This is the face of one of the most influential choreographers in the history of modern dance. This is one of the most recognized African-Americans in all of dance history. This is the creator of the most performed dance in all of dance history. THIS. IS. Some kid from a small city in Texas called Rogers.

Born in January of 1931, Alvin Ailey Jr. grew up in the middle of Texas, raised by a teenage mother who's husband left her shortly after his namesake was born. Alvin was raised a Southern Baptist, and was very heavily influenced and enamored with the music he heard in church services and in the dance halls around his neighborhood. He and his mother moved out West to Los Angeles, California just before Ailey was a teenager. This is where he would meet Lester Horton, who introduced him to dance.

Having no prior dance experience, Ailey was somewhat timid about dancing with Lester Horton and his dance company. It did not take long after dancing with Horton that Ailey was thrown into the spotlight, with his muscular build and seemingly intuitive knack for dancing. Only after a year of studying with Horton was Ailey a member of his dance company in 1950.

Shortly after Horton's death in 1953, Ailey was in New York and worked for some time on Broadway shows. It was also during this time that Ailey trained with other modern dance icons such as Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey. In 1958 Ailey formed his own dance company and changed the face of modern dance. His company, much like his first teacher's, was heavily integrated and featured many African Americans and performed many dances that were pertinent to African American culture and other minority culture.

His masterpiece, Revelations, is the most performed dance in the history of dance, surpassing shows such as The Green Table, Swan Lake, and The Nutcracker. The performance is full of imagery and sounds of the South, very much reflective of Ailey's upbringing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtJzqfWOhCE



Ailey was committed to not only performing original works, but was also very willing to perform dances of other new choreographers as well as perform dances from older choreographers whom Ailey held in respect.

Ailey opened the Alvin Ailey Dance Center in 1969 in New York City. This was his school where he wanted anyone interested in dance to come to learn: black, white, Hispanic, Asian, European, American, everyone was welcome to learn, saying "Dance is for everybody. I believe that the dance came from the people and that it should always be delivered back to the people." And this was not just a place to learn modern dance. Ballet, tap, jazz, modern dance, and others were, and still are, being taught there, now named the Ailey School.

For all of his contributions to the arts, Ailey was awarded with the Kennedy Center Honors in 1988. In the following year, Ailey met his untimely death on the first of December, due to complications from AIDS. The Ailey School lives on as well as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

http://www.biography.com/people/alvin-ailey-9177959#final-years
http://www.glbtqarchive.com/artsindex.html
http://www.alvinailey.org/listing/repertory_piece/4/113