Judith Jamison, an acclaimed dancer and choreographer who for two decades was artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, died on Saturday in New York at the age of 81.
Her death came after a brief illness, according to a post on the company's Instagram page.
Jamison grew up in Philadelphia and began dancing at the age of six, she said in a 2019 TED Talk. She joined Ailey's modern dance company in 1965, when few Black women were prominent in American dance, and performed there for 15 years.
In 1971, she premiered "Cry," a 17-minute solo that Ailey dedicated "to all Black women everywhere — especially our mothers," and which became a signature of the company, according to its website.
Ailey said of Jamison in his 1995 autobiography that "with 'Cry' she became herself. Once she found this contact, this release, she poured her being into everybody who came to see her perform."
Remembering those we lost: Celebrity Deaths 2024
Jamison performed on Broadway and formed her own dance company before returning to serve as artistic director for the Ailey troupe from 1989 to 2011.
"I felt prepared to carry (the company) forward. Alvin and I were like parts of the same tree. He, the roots and the trunk, and we were the branches. I was his muse. We were all his muses," she said in the TED Talk.
More stars we've lost in 2024:Quincy Jones, Jonathan Haze, Teri Garr
Jamison received a Kennedy Center Honor, National Medal of Arts, and numerous other awards.
2024-12-25 21:25340 view
2024-12-25 20:381119 view
2024-12-25 19:5283 view
2024-12-25 19:511678 view
2024-12-25 19:201611 view
2024-12-25 19:00643 view
BEIJING — China's ruling Communist Party has expelled Gou Zhongwen, the former director of the State
PINE BLUFF, Ark. (AP) — Two detainees, including one held on murder charges, have broken out of a co
Every year, wildfires across the western U.S. and Canada send plumes of smoke into the sky. When tha