Judith Jamison

Judith Jamison, a former dancer in the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater who left to work on Broadway and form her own group, was named today as Ailey's successor as artistic director of the company. Ailey, who founded the dance company 31 years ago, died Dec. 1. Jamison said at a news conference at the company's school that, earlier this year, Ailey told her he wanted her to succeed him. "He said, 'You're going in another direction now.'

There is a lot of foot rubbing and neck rolling in the room when you hang out with five men from Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater on a morning after they've performed "The Hunt. " The furious and powerful ensemble work serves as the main calling card for Robert Battle, artistic director designate, on Ailey's North American tour. Battle, who takes leadership of the company in July, set his all-male work to a pounding percussion score by Les Tambours du Bronx, with raw, exotic fight scenes inspired by Battle's boyhood martial arts devotion.

"One of the most essential qualities of the Ailey company," says Judith Jamison, the new director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Dance Center, is the way it "nurtured (the dancers') individuality, so I'm not about to drop my individuality as Judy Jamison to step into those shoes."

Donald McKayle has to be one of the sunniest artists that the oft-stressed world of American dance has ever produced. In his lengthy, influential career, McKayle has ranged across the postwar dance landscape, performing the works of many choreographic giants ( Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham lead the list) while simultaneously creating seminal works of his own. His dance-making reach extended to Broadway, movies and TV. He created works for companies around the world and he taught and administered dance programs at colleges throughout the United States, most recently at UC Irvine, from which he retired in June as a professor of dance.

When Judith Jamison became artistic director for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, she had some big shoes to fill. Ailey, who founded one of the nation's most enduring modern-dance ensembles, died in 1989. Since accepting the creative reins five years ago from the legendary dancer/choreographer, Jamison has emerged from the shadow of her powerful predecessor and taken bold new steps.

Wanted: CEO for a black culture corporation. Preferably of stout heart and big shoulders. Limited experience OK. Will consider owner of small mom-and-pop store. That ad might describe the job Judith Jamison inherited--and her qualifications--when Alvin Ailey died 10 months ago. And now with his Dance Theatre about to perform in Los Angeles for the first time without its founder, the moment of truth is here.

For 15 years, beginning in 1965, Judith Jamison was the crowning jewel of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Five foot 10 with long, long limbs and cropped hair, Jamison looked like a Masai Amazon. When Jamison rushed into Ailey's famous "Revelations," brandishing a white parasol, and started a sinuous, exalted treading across a river of silk, audiences saw not just a Southern Baptist metaphor for salvation, but an African river goddess.

Judith Jamison was the biggest star the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater had in its 32 years. She is now at the helm of the modern dance company as it twirls through its first New York season with an artistic director other than its founder. Jamison was named artistic director after Ailey's death last year on Dec. 1. The season had gone on that month, as planned, in a kind of shocked state for both dancers and audiences.

Judith Jamison can recall vividly the April 1989 lunch in St. Louis when Alvin Ailey designated her his artistic heir. "He said, 'I'm not doing well; you know I'm sick, and I'd like you to take over the company.' I said, 'Sure, of course, Alvin.' "That was it. The decision to do it was instantaneous." Jamison, 66, was speaking last month in her comfortable office on an upper floor of the company's sleek, spacious Midtown headquarters. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater recently had completed its annual five-week New York City season, during which Jamison's 20th anniversary as artistic director was honored and celebrated in various forms.

She has been called an ebony goddess, the ancestral earth mother, the black Venus of dance. Judith Jamison, former star of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and for the past decade its director, invites such mythical comparisons. Once a gangly kid, she grew into a vision of grandeur: nearly 6 feet tall--though even when seeing her stride onstage barefoot, you'd swear she was taller.

NEW YORK — It was only a little more than 48 hours since Robert Battle had learned he would be the new artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, but he was getting used to saying "we" as he discussed the organization whose reins he would officially take over in July 2011. The announcement was eagerly awaited in the dance world, since the 51-year-old company has one of the busiest, most high-profile schedules in the dance world, and longtime director Judith Jamison had announced her impending departure two years ago, allowing plenty of time for a careful search.

Judith Jamison can recall vividly the April 1989 lunch in St. Louis when Alvin Ailey designated her his artistic heir. "He said, 'I'm not doing well; you know I'm sick, and I'd like you to take over the company.' I said, 'Sure, of course, Alvin.' "That was it. The decision to do it was instantaneous." Jamison, 66, was speaking last month in her comfortable office on an upper floor of the company's sleek, spacious Midtown headquarters. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater recently had completed its annual five-week New York City season, during which Jamison's 20th anniversary as artistic director was honored and celebrated in various forms.

The artistic director who has helped shape the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for nearly two decades says she plans to retire. Judith Jamison, 64, said this week that she will step down in 2011. She joined the New York-based modern dance company in 1965 and became artistic director in 1989, shortly after founder Alvin Ailey's death. During her tenure, the ensemble has created a bachelor's degree program with Fordham University, expanded its performance schedule and built a $56-million headquarters on Manhattan's West Side.

She has been called an ebony goddess, the ancestral earth mother, the black Venus of dance. Judith Jamison, former star of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and for the past decade its director, invites such mythical comparisons. Once a gangly kid, she grew into a vision of grandeur: nearly 6 feet tall--though even when seeing her stride onstage barefoot, you'd swear she was taller.

Wrapping up a gala weekend in which the Kennedy Center honored some of the nation's outstanding performers from the world of the arts, President Clinton paid tribute to five honorees for their dedication and commitment to their craft.

When the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater begins its five-day run in Los Angeles tonight, the company will serve up a controversial piece one critic has called its "most striking acquisition" in a decade. The new commission, "Lettres d'Amour," was choreographed by Redha, a French-born Algerian Italian choreographer and onetime "Soul Train" dancer who traded acting for ballet at age 22.

Even when seated behind a desk piled high with papers awaiting her attention, Judith Jamison remains an elegant, regal figure. The desk once belonged to Alvin Ailey, whose popular, versatile 30-member dance company is now under Jamison's direction.

On a day so hot that the word warm-up becomes an oxymoron, a dozen sleek dancers stretch their sinewy bodies and undulate to taped music. Bare feet screech against a high-lacquer wood floor and the softly whirring ceiling fans circulate the heavy, muggy air. But even after six hours of rehearsal, no one shows signs of discomfort or fatigue. Neither the performers nor Judith Jamison, who directs activities from the bench of a second-floor studio on South Broad Street.

Dancer and choreographer Judith Jamison of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was honored at a reception at Cal State Northridge on Tuesday. The event, hosted by CSUN's Du Bois-Hamer Institute, marked the New York-based dance troupe's 40th anniversary and its Los Angeles engagement Thursday through Sunday. About 50 CSUN faculty members, staff and students and members of the Panorama City-based National Council of Negro Women attended the reception.

Judith Jamison, the artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and a member of the company from 1965 to 1980, and Christyne Lawson, dean of dance at CalArts and a founding member of the company in 1958, connected by phone--Lawson in L.A., Jamison on tour in Berkeley--to talk about history, the meaning of black dance and two new Jamison works, "Riverside," set to a drumming score by Kimati Dinizulu, and "Sweet Release," composed by Wynton Marsalis.