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• ON FIRE: Jamison during her days as a dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Alvin Ailey's pioneering dance troupe, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Artistic director Judith Jamison has worked off and on (mostly on) with the company since 1965, when she joined as a dancer. She was hand-picked by Ailey and appointed as the company's artistic director shortly after Ailey's death in 1989. Jamison gushed about the troupe's upcoming performance at the Fox Feb. 19-22 during a phone interview last week, barley letting us get a word in. Her excitement about the anniversary tour is understandable. Heck, even the Obamas found time to make it out to a Feb. 6 performance at the Kennedy Center in D.C.

Jamison on company founder Alvin Ailey's vision:

"Fifty years ago [Ailey] just decided that there was no place for black dancers to be seen. ... The first work that he actually did was Blues Suite. And because there was this vacant spot for not celebrating our own culture — that of African and American — of course celebrating the modern tradition of our country, he decided to combine that in many ways. Abstractly, directly, story telling, placing us in situations that we reflect on our culture as Americans and as African Americans.

"So the pieces that we’re doing for you, especially for the students, (I love the standing student performances that are coming up), those are sometimes my favorite ’cause the kids, they are active! They make noise! ... Because Alvin always believed that we’re born to spread out. He happened to say that if the dance came from people it needed to be delivered back to the people, so there should not be a line between what’s going on on the stage and what you’re feeling when you’re watching.

"... We are here to celebrate the idea of what the human body can do and how far it can reach into your soul and make you feel differently about yourself. Make you feel good. Make you feel period. Whether it’s good, bad, or any way, but that you have a specific experience that you can participate in, you know? I mean, what a wonderful thing to be able to see live performance. To be able to be in the dark in a huge place like that gorgeous Fox Theatre, which I love, and be in this huge space, and have your eyes do their own walking, you know what I’m saying? It’s not controlled by anybody. The stage is yours. And we’re there for you."

Jamison on AADT's trademark dance, Revelations:

"It’s one of our classic works. It’s about bell houses. It’s about juke joints. It’s about bordello light. It’s about people who are frustrated and living on the edge and can’t get out of this little tiny town that they’re in and in that town they’re stuck. But they still, within that, have grown with grace and dignity. And on Saturday night they’re at that club, they’re at that party, they’re out on the town. But on Sunday morning they’re in church. Revelations.

"... Revelations has been done more than any other modern dance or any dance for that matter, over the years. ... Well, that’s a tribute to the man’s genius. His idea of understanding that dance had something to say about who we are as people. And because we are so specific about who were are as people, as African Americans, the message became universal. Because it’s about our humanity. It’s about everyone’s humanity. So that’s why Revelations or Blues Suite or any of these Ailey classics can be understood all over world. There’s no barrier there."

Jamison on dance education:

"First of all, the first thing you do when you’re born is what? And don’t tell me you make a noise. Because everybody knows when you’re alive you gotta open your mouth first and wave those little chords in the air to make sure people know you’re alive. And you’re breathing, those lungs are moving. Everything is moving, you know? So we move. It’s within us to move.

"... My hat is off to this generation, because they are bombarded with so much information. That in order for them to have a really great sense of who they are as individuals, and understand their uniqueness, sometimes those images have to be put in front of them. And a great example of that is an Ailey dancer. Is a dancer that carries themselves well, that is intelligent, that has something to say about commitment and passion and love of what they do.

"That extends not just to children, but it is especially important for children to understand that. And it’s especially important for adults to keep mentoring their children and having them understand that the arts are a very important part of their lives. It’s not just something you do on the side up in the background of somebody. This is modern concert dance, from a predominantly African-American company that’s been around for 50 years, that the President of the United States decided he would come to see on his first date, you know? There’s that significance. I wish Alvin had been here for that significance."

Jamison on the Lester Horton Technique:

"Lester Horton gave Alvin the ideas of dance being inclusive: the dancer learning about theater, the dancer knowing how to sew a costume, repair a costume, the dancer knowing about light. The dancer knowing about floor. The dancer knowing about choreography, about structure, about how things work in the business world. How to book the company.

"You know one of the things we’re grandly missing in the world of the arts is people of color being behind the scenes. The arts and education or producing even. Or being stage manager or being an agent. Being in concert dance. Concert modern dance. We are sorely lacking in executive directors. Except I’ve got the greatest executive director in the world. Sharon Luckman. She is fabulous. But I’m saying to you that behind the scenes there need to be many more people of color who are into the development and into marketing and into everything that is possible that is not necessarily performance-oriented.

"In fact, as far as Lester Horton, Lester Horton was [Ailey's] master teacher. I mean he really gave him the basis, which was the Horton Technique, from which he sprang. That’s why I tell young people now that you’ve gotta learn how to sit on some technique before they get out there and try everything else. You can’t be poppin’ and lockin’ and kickin’ your legs up high and doing multiple pirouettes and all that until you’re 95. You have to have something to sit on. Some technique to sit on."

Jamison on the African-American cultural experience:

"If you think that in the company, there are people from all over the world in the company, who have come to study what our culture is about. And who have immersed themselves in our culture and found out that in immersing themselves in a specific culture they found out the range of Mr. Alvin Ailey and how open-armed and how expressive we can be. You think of Masazumi Chaya, he’s been with the company for 38 years. He joined the company in 1972. Isn’t that something? So here we are with this man from Fukuoka, Japan. Now would you please … now the reason it makes sense is because he came to study because he saw this wonderful choreography. He saw this incredible culture. And he came to study it. And out of that, he says what he learned from Alvin is how to be a better human being. Now go with that. And be a better artist. Now how many people can say that?"

(Photo by Andrew Eccles)