Dancing Revelations

Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) is arguably the most important black American choreographer in the short history of modern dance. This study presents an examination of Ailey's range of choreography, considers its cultural sources, theories of African American Performance, and the ways in which Ailey shaped African American participation in modern dance.

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In the early 1960s, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was a small, multi-racial company of dancers that performed the avant-garde works of its founding choreographer. By the late 1960s, the company had become a well-known African-American artistic group closely tied to the Civil Rights struggle and the Black Arts movement. In "Dancing Revelations", Thomas DeFrantz chronicles the troupe's journey from small modern dance company to one of the premier institutions of African-American culture. DeFrantz charts the Ailey Theater's rise to national and international renown and contextualizes its progress within the civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights struggles of the late 20th century. In addition, DeFrantz analyses all the major dances in the Aily repertoire, examining the relationship between those works and African-American culture as a whole. As the first book to examine the cultural sources and cultural impact of Ailey's work, "Dancing Revelations" makes an important contribution to modern dance history and criticism as well as African-American studies.