Judith Jamison joined Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1965 and quickly became an international star. Over the next 15 years, Mr. Ailey created some of his most enduring roles for her, most notably the tour-de-force solo Cry.
During the 1970s and 80s, she appeared as a guest artist with ballet companies all over the world, starred in the hit Broadway musical Sophisticated Ladies, and formed her own company, The Jamison Project. She returned to Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1989 when Mr. Ailey asked her to succeed him as Artistic Director.
In the 21 years that followed, she brought the Company to unprecedented heights – including two historic engagements in South Africa and a 50-city global tour to celebrate the Company’s 50th anniversary. Ms. Jamison is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, among them a prime time Emmy Award, an American Choreography Award, the Kennedy Center Honor, a National Medal of Arts, a “Bessie” Award, the Phoenix Award, and the Handel Medallion. She was also listed in “TIME 100: The World’s Most Influential People” and honored by First Lady Michelle Obama at the first White House Dance Series event. In 2015, she became the 50th inductee into the Hall of Fame at the National Museum of Dance.
As a highly regarded choreographer, Ms. Jamison has created many celebrated works, including Divining (1984), Forgotten Time (1989), Hymn (1993), HERE . . .NOW. (commissioned for the 2002 Cultural Olympiad), Love Stories (with additional choreography by Robert Battle and Rennie Harris, 2004), and Among Us (Private Spaces: Public Places) (2009).
Born in 1943 in culturally vibrant Philadelphia to gifted parents who valued the arts, Judith Jamison was exposed to classical music, theater, opera, and the visual arts from an early age. Even at six years old when her parents enrolled their energetic daughter in Marion Cuyjet’s Judimar School of Dance, she was “tall, lean, and long-legged.” At Judimar she began her training in ballet, jazz, tap, acrobatics, and other modes of dance. From the beginning, Jamison stood out not just for her height, but for her striking talent.
Following her graduation from high school and Judimar, Jamison decided to attend Fisk University in Nashville, where she studied psychology for three semesters before returning to Philadelphia and enrolling in the Philadelphia Dance Academy. There, in addition to dance, she studied kinesiology, dance history, and Labanotation—structured dance notation. It was with her classmates from the Academy that she first saw Alvin Ailey dance with the AAADT. “Nobody danced like Alvin” she recalled. “He moved like quick-silver. He moved like a cat.” Minnie Marshall, one of her favorite Ailey dancers, also made an indelible impression as she danced in Ailey’s signature piece, Revelations. Inspired, Jamison thought to herself, “I can do that.”
Ms. Jamison’s autobiography, Dancing Spirit, was edited by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and published in 1993. In 2004, under Ms. Jamison’s artistic directorship, her idea of a permanent home for the Ailey company was realized and named after beloved chairman emerita Joan Weill. Ms. Jamison continues to dedicate herself to asserting the prominence of the arts in our culture, and she remains committed to promoting the significance of the Ailey legacy – using dance as a medium for honoring the past, celebrating the present and fearlessly reaching into the future.