Judith Jamison, Transcendent Dancer and Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey Company, Dies at 81

Jamison died after a brief illness in New York on Saturday, surrounded by close friends, Christopher Zunner, an Ailey spokesperson, confirmed to The Associated Press.

Jamison, who was originally from Philadelphia and trained in ballet starting at the age of 6 at the Judimar School of Dance, began dancing with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1965.She became one of the company’s most famous performers and danced there for 15 years before leaving to perform as a guest artist with other ballet companies and on Broadway, according to the Ailey website.

“Numbers and ages really do matter. I love when people say, ‘The number doesn’t matter.’ Oh, yes it does when you’ve been dancing most of your life. It matters a whole lot because your body is catching up to what craziness you were doing as a dancer. At 80, everything doesn’t work the same way. And that’s the challenge, finding out, what can I do? What can’t I do? But I’m loving it.”Privacy Policy

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