{"id":17693,"date":"2023-02-19T17:52:44","date_gmt":"2023-02-19T17:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/?p=17693"},"modified":"2025-04-21T07:16:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T07:16:20","slug":"billy-wilson-orbit-alvin-ailey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2023\/02\/19\/billy-wilson-orbit-alvin-ailey\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Wilson Orbit: Alvin Ailey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billy Wilson and Alvin Ailey<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Return Back to Billy Wilson’s orbit in The Constellation Project<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Alvin Ailey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Billy Wilson and Alvin Ailey first met on the set of <\/span>Jamaica<\/span><\/i>, where Ailey was a featured dancer.\u00a0 Born in Texas in 1931, Ailey, like Wilson, was a prominent black dancer and choreographer.\u00a0 In addition to his career on Broadway, Ailey created his own dance company in 1958 called the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater.\u00a0 Later in his life, Wilson and Ailey remained close friends, and Wilson choreographed many ballets for the company, including <\/span>The Winter in Lisbon<\/span><\/i>, one of the last ballets he choreographed before his death.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sources:<\/b><\/p>\n

Alvin Ailey – Dance, Revelations & Facts, Biography.com<\/a><\/strong>
\nAlvin Ailey. A Film Gives Voice to the Choreographer, Thirteen: Media with Impact<\/a><\/strong>
\nBILLY WILSON, A CAPITOL ASSET,\u00a0 The Washington Post<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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More about Alvin Ailey<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Born in Texas in 1931, Ailey\u2019s father left when he was young, leaving Ailey and his teenage mother behind.\u00a0 Drawing inspiration from black church services and music from local dance halls, Ailey moved to Los Angeles at age 12.\u00a0 There, he excelled academically and athletically.\u00a0 His introduction to the dance world came after seeing a performance by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.\u00a0 In 1949, soon after watching, Ailey started studying modern dance and joined Lester Horton\u2019s dance company, one of the first racially integrated dance schools in the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1954, Ailey\u2019s career changed tracks with his Broadway debut in Truman Capote\u2019s <\/span>House of Flowers<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 He also performed in <\/span>The Carefree Tree<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Jamaica<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 Ailey\u2019s most notable achievement is the creation of his dance company, the <\/span>Alvin Ailey Dance Theater<\/span><\/i>, in 1958.\u00a0 He choreographed many ballets, including <\/span>Blues Suite<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Revelations<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 In the 60s, Ailey toured internationally, initially performing but then only choreographing.\u00a0 In 1969, he established the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, and in 1974, the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble.\u00a0 Before he died in 1989, he had choreographed nearly 80 ballets. Ailey received many awards for his work, most notably the Kennedy Center Honor in 1988 for his additions to American culture and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014 for his commitment to civil rights and dance.\u00a0 Ailey\u2019s legacy lives on in his Dance Theater, which continues to produce top dancers today.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sources:<\/b><\/p>\n

Alvin Ailey, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater<\/a><\/strong>
\nAlvin Ailey – Dance, Revelations & Facts, Biography.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Anna Owens<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy Wilson and Alvin Ailey Billy Wilson and Alvin Ailey first met on the set of Jamaica, where Ailey was a featured […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"universe-template.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[302,253],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-billy-wilson-constellation","category-universe"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17693"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18820,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17693\/revisions\/18820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}