By Merilyn Jackson for The Dance Journal

Judith Jamison’s life began 66 years ago in West Philadelphia at The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.  She wasted no time turning it into a long and storied career as one of America’s most beloved dance artists, discovered by Agnes de Mille, who gave her her first professional role in The Four Marys, and then danced with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for 15 years. She went on to found her own company, The Jamison Project and moved into choreography in the 1980s before taking over as artistic director AAADT upon Ailey’s death in 1989.

Over the span of her career she has created 10 ballets, commissioned 20 company premieres and 38 world premieres. She also guided the Ailey organization to ever greater recognition worldwide and into a permanent home in New York City – The Joan Weill Center for Dance, the nation’s largest building for dance. She is a Kennedy Center honoree, an Emmy Award winner, and a U. S. National Medal of Arts Recipient.

For all her achievements she also recently became the Honoree of the Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award at a ceremony on March 22nd at Ailey’s studios at the Joan Weill Center. The Award comprises $20,000 towards the project of her choice and a limited Edition Patron of the Arts Writing Instrument. The elaborate fountain pen (pictured) is dedicated to one of history’s greatest arts patrons Queen Elizabeth I, and was given to Jamison by Montblanc Cultural Foundation Chairman, world-renowned pianist Lang Lang.

The Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award was established in 1992 to honor and support patrons of the arts who have given exceptional time and energy to artists and their work. To be chosen, a winning patron has to demonstrate both a history of personal commitment to the arts but also a concern that the wider public should benefit as a result of that support. Previous winners of the Award in the US include Susan Sarandon, Wynton Marsalis, Rebecca Neuwirth and Jane Alexander.

Her 1993 autobiography, Dancing Spirit, written with Howard Kaplan, is filled with personal and professional anecdotal bon mots and a must read for anyone interested in the world of dance in America from the 50s onward.  Jamison spoke with me while on a 20-city U. S. tour earlier this month about the award and growing up in Philadelphia.

During elementary school Jamison said, “Our parents moved the family to Germantown. We grew up in a wonderful house with lovely people living in it. While I was at Germantown High, I studied violin and piano, but I had been already studying dance with Marion Cuyjet at Judimar [School of Dance.]”

“Miss Marion created an entire world within her school,” said Jamison, “we had tea dances and had to wear white gloves.” Her mother was a homemaker and made her clothes and costumes. “I remember the Butterick and MacCalls patterns. She passed in 1989 but I still hold onto her rocker sewing machine.”

Her father was a sheet metal worker and carpenter. “He built the furniture in our house and he played classical piano and sang opera – unprofessionally though,” she said. “And every Sunday he made us go Mother Bethel Ame Church whether you wanted to or not.”

From the outside looking in Jamison made a lovely transition from dancer to artistic director. I wondered what that was like for her from the inside. She answered with typical asperity: “Alvin made the great transition, he died.”

Jamison was a tall, exquisitely beautiful and near-Amazonian dancer of fierce and unwavering attack. Yet her supreme acting ability could turn her in an instant into a small, frail and despairing girl. She held audiences in thrall throughout her dancing career and now is equally charismatic as artistic director of the company that launched her to stardom.

“When I received the writing instrument [the Montblanc pen] from Lang,” she said, “it was very stirring, a very emotional event to receive the honor in our palace.”

The $20,000 award attached to the honor will go for scholarships for Ailey students, said Jamison, “I love them so much, they are so on the edge to burst onto the stage.”

You’ll be able to see advanced students in Ailey II at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark, NJ when it presents Legacy and Legends: An evening with Judith Jamison on May 6, followed by performances of the company’s great classics, among them Revelations and Hymn through May 9th.

For information & tickets:
www.njpac.org