How Alvin Ailey redefined modern dance

Alvin Ailey's performing arts transcend the traditional boundaries of dance. The pioneering dancer and choreographer created a vibrant movement history steeped in cultural memory and personal expression. Through his choreography and his company's performances, he seamlessly wove narratives of Black, American, and queer identity and explored themes of struggle and liberation in performances that were both physically dynamic and deeply rooted in the human condition. His expansive vision of what modern dance could be – flexible, inclusive and multidisciplinary – makes his work the ideal centerpiece for Whitney's first exhibition dedicated to a performing artist.

Edges from Ailey at the Whitney Museum of American Art combines performance footage, recorded interviews and notes from the late choreographer's personal archive with paintings, sculptures, music and installations by more than 80 artists. As Ailey herself said in a 1984 interview: “There was movement, there was color, there was painting, there was sculpture and there was putting it all together.” This holistic approach allows the two sides of the exhibition – Ailey's life and work and art relating to or inspired by him – coexist harmoniously and enrich each other to create a more comprehensive story of American culture.

The exhibition's direct references to dance include Barkley Hendricks' painting “Dancer” (1977), which depicts a black woman in a white leotard on a white background; Senga Nengudi's sculpture “RSVP” (1975), which uses stretched nylon tights and sand to evoke a body or body parts; and two paintings of dancers in rehearsal by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, one of which was created specifically for this exhibition. These works are complemented by an 18-screen video projection of various Ailey performances, played on a loop in the room and accompanied by scores by Josh Begley and Kya Lou. Another section features videos of musicians, dancers and choreographers who influenced Ailey, including Katherine Dunham, Maya Deren, Carmen de Lavallade and Duke Ellington.

The real appeal of the exhibition, however, lies in the opportunity to forge a personal connection with the famous Alvin Ailey through his notebooks, diary entries, letters and other ephemera, carefully arranged alongside the corresponding works of art. Ailey was a conscientious note-taker and recorded his life in minute detail. On Monday, September 20, 1982, he works through his daily minutiae: “Woke up at 10:30 a.m., called from Atlanta, watched soaps and drank tea, called Ernie at 12:13 p.m., called Sylvia at 2 p.m., to talk about…” But in other entries, such as one from 1980 that reads “Nervous breakdown, 7 weeks in hospital,” Ailey's brevity underscores the overwhelming weight of the experience of a nervous breakdown, a reality which may be too difficult or painful to put into words. Fittingly placed next to this entry is Rashid Johnson’s “Anxious Men” (2016), a drawn alter ego of the artist’s own fears.

Ailey was born in 1931 to a family of sharecroppers in rural Texas at the height of the Great Depression and was raised by his mother after his father abandoned her. Constantly looking for work, she moved with them from town to town; Once, when Ailey was just five years old, he helped her pick cotton. This upbringing, shaped by the struggles of Black life in the South and the spiritual foundation of the church, profoundly shaped his most iconic work: Revelations. He drew from the gospel, blues and spirituality that surrounded him as a child and transformed those memories into a montage of pain, hope and redemption. Works such as John Bigger's portrait of a tired but resilient black man, “Sharecropper” (1945), which is characterized by its dark and gloomy tones, or “Haze” (2023), Kevin Beasley's landscape painting of a few trees against a yellow sky in the South represent stories that are visually consistent with Ailey's creations.

In 1941, Ailey and his mother joined the Great Migration and left the South for Los Angeles, where he began dancing. And yet, despite the history that has shaped him, his journey – and his legacy – represents only the beginning as he continues to inspire new generations of dancers, choreographers and artists.

Edges from Ailey runs through February 9 at the Whitney Museum of American Art (99 Gansevoort Street, Meatpacking District, Manhattan). The exhibition was organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in collaboration with the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation and curated by Adrienne Edwards, Engell Speyer Family Senior Curator and Associate Director of Curatorial Programs, with curatorial research associate Joshua Lubin-Levy and curatorial assistants CJ Salapare and Katie Fong.

The exhibition is accompanied by a series of dance performances. Please visit Whitney's website for dates and times.