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Sitting down with Ailey II’s Sylvia Waters

Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007

Click here to enlarge this photo Eduardo Patina Ailey II dance company, with Artistic Director Sylvia Waters and Associate Artistic Director Troy Powell.

Powell (TP): How did the second company come to be?

Waters (SW): Alvin was touring with the company [AAADT]. It was relentless in terms of finding the time to do new work, and in 1974, he had started a small workshop to work out movements so he wouldn’t have to tour quite so much. He had started preparing for his ‘‘Ailey Celebrates [Duke] Ellington” to coincide with the Bicentennial. [The workshop dancers] premiered some of these works, after which he augmented them to AAADT.

That September, Alvin said, ‘‘I want to talk to you.” We didn’t end up having that conversation until midway in our December season at City Center. Being at that point a parent, touring was very difficult for me. I was very conflicted ... you know, my role as a mother, my role as a dancer. And he was very sensitive.

He approached me with the proposition to be the director of this workshop. The idea kind of terrified me. I couldn’t imagine not performing, not dancing. He said, ‘‘Just think about it.” It took me exactly 24 hours. I thought, ‘‘Well, it’s just four and a half hours of rehearsal a day. I could be a mother, first and foremost. I could take my acting classes and voice lessons. And to work with emerging artists is something I always yearned for.”

TP: So Ailey always wanted it to remain a smaller group of dancers trying out ideas?

SW: Right, and also to introduce emerging choreographers, to give dancers an opportunity to experience what it was like to be in a dance company and to do community outreach. He felt it was important to perform for audiences where dance was not accessible — where they could not get to the theater, but we would go to them, like correctional facilities, homes for seniors and homes for special needs children. That was our main thrust: education!

He wanted dancers from his school to have this experience, to be in a situation where they would learn to work with choreographers, learn what it was to be in a photo shoot, to be fitted for a costume, to learn the craft and therefore give them a leg up to the professional world.

TP: When did you formally become director?

SW: In January 1975. It is also at that point that we had an audition for the second company. I invited five choreographers to set works with the stipulation that they use Ellington music. We premiered those pieces at the theater of the Riverside Church during a week of free performances, which were packed full at every performance. Then Alvin invited us to be part of the Ellington celebration at State Theater, where he tucked a couple of the pieces into the first company program. When Columbia Artists saw us, they inquired about the possibility of us touring, and I said, ‘‘Sure!”

TP: Why do you think Ailey chose you to direct this company?

SW: I think he saw a stability in me, and I realize now how much he trusted me. He saw how much I loved the work and how interested I was in the company.

TP: Did you have any idea how successful Ailey II would become, and that it would still be gaining momentum 32 years later?

SW: No, absolutely not. I really lived in fear and trembling that this boat would sink in the water at any minute for budgetary reasons. [I felt that way] every year up until, maybe, the 25th year ... because second companies are luxury items. I had Alvin’s support and because of that, I had the board’s support to go forward with a deficit. The board saw him as an institution of which the school and the second company were integral parts. We had a growing and burgeoning school of dancers coming from all over the world, and they needed someplace to go and dance, to complete their training.

TP: What are the most satisfying aspects of what you do?

SW: The nurturing of young men and women who have tremendous gifts, helping them to do better what they already do very well. Working with choreographers, costume and lighting designers. Being present for the process of watching a piece come to fruition is so exciting. You start in the studio. The choreographer meets the dancers. Each choreographer sets the playing field. Then it starts to evolve, and you begin to layer it with the other elements — all on a miniscule budget.

TP: What it was like to dance Ailey’s work?

SW: He had a very wonderful [movement] language. It took me a while to learn to trust him because to trust him, I had to trust myself. There was room to move in his work. It was like one of those sweaters that just kind of morphed to your body. It was never the same each time. He taught me that.

He was a theater person; that’s what I loved. There was also a technical challenge there. He loved an arabesque. He loved line, good feet, but he also loved dancers that were willing to reveal something of themselves, something of the inside. He liked individuals. He always said that he didn’t like cookie cutter dancers. He allowed you that space, but it takes courage and conviction to fill that space.

TP: Are there differences in the way today’s dancers approach Ailey’s work?

SW: They approach him with tremendous energy and zeal, but without the nuance. That is what they have to learn. Technically, and dynamically, they are doing what he would have wanted. But it’s the understanding of the nuance and what happens between the movement. They are really highly skilled artists with incredible facilities and they can’t be held back, but they have to be given the understanding of the material and how to handle it.

TP: Can you describe your relationship with Ailey?

SW: He was my director and my boss and I suppose that grew into a friendship. I never would have characterized our relationship as ‘‘buddy-buddy,” even though I realized he shared a lot of his innermost feelings and thoughts with me. I always found that to be a responsibility, that information, that knowledge.

It was a real dichotomy. We could be friends, we could be director-dancer or mentor-apprentice; there were so many roles. I really try to hold on to as much as I can in my memory of what he said at a given time because it was all a learning experience.

TP: Tell us about the two premieres being presented this weekend?

SW: The piece ‘‘Celestial Landscapes” is dedicated to choreographer Darrell Moultrie’s good friend who passed away. There is such an idealism in the music and in the movement, and it’s as though these dancers aren’t earthly beings. Jessica Lang’s work ‘‘Splendid Isolation” is a marvelously seductive and lushly romantic duet accompanied by four dancers in shadow. The music is by Mahler and the piece poses a wonderful challenge to the very gifted dancers of Ailey II. The feelings that come to the surface make the work seem as though it were from a previous century, yet they are feelings that we experience today.

Tony Powell is a choreographer, composer, filmmaker and fine artist who resides in Silver Spring.

Ailey II performs at 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday at American Dance Institute, 1570 East Jefferson St., Rcokville. Tickets are $20, $10 for seniors and students. Call 301-984-3003 or visit www.americandance.org.