FEATURE
SFGN Celebrates Black History Month
Alvin Ailey Choreographer
Alice Walker
Bill Jones
Author and Feminist
Dancer and choreographer
1/5/1931 - 12/1/1989
2/9/1944 -
2/15/1952 -
“I am trying to show the world that we are all human beings and that color is not important. What is important is the quality of our work.”
“The truest and most enduring impulse I have is simply to write.”.”
“Living and dying is not the big issue. The big issue is what you’re going to do with your time while you are here.”
A
lvin Ailey Jr. was an internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer. He founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, a dance company hailed as an ambassador of American culture. Ailey formed a multiracial company and revolutionized dance, incorporating elements of ballet and jazz, along with modern and African dance, into his work. Ailey grew up in Rogers, Texas, the son of a young, struggling single mother. His father abandoned the family when Ailey was six months old. In 1941, the family moved to Los Angeles, where Ailey met Lester Horton, who ran the first multiracial dance school. Horton took Ailey under his wing, teaching him a variety of dance styles and techniques. In 1953, Ailey joined Horton’s company. Later that year, he was named artistic director. In 1954, Ailey made his Broadway debut dancing in “House of Flowers.” He also performed in “Sing, Man, Sing” with Harry Belafonte and in “Jamaica” with Lena Horne. In 1957, Ailey established the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. The company’s premiere performance, “Blues Suite”—a riveting work reflecting the AfricanAmerican emotional experience—defined Ailey’s theatrical and eclectic style. A prolific choreographer, Ailey created 79 original works for his company. “Revelations” (1960), recognized as his signature piece, is touted as the most-watched work of modern dance. “Cry” (1971), one of Ailey’s most successful works, was dedicated to his mother and AfricanAmerican women. In 1979, Ailey received the Springarn Medal for outstanding achievement from the NAACP. In 1988, he was recognized with a Kennedy Center Honors Award. Ailey died at age 58 from complications of AIDS. In his memory, a section of West 61st Street in New York was named “Alvin Ailey Way.”
January 30, 2013 • SouthFloridaGayNews.com
A
lice Walker is an award-winning writer, activist and self-proclaimed “Womanist”—a term she coined in her book “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens” (1974) to describe black feminists. The voices she brings to life in her novels, short stories and poems helped educate and inspire readers. Walker was raised in Eatonton, Georgia, during segregation. She was the youngest of eight children born to poor sharecroppers. Walker received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College in 1965. She moved back to the South to pursue civil rights work and met Mel Leventhal. Walker and Leventhal, a Jewish civil rights lawyer, were the first interracial couple to be legally married in Mississippi. Walker had her only child during the marriage. The couple divorced in 1976. Walker began teaching at Wellesley College in 1972. Her course, dedicated to the study of AfricanAmerican women writers, was the first of its kind. Her most famous novel, “The Color Purple” (1983), won a National Book Award and made Walker the first African-American woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 1985, the novel was made into a movie directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg and Danny Glover. The film earned 11 Oscar nominations. In 2005, “The Color Purple” was adapted as a Broadway musical, with Winfrey as the lead financial backer. Walker’s awards include a Guggenheim Foundation Grant, an American Book Award, a Lillian Smith Award and an O’Henry Award. She was inducted into the Georgia Writer’s Hall of Fame and the California Hall of Fame. In 1997, Walker was named Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association.
These profiles are used with permission from the LGBT History Month Project. Visit www. lgbthistorymonth.com for more information.
B
ill T. Jones is a dancer and avant-garde choreographer who has created masterpieces about race, sexuality, life and loss. He is known for his extraordinary ability to translate human emotion and experience into the language of dance and theater. The 10th of 12 children, William Tass Jones was born in Florida, the son of migrant farm workers, and raised in Wayland, New York. As one of the only blacks at his public school, Jones believes the experience of living by white norms at school and black norms at home encouraged his self-expression. Jones attended the State University of New York, where he studied classical ballet and modern dance. It was there that he met his lover of 17 years, Arnie Zane. The two danced and choreographed together. As an openly gay interracial couple they pushed the envelope and challenged their audiences’ preconceived notions about gender, race and sexuality. In 1982, they cofounded the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. In 1986, Zane was diagnosed with AIDS, which claimed his life two years later. Watching his life partner die gave Jones a new sense of passion and urgency. In his 1994 piece “Still/Here,” Jones took the experiences of people living with life-threatening illnesses and transformed them into a beautiful piece about life and confronting death. HIV-positive himself, Jones wanted to teach those living under the constant threat of death how to express themselves through movement. Jones’s work also draws from existing material. Jones has won many awards, including a Tony Award, the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement and a Harlem Renaissance Award. In 2007, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Museum of Dance. He is the recipient of five honorary doctorates.
23