Technique
Ailey made use of any combination of dance techniques that best suited the theatrical moment. Valuing eclecticism, he created more a dance style than a technique. He said that what he wanted from a dancer was a long, unbroken leg line and deftly articulated legs and feet ("a ballet bottom") combined with a dramatically expressive upper torso ("a modern top"). "What I like is the line and technical range that classical ballet gives to the body. But I still want to project to the audience the expressiveness that only modern dance offers, especially for the inner kinds of things."
Ailey's dancers came to his company with training from a variety of other schools, from ballet to modern and jazz and later hip-hop. He was unique in that he did not train his dancers in a specific technique before they performed his choreography. He approached his dancers more in the manner of a jazz conductor, requiring them to infuse his choreography with a personal style that best suited their individual talents. This openness to input from dancers heralded a paradigm shift that brought concert dance into harmony with other forms of African-American expression, including big band jazz.
In 1992 Alvin Ailey was inducted into the National Museum of Dance's Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, NY.
Read more about this topic: Alvin Ailey
Famous quotes containing the word technique:
“The more technique you have, the less you have to worry about it. The more technique there is, the less there is.”
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
“The moment a man begins to talk about technique that’s proof that he is fresh out of ideas.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“Technique is the test of sincerity. If a thing isn’t worth getting the technique to say, it is of inferior value.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)