Alvin Ailey Dance

In America, Martha Graham (The Queen of Modern), Rudolph von Laban ( Time Energy and Space), and Alvin Ailey (Gospel or Lyrical Spiritual dance) developed and are developing for human movement and methods of instruction that led to the development of modern and expressionist dance. The reason that modern dance is so popular is because it 's the ability to move your body in a way that is comfortable to you. Also people in that time were trying to get out of the strictness of ballet and wanted to be more free in there dancing.

The society change during the 20th century changed in the dance style.

Several changes were based on political and civil rights, even though dance was used to entertainment people. It was a way for people to express

I believe that the dance came from the people and that it should always be delivered back to the people”. (Google.com) Alvin Ailey was born in Texas in 1931 to Alvina and Elizabeth Ailey. He was an only child, his father (a laborer) left him and his mom when Alvin was only one year old. Five years later Elizabeth and her son move too Navasota, Texas they were staying in Rogers. At this time there was a lot of segregation with the white and blacks only signs. So there was a “black” church and a “white” school at the top of the hill where him and his mother lived. Ailey once said “ Like most of my generation, I grew up feeling like an outsider, like someone who didn’t matter”. (Notable Biographies Page 1) In 1942 the two of them moved to Los Angeles, California and his mother found work in a aircraft factory. Ailey was interested in sports and athletics and he joined his high school gymnastic team and also played football. His interest for dance began with tap dance in his neighbor 's home, soon then after he was taken to a modern dance school ran by Lester Horton. Horton’s company was the first to admit dancers of all races. After Ailey graduated from high school he was considering being a teacher so he went to University of California in LA to study languages. Lester Horton offered him scholarship in 1949 and he came back but then left one year later to attend San Francisco State

Just one year later the theater became the resident dance company at the Clark Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. Since Ailey was having problems with his weight he gave up dancing in favor of choreographing. 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 .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.