Robert Battle, welcome to American Black Journal.
- Thank you for having me.
It's great to be here.
- It's great to have you here.
So before we start, I have to tell a quick story.
Back in the mid 1970s, I was a young person growing up here in the city of Detroit.
And some friends of my family got us tickets to go see Alvin Ailey.
And I remember thinking up front that I was not really excited to see it 'cus I was like it's ballet and stuff like that, and I'm not gonna be into it.
But I have such vivid memories of what I saw on stage that night and how much it influenced my love of dance of all kinds today.
And of course the fact that the folks on stage were African American like me was a shock and something that I will never be able to put out of my mind.
So I'm really excited to talk to you about Alvin Ailey coming back to Detroit this year.
So that's very, it's very cool.
- Oh, I love that story.
- It's one of the reasons I love ballet now even.
- Yeah.
- So let's talk about this visit to Detroit.
What people might expect.
- Wow, well, we always try to honor past, present and future.
And of course wonderful to be of course back in Detroit, a city that I have personal fondness of, of the history there certainly.
And so one of the works we're doing is called "Are You In Your Feelings?"
It's a brand new work by choreographer Kyle Abraham.
And it's great because of not just the dancing but the music selections that crosses generations, right?
It's a kinda soundtrack to folks' lives depending on what your generation is from Drake to Kendrick Lamar to Erica Badu to the Flamingos to gosh, Shirley Brown singing that song, "Woman to Woman".
I mean, you have the breadth of that.
And it also celebrates black love and black joy in a beautiful, beautiful way.
And as we describe it it's like the perfect mix tape from back then.
- Yeah.
(laughs) That's a great way to think of it in the kind of modern terms of the way people listen to music.
- Right.
- So you also are doing some really important work outside of the performance here in Detroit with young people, getting them interested in and involved in dance.
- Yeah, we always try to honor what Mr. Ailey wanted us to do is not just be on the stage but step off the stage and into the communities that we serve by doing outreach and classes and arts and education.
All of that is a part of the backbone of this organization and part of our purpose we feel is to make sure that people have access and feel included in what we do on and off stage.
- Yeah, yeah.
So let's talk a little about the history of Alvin Ailey, where it comes from and the kind of idea behind it.
As I said, as a young person in the 70's, I was really keenly aware of it.
I imagine that young people today are just as aware.
- Yeah, when he founded, Alvin Ailey founded this company in 1958 on the cusp of the Civil Rights movement, he founded it based on the fact that he didn't see as many of the stories being told about his people on the concert dance stage.
And indeed there weren't a lot of opportunities for black dancers.
And so he really wanted to change that.
And then in 1960, a couple of years after he founded the company, he made one of the most important dances ever created.
And that work is called "Revelations."
Of course if you've even sort of heard of the Ailey company you've heard of "Revelations."
- Yeah.
- The suite of spirituals that expresses the tenacity of the human spirit to endure through faith.
And it's a universal message of hope that we close every program with.
But Alvin Ailey really changed the face of contemporary dance when he started his company through his work and through him giving the platform to other choreographers, as we continue to do that, Judith Jamison continued and now I'm only the third artistic director.
It's a wonderful organization, a vast organization that does some very important work not just in our country, but all over the world.
- Yeah.
And as you point out, there were doors that needed to be opened and ceilings that needed to be smashed through for African Americans who were interested not only in ballet or classical dance, but all forms of dance and getting work.
That's really changed over the time that Alvin Ailey has existed.
- Yes, absolutely.
I mean there are a lot more possibilities now of folks who've come through the Ailey School.
I'm just speaking about Ailey right now, but of, we have even within our own structure, we have the main company that you'll see, but we have a junior company called Ailey Two which is 12 dancers that also tour that come out of the Ailey School.
We have our arts and education program, we have Ailey Extension, which is classes for everybody.
So, you have to imagine over a company that's about 64 years old, that so many have gone on to create their own companies or do their own work.
And the lineage keeps going that way but opportunity keeps growing that way as well.
- Yeah, yeah.
So you recently were invited to the White House.
- Yes.
- To have lunch with First Lady, Jill Biden.
Tell me how much fun that was.
(laughs) - Oh, it was great.
It turned out that she wasn't feeling well, although she loves the company and has long before he was even president, Joe Biden was even vice president.
- Uh-huh.
- And so, but we did have an audience with the President himself who made a surprise appearance, guided us into the Oval Office and regaled us with wonderful stories and anecdotes for about a half hour.
It was really personable and wonderful to be back there at the White House again.
- Yeah.
So I wanna talk just a little about the arts in sort of a broader context and the constant challenge that we face, maintaining the arts, making sure that people have opportunity to participate in the arts and what that looks like, sort of on the back of the pandemic which of course was this massive disruption to all of our lives but was particularly disruptive to performing arts.
- Yes, yes.
I think we will never take for granted that this is not promised to you, that I think the reality of it came into focus kind of like this intense reality.
I mean I think most of us, we were on in the middle of a tour and we had to bring the dancers home, but we thought oh maybe a couple of weeks and then we'll get this sorted out.
That kind of thing, as many people did.
So we had to go to our digital world and really tease that out and have a virtual presence, which in some ways now that the cat's out of the bag will never change but it will help augment the live performance 'cus nothing beats that.
But we did something called Ailey All Access just to keep our audiences engaged.
And indeed we grew our audience because millions of people who probably otherwise would be too busy to go or not able to go, were able to have that access.
So I think that speaks to inclusivity in a wonderful way 'cus that's what Alvin Ailey was all about.
- Yeah.
- And so we managed to survive based on some wonderful gifts that we received, Ford Foundation, et cetera, and our wonderful board that helped and donors that helped maintain us through this really unprecedented time.
But I think we have to continue to think outside of the box.
We have to continue to engage in different ways as we move forward, not let it just be a footnote on the pages of history.
- Sure, sure.
And as you said, you're just the third artistic - Yes.
- Director at Ailey.
You've had to lead out of this pandemic and into the future.
What's next and what do you look forward to now that we can all be together again?
- Yeah, I'm just looking forward to the way audiences have responded has been wonderful being back on tour and often in sold out houses regardless of that.
Just the enthusiasm and the I think gratitude that people feel of being together again but also witnessing the beauty of the artists of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
I think maybe I am biased but I think it's like no other experience in terms of leaving the theater feeling uplifted.
So I look forward to us getting back to what we do in a more fulsome way and being able to continue to grow and challenge ourselves as an organization and as artists.
- Yeah.
Well we look forward to seeing you here March 17th through 19th here at Detroit at the Opera House.
Robert Battle, thanks so much for being here with us on American Black Journal.
- Thank you for having me, really.