunham Company’s, ‘Tropical Review.’ His introduction to the world of concert dance had commenced.
Katherine Dunham, a pioneer of modern dance, combined aspects of African and Caribbean cultural dance with European ballet techniques to create her unique style along with a foundation for modern dance that many would continue to build on. Ailey studied under Dunham until his dear friend, Carmen de Lavallade, convinced him to train under Lester Horton. De Lavallade embodied the utter strength, boldness and wisdom that Ailey recognized in black women at the time. Her portrait appears in the exhibit, painted by Geogerry Holder, her husband and a fellow dancer to Ailey.
I browsed through Ailey’s writings, reading notes for his dancers, his postcards to friends, and his lists formulated from single words like “religious,” “sex,” and “form,” until I entered an intimate room entitled “Ailey’s Influences.” The space held a table embedded with small screens showcasing Ailey’s inspirations, from social dances to technical pieces. One screen displayed various African cultural dances, rooted in synchronicity to drums, while another showcased the technical origins of Ailey’s choreography, with pieces from notable choreographers such as Geoffery Holder, Martha Graham, and the acclaimed Lester Horton.
Much like Dunhman, Horton integrated techniques from Native American dance, anatomical studies, and ballet, creating a style based on flat backs, lateral stretches, lunges, and tilt lines. His company originated in Southern California as one of the first permanent and racially integrated dance companies.
Once Horton became a mentor to Ailey, the up-and-coming dancer began incorporating many of Horton’s signature steps into his own choreography. Ailey was a member of Horton’s company until 1953, when Horton unexpectedly passed away. Hoping to maintain his mentor’s legacy, Ailey took over the Horton company as the artistic director and choreographer and began choreographing his own works on the company members. His exposure to the dance community in Los Angeles was vital for his later success in the following years.
Ailey moved to New York City in 1954 and performed in four Broadway shows including “Jamaica,” where he danced in pieces choreographed by Jazz pioneer Jack Cole. As a dancer myself, I recently took a jazz technique class from the current director of Cole Jazz company, Cam Loeser.
“Approach this through sensation, not what you think it should look like,” he began the class by saying. During the hour and fifteen minutes I spent with him, Loeser persistently emphasized the importance of working into the floor, an idea first brought to the western dance world by Jack Cole himself. Ballet, the more prominent style of dance at the time, focused on remaining light and weightless and on top of the floor, expressing gestures rather ornately. Jack Cole, however, focused on the plié (the bending of the knees) and being grounded to the floor while still remaining precise in one’s movement.
The choreography of Jack Cole had a great influence on Ailey’s style as he became intrigued by the use of drums to create the rhythm for his movement, aspects derived from traditional African dance. This contrasted the typical ballet style which danced to music from a large orchestra consisting of piano and more delicate sounding instruments.
Along with Ailey’s theatrical origins, the room titled “Ailey’s Influences” introduces patrons to Ailey’s life beyond dance. From writers James Baldwin and Langston Hughes to Jazz musicians Duke Ellington and Alice Coltrane, Ailey’s inspirations span farther than simply the field of dance.
As Ailey experienced the rich legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, he crossed paths with countless influential musicians, most notably, Duke Ellington. A triumphant pianist, Ellington was considered the greatest jazz composer and bandleader of his time. Ailey had been a huge fan of Ellington since his teen years, but their paths finally crossed once they were both working artists in New York City. Ailey frequently used Ellington’s music in his pieces, with his work being most prominently featured in Ailey’s most famous piece, “Revelations.”
“Revelations,” inspired by the “blood memories” of Ailey’s childhood, premiered two years after the company’s founding. In addition to Ellington’s work, “Revelations” is set to compelling pieces such as Ella Jenkins’ “Wade in the Water” and Hall Johnson’s “Fix Me, Jesus.” Featured in the rotation of the exhibit’s main screen is a short clip of Ailey performing choreography from “Revelations,” demonstrating leg extensions, turns and powerful jumps to the ground.
The piece typically lasts 36-minutes, however, and is divided into three parts: “Pilgrim of Sorrow,” a depiction of the suffering of slavery, “Take Me to the Water,” an experience of baptismal joy, and “Move, Members, Move,” a final choral church celebration. In this piece, Ailey strived to explore every aspect of the soul, from its most brutal pain to its most euphoric joys as his dancers tell the story of absolute insistence in black life and community.
Beyond music, Ailey found much inspiration in literature, specifically from the work of Langston Hughes, American poet and social activist. Much like Ailey, Hughes “addressed his poetry to the people, specifically to Black people,” wrote critic Donald B. Gibson. The two coordinated through various productions with Hughes writing and Ailey staging.
After establishing a strong reputation in the New York City dance scene, Ailey founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958. He later established the Ailey School in 1969 and the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble (now Ailey II) in 1974.
Ryleigh Chan, senior at Professional Performing Art School, has trained at the Ailey school for many years. She describes the way her teachers “reference [Ailey] a lot and mention their teachers that have worked with him. They talk about his choreography style as a mixture of ballet, modern, jazz, and African dance and also remind us that we’re telling a story with our movement. They always quote him and remind us of why he created the school and his goals and beliefs of dance and what dance means to him.”
Ailey II is scheduled to perform “Harmonic Echo” during the last week of each month of the exhibit. The performance features four pieces of Ailey’s repertory, each circling back to themes of water and fluidity.
The movement aspect of the exhibit goes beyond the typical staged performance. At times, dancers are spaced on pedestals, acting as if they were sculptures themselves. “Modern dance seemed to encapsulate all of my ideas,” Ailey said in a 1984 interview. “There was movement, there was color, there was painting, there was sculpture, and there was putting it all together.”
“Edges of Ailey” is a rare instance when such a large exhibit is dedicated solely to dance. During my visit to the exhibit, I noticed many people who appeared to be dancers themselves, given away by their artistic fashion taste or flawless posture. But I was pleasantly surprised to see many non-dancers wandering the exhibit, conversing with their friends about all they had never known.
As people from hundreds of different backgrounds stared at the same pieces of art, or the same writing that Ailey himself had once gazed upon, I realized that ‘Edges of Ailey’ does more than depict how Ailey was able to unify people. The exhibit itself brings people together over a shared interest and curiosity for the art of dance.
Created by the Whitney museum’s senior curator, Adrienne Edwards, ‘Edges of Ailey’ portrays the legend’s life as more than a name and a company. The exhibit showcases him as a profound and multifaceted person who was victim to the norms of the mid-20th century just as much as he attempted to defy them