Ruth Leon recommends… Judith Jamison

Judith Jamison

One of the greatest dancers I ever saw, Judith Jamison, died this week and I would be remiss if I didn’t pay tribute to this beautiful woman who changed the world of contemporary dance.

I knew her when she was still dancing with the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater which she led as its Director following Ailey’s death in 1988. As a dancer she was transcendent, able to embody the works she performed as though they grew out of her very soul.

Tall, very tall, and elegant with preternaturally long arms which seemed to reach further and higher than anyone else’s, she was Ailey’s muse, the centre of his most famous work, Revelations, but what made her a star was Cry, the solo he made for her as a tribute “to all Black women everywhere, especially our mothers.”

Armed only with a long white scarf, Crywas her signature, her physical statement that she was the best and greatest of all her peers and she performed it all over the world as emblematic of all women, especially Black women. Technically challenging, it manifests a series of female roles, from mother to servant to queen, and emotions from restriction to ecstatic freedom.

She took over the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater when it was at a low ebb, financially and artistically, when Ailey himself was ill and hospitalised, and, after his death she built it into the most successful modern dance company in the United States.

I knew her to be warm and funny, highly intelligent, a exceedingly hard worker, and a much loved mentor to a whole generation of young dancers.

I have been unable to find a full-length video of Judith Jamison performing Cry so here is a photo essay with a interview of what its creative process was like from her perspective and Ailey’s. If any readers know of a full-length Cry, please let me know.

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