HUMAN 1C Chapter Notes - Chapter Notes: Chauvinism, Agnes De Mille, Concert Dance

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18 May 2018
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-“Making dances,” Alvin says, “is an act of progress; it is an act of growth, an act of music, an
act of teaching, an act of celebration, an act of joy.” (9)
-Some of Ailey’s finest work results directly from personal experience. Cry
was “sort of a
birthday present to my mother”. Masakela Language
, made in 1969, came out of “anger at what
was happening to the Black Panthers in Chicago at the time”. (9)
-“My first idea was to bring forward what black people had contributed to music and to dance.
Then I found music I loved and people I thought were talented and social themes I thought
needed to be put on stage”. (9)
Horton had the first integrated company, when he died, Ailey took over
Ailey calls Horton a “humanist” (11)
-Blues Suite
is a statement about specific people and places which, because of its poetry, also
speaks in general terms about the experience of being black in the United States. (12)
-You don’t have to be black or baptized to understand what is happening, to feel the joy of
purification and the sense of surrender to the river of the spirit.(12)
-Ailey, who set out to make dances based on the culture and experiences of black Americans,
and to free black artists from the restrictions placed on them in too many parts of the theater,
integrated his company. “I discovered that there was a kind of reverse chauvinism in being an
all-black company or an all-black anything,” he says. “A few critics said that only black people
could do blues and the things we were doing. I thought that we were being put into a category-I
wanted my dancers to feel that they were not just ‘black dancers’, that they were a part of
society.” (15)
-“I discovered as we traveled through Asia that there were blues in all cultures, that there were
spirituals in all cultures, that there were these feelings in all cultures and that the people of any
culture could express them. I got a lot of flak about it during the 1960s, but I think that an
integrated company enlarges the statement I’ve been trying to make”. (15)
-Ailey has done as much for black dancers by employing Caucasians and Orientals as he has
by making works about the black experience. He is saying, in effect, that if a white dancer can
express the spirit of Revelations
, then a black one can convey the essence of “Swan Lake”; if a
Japanese dancer can execute jazz technique, a black one can perform ballet. (15)
-“I’ve always felt that I wanted to celebrate the differences in people,” Alvin explains. “I didn’t
want all the same bodies, or all the same color, in my company”. (15)
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