Dance Warrior in Sweat Pants

Alvin Ailey was a modern dance master who opened up a new world of possibilities for his dancers as well as for the audience. Although several choreographers have helped pave the road that led to integrated dance styles for the stage--and provided opportunities for dancers of all colors--no one walked that road with as much panache as did Ailey, who died last week at 58.

He conditioned his dancers to be warriors, and trained them to be versatile in classical as well as jazz and modern techniques. He succeeded fabulously, and his company gained an international reputation as one of the first truly American dance repertory companies at a time when some critics were actually still debating whether blacks had the “physical necessities” to perform ballet. That was only one of many myths Ailey was to shatter.

The son of a Texas laborer, Ailey was not only a gifted athlete at UCLA but was a talented Romance language student as well. UCLA was later to become the local site of the recurring Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre engagements that are so popular, even for people who are not usually aficionados of concert dance. Why? Because Ailey’s work exploded on the stage and spiritually grabbed members of the audience and shook them by the shoulders. His work, said one admirer, “fused black and white dance into a brilliant chiaroscuro.”

During visits to Los Angeles, where he lived as a teen-ager and came of age as a dancer, Ailey served as mentor to others, not only in art but in the business of running dance companies.

Lula Washington, one of the many black dancers he inspired and encouraged over the years, is now in the process of purchasing a building on Adams Boulevard as a permanent home for her Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Theatre.

Alvin Ailey, who talked about how dance made “an 18-year-old athlete in sweat pants feel important,” has ensured that others can show the world just how important he was.