Judith Jamison, Alvin Ailey Dancer and Artistic Director, Passes Away at 81

BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that legendary Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater dancer Judith Jamison, who later became Artistic Director of the company for 20 years, passed away on Saturday, November 9 at the age of 81, after a brief illness. 

Jamison was originally from Philadelphia and began training at age 6 at the Judimar School of Dance. She joined the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1965, where she stayed for 15 years, leaving in 1980 to pursue guest artist and Broadway roles. Jamison's Broadway credits include Bejart: Ballet of the Twentieth Century, which opened in March 1979 and Sophisticated Ladies in March of 1981. She also formed her own company, The Jamison Project.

In 1989, she succeeded Alvin Ailey as artistic director of the Ailey company, where she remained for 20 years. Jamison's choreographic works include Divining (1984), Forgotten Time (1989), Hymn (1993), HERE...NOW. (commissioned for the 2002 Cultural Olympiad), Love Stories (2004, with additional choreography by Robert Battle and Rennie Harris), and Among Us (Private Spaces: Public Places) (2009). Jamison released her autobiography Dancing Spirit, edited by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, in 1993.

Her awards and honors include a Primetime Emmy Award, an American Choreography Award, a Kennedy Center Honor, a National Medal of Arts, a Bessie Award, the Phoenix Award, and the Handel Medallion. She was also included in the TIME 100: The World’s Most Influential People in 2009, honored by First Lady Michelle Obama at the first White House Dance Series event in 2010, and became the 50th inductee into the Hall of Fame at the National Museum of Dance in 2015.