Charles Moore

Negro Dance Theater
Katherine Dunham Dance Company
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Moore with Jacqueline Walcott in Alvin Ailey’s Cinco Latinos, 1958
Charles Moore trained, at least in part, at the Judimar School in Philadelphia. Moore was a member of the Negro Dance Theater and performed with the Katherine Dunham Dance Company and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He also founded the Charles Moore Dance Theatre. He performed the first episode in the world premiere of Aubrey Hitchins’ Ode at Jacob’s Pillow in 1955. Moore was a part of the original cast of Ailey’s Been Here and Gone (1962), Blues Suite (1958), El Cigaro (1958), and Rite (1958) and performed at the company’s 25th gala anniversary at New York City Center. He also appeared with Talley Beatty & Company in Beatty’s The Road of the Phoebe Snow at Jacob’s Pillow in 1960.
Moore performed in several Broadway shows: Jamaica (1957), Kwamina (1961), The Zulu and the Zayda (1965), and Les Blancs (1970).
Moore with Don Martine, Horace Arnold, Ella Thompson, Bruce Langhorne, Alvin Ailey, and Les Grinage, 1965

Sources:

Dancing Revelations: Alvin Ailey’s Embodiment of African American Culture, Thomas D. Defrantz
Program from the Eighth Week of the 1954 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Archives
The Road of the Phoebe Show, Jacob’s Pillow Dance
Charles Moore, Playbill
Marion Cuyjet: Black Ballet Pioneer

Leave a Reply