2005 Women Who Make a Difference
Awards Dinner
March 1, 2005

Click here for awards ceremony information.
Click here for the afternoon program.

Honoree Profile and Remarks
Click here for the list of all 2005 honorees.

Judith Jamison
Artistic Director, The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Judith Jamison became a member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1965 and danced with the company for 15 years to great acclaim. After leaving the Company in 1980, Ms. Jamison appeared as a guest artist with ballet companies all over the world and starred in the hit Broadway musical Sophisticated Ladies. In 1988, she formed her own company, The Jamison Project; a PBS special depicting her creative process, Judith Jamison: The Dancemaker, aired nationally the same year. After the death of her mentor, Alvin Ailey, Judith Jamison was appointed Artistic Director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1989 in accordance with his wishes. As a highly regarded choreographer, Ms. Jamison has created works for many companies. She is recognized as a master teacher, lecturer and author. Ms. Jamison is the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees, including a prime time Emmy Award and an American Choreography Award for Outstanding Choreography, an honorary doctorate from Howard University, the Kennedy Center Honor and the National Medal of Arts, the most prestigious award presented to artists in the United States. Following the tradition of Alvin Ailey, Ms. Jamison is dedicated to asserting the prominence of the arts in our culture, spearheading initiatives to bring dance into the community and programs that introduce children to the arts. Ms. Jamison has continued Mr. Ailey's practice of showcasing the talents of emerging choreographers from within the ranks of the Company. She was also a guiding force in establishing the B.F.A. program with The Ailey School and Fordham University. She remains committed to promoting the significance of the Ailey legacy - dance as a medium for honoring the past, celebrating the present and fearlessly reaching into the future.

Judith Jamison's Remarks

Thank you for this great honor that you bestow upon me. We are women, but we are also beings of strength, lovers of life, of men. We are makers of history and babies. We are artists, visionaries, entrepreneurs, innovators, lawyers, teachers, mothers, daughters, sisters.

I feel so privileged to be in the presence of so many women who have and continue to define what a woman is. You are women who make no excuses, and most importantly - give back. The National Council for Research on Women has done such tremendous and important work to uplift and change the circumstances for so many women who would otherwise have no voice, both politically and socially. And I salute you for those contributions.

My journey started in Philadelphia, with the church. Besides ballet and the violin and the piano and my brother who played the clarinet, there was Mother Bethel A.M.E. - African Methodist Episcopal Church.

I went to it every Sunday. And I mean - every Sunday. There was no such thing as rolling over and saying - I don't feel so well, I have a headache. There was none of that. You got up and you went to church - period.

This was a place that gave me a sense of unfaltering faith and a reverence for pageantry. There was nothing like seeing in the black church, ushers going down the aisles; choirs in every color robe you can think of. Ministers that would sometimes have robes that were black, but underneath there might be some red suspenders.

There were some wonderful, wonderful, wonderful expressions of faith, of love of God, of love of family. Wonderful expressions of care and of faith. My parents, who imbued my life with grace and love and artistry, and through their strength and understanding, provided ample nourishment for life's steps.

Having that kind of foundation gave me the power to find my own niche. If there was a door that was closed, I'd find a window to open. I think that, even as a child, I had my eye on the prize. And that helped define the rest of my life. From being a dancer with Alvin Ailey, to being on Broadway, to having my own company - The Jamison Project.

And finally, when Alvin asked me to step into his role as artistic director of the company. And when I took over the company, we were over a million dollars . . . having a million-dollar deficit, which is nothing unusual for a not-for-profit organization.

However, as I go on . . . we had all the studios crammed into one floor of a building, and a company in mourning. We had lost our great leader. If you could imagine this, you don't have to imagine it anymore. Just drive past 55th and Ninth Avenue. And you will see a promise that Alvin made to us.

He promised us that he would take us on a journey, as artists, as human beings - that would envelop our talents, and put us on a mountain top where we could be viewed as human beings of strength, of power; with an initiative of being able to show the world that dance is something that is valuable and that comes from a light that is inside of all of us. And that light should never go out.

That those creative juices should never go out. And that we should always be generous about what we do with that light. So, as we open the largest dedicated building to dance in the United States - all 77,000 square feet of it, with a 299-seat Black Box Theater inside of it and I say his promise has been fulfilled. And that greater promise from that girl who went to Mother Bethel A.M.E. church, and prayed for a whole lot of things, and believed that they would be realized.

In this major endeavor, I have a triumvirate of stupendous women that support me. One of them is Sylvia Waters, who is the Artistic Director of Ailey 2. Another is Denise Jefferson, the Director of the Ailey School. And as I mentioned, Sharon Luckman, who is our Executive Director.

And need I not leave out Joan Weill, who is the Chairman of my board.

And the name of that building that is opening up, it's named after our Chairman of the Board. It is called the Joan Weill Center for Dance. In her honor, for how hard she worked to get this done.

So, all these women share my vision and have the skills, passion and dedication to bring us, and have brought us to this precipice. We are at a time in our history where we are being put to the test. And we know, and we particularly in the arts have to walk by faith and not by sight.

And it's very important that we continue to be a reflection of what we can all be. The positive side of life, the beauty of life, the aspiration to perfection. Not achieving perfection, but always working towards. Working. Working tirelessly and passionately. And most importantly, with spirit. And knowing no one can eclipse the journey to the light that burns within each of us.

My friend and mentor, Alvin, gave me a ballet that we talked about earlier, to perform by the name of "Cry" - which he dedicated to all black women, especially our mothers. This ballet signified our trials and triumphs. Our pain and joy. In a similar way, I would like to dedicate this award to women everywhere - to what we have done and what we are doing, and what we will continue to do. Thank you.

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