Alvin Ailey’s Enduring Vision

(bell dinging)

(dramatic orchestral music)

The notion of art as a weapon for change

has always been something that has moved me.

No matter what's happening in the world

it's always happening in the world somewhere.

And so I think it's easy to be myopic you know

and just sort of look at your general surroundings

and say look at what's happening to me.

(dramatic orchestral music)

I think it's important for us to at this time

see beyond our circumstances

and in that way I think we can do that through the arts

you know that we can do that through dance.

(dramatic orchestral music)

For people who don't know it's one of the most

seen and celebrated modern dance companies in the world.

It was founded in 1958 by Alvin Ailey who was a visionary.

(dramatic orchestral music)

He made a repertory company so that it could at once

be past, present and future.

(old timey music)

♫ When the nation calls young men ♫

I was asked to create a work to music

by Erwin Schulhoff who died in a concentration camp.

(orchestral music)

The notion of choreographing about the Holocaust

I found that to be overwhelming.

What really sort of focused the work

is really thinking about his life.

Thinking about him as sort of a radical artist

and composer and relating to that artistic connection.

And so I felt that when I created this work

No Longer Silent he was sort of walking me through his life.

[Narrator] To change these conditions

the leading black liberation organization

the African National Congress has begun a mass movement

of civil disobedience defying the laws

of racial superiority called apartheid.

[Robert] Masekela Langage was created

by Alvin Ailey in 1969.

It was a response to apartheid

but it was also looking at Chicago

and the Chicago riots and unrest that was happening

and making that connection.

(cannon blasting)

(bluesy music)

Alvin Ailey himself I mean he lived through segregation

and the things that he choreographed

his blood memories are things that he saw.

He said once that he thinks that the most

powerful works of art are usually the ones

that are the most personal.

(bluesy music)

(piano music)

He always said what he was trying to do

is hold a mirror to society so that people

could see how beautiful they are.

I think that we always need to remember

that it is our responsibility to contribute

to beauty in the world.

Always.

(piano music)

This is where the arts really I think

play a great role in the world

because often the artifacts of the past

or things that we've gone through as a society

or world or whatever it is is reflected

in the music of that time

reflected in the painting and all of that

that inspire us to go beyond our circumstance.

I hope that that is the message

that we celebrate our common humanity.

(orchestral music)