Judith Ann Jamison (born May 10, 1943) is an American dancer and choreographer, best known as the Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
I can't really hear the audience applause when I'm on stage. I'm totally immersed in the piece. But sometimes I get a lot of it and wonder, "Now, why did they applaud here?" If it's a white crowd, they usually applaud because they think it's a pretty movement. If it's a black crowd, it's usually because they identify with the message.
If you look at a dancer in silence, his or her body will be the music. If you turn the music on, that body will become an extension of what you're hearing.
I felt the naivete of a child in my dancing. I cherished that feeling. I had what I call a knowledgeable naivete, and it worked for me.
You don't enter a dance studio and say "I can't do that. " If you do, then why are you in the studio in the first place?
Once you've danced, you always dance. You can't deny the gifts that God sends your way
Concert dance is the hardest kind of dance. We tour constantly, around the world, year in and year out. It just doesn't work for everybody. It's the lifestyle, it's the stamina, it's the love, it's the dedication, it's the commitment, it's all those words.
One you've danced, you always dance.
Dance is about never-ending aspiration.
It's a real gift to have a husband and wife in the company that love each other and that work together. They check on each other emotionally and physically. That's beautiful to me.
I believe that this world was set about for us to enjoy and to love and to experience and to have it all be, to a certain extent, unpredictable. Ever since I was a child I have believed that my life has been guided.
Dance is not endangered - it will always find a way to express itself.
Dance is bigger than the physical body. When you extend your arm, it doesn't stop at the end of your fingers, because you're dancing bigger than that; you're dancing spirit.
I want people to have their own visions for the dance. Some generations will sit back and relate to the music. And the young people. . . they'll have the dance right in front of them.
Learn the craft of knowing how to open your heart and to turn on your creativity. There's a light inside of you.
Dancing is being trusted with other people's guts; choreographing is trusting other people with yours. When I choreograph I'm giving a dancer something to do and trusting the dancer to do it and build on it.
I've danced all over the world, and people are people. We cannot cut off from each other in life. In order to lead, you can't do that.
The first time I started choreographing was in the dark, in my living room, with the lights completely out, to some popular music on the radio. I put the radio on full blast and I started moving. I didn't know what it looked like. I didn't want to see it. . . I had to start in the dark.
I'm moved by contraries, by opposites, the strength that was my mother's eyes, the beauty of my father's hands.
I've been in a competitive situation almost all my life. I've been having a competition with myself and trying to be the best I could be.
I've always felt that complement of opposites: body and soul, solitude and companionship, and in the dance studio, contraction and release, rise and fall.