Judith Jamison, 81, was an international star of dance rooted in Philadelphia

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Judith Jamison, a major figure of American dance who grew up in Philadelphia, died over the weekend. The groundbreaking performer and later director of the landmark Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York died Saturday after a brief illness. She was 81.

Jamison, the daughter of a sheet metal engineer and a drama teacher, was born in Mantua and grew up in Germantown. She initially attended Fisk University in Tennessee. When she decided to focus her studies on dance, Jamison transferred from the HBCU to the Philadelphia Dance Academy. That academy later became part of the University of the Arts, which ultimately closed last summer.

Jamison grew up in the same Philadelphia Black ballet scene as Joan Myers Brown, the founder of the Philadelphia Dance Company, or Philadanco! They went to rival ballet schools — Jamison at the Judimar School of Dance and Brown at the Sydney School of Dance  — and both danced in large-scale recitals at the old Civic Center presented by the Philadelphia Cotillion Society.

This was in the 1950s, a period when most ballet schools refused to admit Black students.

“We were fortunate during that era that these Black teachers made ballet available to us at places when we couldn’t study,” Brown said. “They brought teachers in from New York and other places to make sure that we got the training here in Philadelphia. There were many, many dancers that developed during that time, and she was one of them.”

Once Jamison left Philadelphia to join the Alvin Ailey company in New York, she became its most recognized dancer.

“Once she got with Ailey it was zoom time for her,” Brown said. “Sometimes you find a place where you belong, and I think her going to Ailey’s was where she belonged. She made a statement, she showed everything that she had and she could do it right there.”

Jamison left Ailey’s company in 1980 to pivot to Broadway, a career move that was met with mixed results. When Ailey died in 1989 as the result of AIDS, his company was on shaky financial footing. Jamison stepped back in as director and ultimately its rescuer.  She turned the company into a powerhouse of American dance for more than 20 years.

Jamison returned to Philadelphia often to teach, inspiring countless dancers in her lifetime. Dancer and choreographer Iquail Shaheed believes few are aware of her Philly roots. He grew up on the same block of Folsom Street in Mantua where Jamison was born, but decades later, and knew nothing about her until he was a teenager.

“It was a challenge by Joan Myers Brown when I was 13 or 14 to read Judith Jamison’s autobiography,” Shaheed said. “On the first page she listed her address and it literally is 10 doors down. It was through this other amazing artist and arts administrator, Joan Myers Brown, that I wanted to absorb everything about Judith Jamison.”

Brown believes Jamison’s long-lasting contribution to American dance will be as an inspiration and a role model.

“There’s always a need to look up to somebody and believe that you can because someone else did,” said Brown. “Even now I fight with Philadelphia Ballet: There’s no [principal] Black dancers in the company, so our kids don’t see the possibility of being a dancer or having that kind of career. She made it possible for youngsters to be able to dream.”