Description
Book SynopsisAlvin Ailey (19311989) was a choreographic giant in the modern dance world and a champion of African-American talent and culture. His interracial Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater provided opportunities to black dancers and choreographers when no one else would. His acclaimed Revelations” remains one of the most performed modern dance pieces in the twentieth century. But he led a tortured life, filled with insecurity and self-loathing. Raised in poverty in rural Texas by his single mother, he managed to find success early in his career, but by the 1970s his creativity had waned. He turned to drugs, alcohol, and gay bars and suffered a nervous breakdown in 1980. He was secretive about his private life, including his homosexuality, and, unbeknownst to most at the time, died from AIDS-related complications at age 58.Now, for the first time, the complete story of Ailey's life and work is revealed in this biography. Based on his personal journals and hundreds of interviews with those who knew him, including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Judith Jamison, Lena Horne, Katherine Dunham, Sidney Poitier, and Dustin Hoffman, Alvin Ailey is a moving story of a man who wove his life and culture into his dance.
Table of Contents* Busy As Soon As He Was Born * A Light And Shadowed Paradise * Love And Need And Growing Up * Approaching Center * Hard Times But The Best Times * Studio Days * Filling Lester Hortons Shoes * Coming Of Age In New York * The First Concept * Songs of Trouble, Songs of Love * Revelations * A New York Family * Back To Acting, On To Asia * Hot And Perfect * Prophets With Little Honor * Back On The Road Again * Threw All Dance Clothes Into Wastebasket * Back In Business, Several Times * African Odyssey * Budgets, Boards And Two Good-Byes * An Anger In The Air * Climbing * Family Matters * The Board Arrives * Daddy Wore Khaki Pants * Ellingtonia * None But My Calling * Breakdown * A Formal Feeling * Kansas CityAnd Beyond * Up And Down, Again * So Easy To Break, And Yet So Strong * Afterword
