Judith Jamison, influential dancer and choreographer, dies at 81

Judith Jamison, an acclaimed dancer and choreographer who was the artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for two decades, died on Saturday in New York at 81.

Her death came after a brief illness, according to a post on the company's Instagram page.

Jamison grew up in Philadelphia and began dancing at six, she said in a 2019 TED talk. She joined Ailey's modern dance company in 1965, when few Black women were prominent in American dance, and performed there for 15 years.

In 1971, she premiered "Cry," a 17-minute solo that Ailey dedicated "to all Black women everywhere—especially our mothers," which became the company's signature, according to its website.

FILE PHOTO: Singer and songwriter Stevie Wonder (L) talks with dancer and teacher Judith Jamison as actor Sean Connery (R) looks on with his wife Micheline during the 1999 Kennedy Center Honors gala in Washington December 5.File Photo

In his 1995 autobiography, Ailey said of Jamison, "With 'Cry' she became herself. Once she found this contact, this release, she poured her being into everybody who came to see her perform."

Jamison performed on Broadway and formed her own dance company before returning to serve as artistic director for the Ailey troupe from 1989 to 2011.

"I felt prepared to carry (the company) forward. Alvin and I were like parts of the same tree. He, the roots and the trunk, and we were the branches. I was his muse. We were all his muses," she said in the TED talk.

Jamison received a Kennedy Center Honor, National Medal of Arts, and numerous other awards.