Judith Jamison

BORN: MAY 10, 1943, PHILADELPHIA, PA

If you look at a dancer in silence, his or her body will be the music….

In her signature performance of Alvin Ailey’s “Cry,” Judith Jamison moved with fluid and electrifying elegance—transforming a long white piece of cloth into a child, a washrag, an ironing board, and a shawl, from the embodiment of an enslaved woman carrying “the weight of the world” to exemplifying a liberated woman’s ecstasy and grace. The three-part, fifteen-minute performance was created especially for Judith by choreographer Alvin Ailey as an expression to honor all Black mothers. Through Judith’s body—her long arms and legs and regal carriage—dance became an extraordinary “medium for honoring the past, celebrating the present and fearlessly reaching into the future.”

The daughter of blue-collar Black parents, Judith started taking ballet classes when she was six years old, and she was embraced by her family and church community. She learned about commitment to excellence and helping others, strengths she has relied on throughout her stellar career.

Judith trained at the Philadelphia Dance Academy until Agnes de Mille of the American Ballet Theater invited her to perform her newest work, The Four Marys. At the close of the show in 1964, Judith was left without a job, but soon an audition and a series of connections led her to accept a position at Alvin Ailey in 1965. As a member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT), Judith helped to re-define the world’s perception of American dance with her commanding presence. She performed with the AAADT for over fifteen years before launching a solo career on Broadway in 1980, and a few years later her own company, the Jamison Project. After Alvin’s death in 1989, she directed the AAADT for twenty-one years. Judith served as artistic director, teacher, and choreographer and played a major role in raising the funds for the construction of a permanent $54 million, eight-floor building for the company, which opened in 2005.

Judith retired from her position as artistic director in 2011 but continues to influence the creative world as a choreographer and educator. Her many honors include the National Medal of Arts, the Congressional Black Caucus’s Phoenix Award, a Kennedy Center Honor for her contribution to American culture through dance, and being named NYC Ambassador of the Arts.