Dance News : Stepping Down Memory Lane With Ailey

Alvin Ailey spent his adolescence and early adulthood--from the ages of 12 to 23--in Los Angeles. The choreographer, former dancer and founder of the three-decade old Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater remembers his years as member of the Lester Horton company--”Sometimes, I drive by our theater, still there, on Melrose Ave.--it’s a male porn house now.” He also remembers downtown Los Angeles in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s as “a really special place.”

In the elegantly refurbished Olive Street lobby of the Biltmore Hotel, the 58-year-old Ailey reminisces about places long gone: the Biltmore Theater, Philharmonic Auditorium, the Orpheum theater, the nightclubs of Central Avenue. He ticks off names of performers he remembers seeing in those years: Martha Graham, Tommy Dorsey, Alexandra Danilova, Billie Holiday, Katherine Dunham. . . .

“The first time I saw Dunham was right here, in this building in the (long-ago razed) Biltmore Theater,” Ailey says.

The influence of the pioneer choreographer--whose heyday was the 1930s and ‘40s--on generations of dancers and choreographers of all stripes cannot be overestimated, Ailey says.

His tribute to her, “The Magic of Katherine Dunham,” mounted at a cost of more than $500,000, was given its first performance at City Center in Manhattan in late 1987. Since then it has been danced, by the Ailey company, in Washington, Boston and Paris.

It should also have been part of the latest Ailey engagement in Los Angeles, which, under auspices of the UCLA Center for the Arts, takes place Tuesday through next Sunday at the Wiltern Theatre.

“But it would have taken extra funding--between $25,000 and $35,000 over the cost of the engagement,” said Pebbles Wadsworth, director of the center. “Given more time to raise those funds, I think we can expect to see the Dunham show when the Ailey company returns next,” probably 1990-91, she added.

“It broke my heart not to be able to bring the Dunham evening here,” Ailey said, pointing out that two cities on the company’s current January-May tour of the United States will get to see that program, which offers 14 pieces from the Dunham repertory. Those cities--St. Louis (near where Dunham now lives) and Minneapolis--are on the eastern leg of the tour. Dunham, 79 this year, and some members of her former company helped re-create these works for the 1987 revival.

Reminiscing about his career beginnings, Ailey talked about going to New York with his colleague, Carmen de Lavallade, in 1954--after the death of his mentor, Lester Horton--dancing on Broadway, and starting his own company.

“Little did I know, when I started, first with one concert in 1958, then with two the following season, that I would be chasing funds for the rest of my life.”

Fortunately, he says, “I like what I’m doing.”

And, though he says European audiences appreciate his work and his company more fully than do North American audiences, “When I’m depressed, I think how much we have done in these 30 years.” From his headquarters in New York, Ailey manages the future of two Ailey companies, the touring one and a junior troupe, oversees a school where 2,000 students receive dance training, and makes dances.

“Because of funding, we can have only one long rehearsal period every year,” the choreographer said, “So it is not possible for me to be able to create more than two new works a year. That’s frustrating. And, of course, having a company means having a whole lot of problems all the time. This is a stress business.”