Almost two decades after Alvin Ailey’s death, the dance company he lifted to international prominence is still imbued with his spirit.
The brilliant choreographer had an unerring sense when it came to selecting dancers, as well for identifying just the right people to tend his legacy. And no one has done more to pass on the founder’s vision to the company’s current crop of athletic young artists than Masazumi Chaya, who is celebrating his 35th year in the Ailey fold.
“Chaya knows everything about the company and everything about me,” Ailey says in an interview that’s included in a company-produced video honoring its star dancer-turned-associate director (go to www.youtube.com and type “chaya” and “ailey” in the search form to find the video).
As the Ailey company returns to Berkeley for a Cal Performances residency from Wednesday through March 9, Chaya’s vast and varied contributions will be on vivid display. More than a repository of institutional memory, he’s an emotional conduit who communicates the exact steps and original motivation behind them to dancers too young to have met Ailey. Responsible for running the company’s rehearsals, Chaya also spearheads the delicate task of restaging dances that might otherwise be lost to time.
Among the pieces included in this year’s repertoire are two resurrected by Chaya: Billy Wilson’s 1992 “The Winter in Lisbon,” featuring music by Dizzy Gillespie, and Talley Beatty’s 1959 “The Road of the Phoebe Snow,” set to music by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.
Chaya danced three roles in “Phoebe Snow” during his tenure as an Ailey dancer and learned the piece from Beatty himself. So when he and the company’s artistic director, Judith Jamison, started thinking about featuring a piece by the Katherine Dunham-trained choreographer who died in 1995, it was a natural choice.
Chaya didn’t have to search his memory for the project. By phone during a rehearsal break he says, “Talley’s presence at the studio was incredible, so I remember every single thing he said. Several choreographers are like that. . . . When you’re with them in the studio, you’ll never forget what they’re doing.
“But ‘Phoebe Snow’ is a very difficult ballet to teach, because you have to know classical ballet technique, jazz technique and Martha Graham technique. . . . Talley is such an intelligent choreographer, he mixes all those elements. You have to express who you are in the character. I thought it was a very good exercise for our dancers to do that.”
Ailey’s dance company requires versatility from its performers, while providing opportunities for dancers to reveal themselves.
“Alvin always said: ‘Please use my steps and show yourself’,” Chaya recalls. And referring to the diversity of those on stage, he adds, “It’s not just one cookie-cutter dancer.”
Chaya himself was an unlikely choice. Born and raised in Fukuoka, Japan, where he studied classical ballet, he moved to New York City in 1970 with the dream of performing on Broadway. He was gaining attention with the Richard Englund Repertory Company when a chance encounter brought him to Ailey.
Accompanying his friend Michihiko Oka as a translator for his Ailey audition, Chaya ended up getting an audition himself, and Ailey hired them both. He danced with the company from 1972 to 1986, transitioning to assistant rehearsal director while still a stellar dancer.
“I was lucky enough to be around Alvin when he was so on top of choreographing in the 1970s,” Chaya says. “He struggled in the ’50s and ’60s, trying to establish a company. Everybody loved it, but still it was difficult. And in the ’70s, finally New York audiences couldn’t wait to see the Ailey Company more and more. He was just pouring out ideas.
“We’re a repertory company, and he was asking new choreographers and designers to contribute. It was just amazing – that energy of creating.”
Chaya’s first-person accounts of company lore for today’s dancers provide a good deal of the soul and sinew in their performances, particularly Ailey’s masterpiece “Revelations,” a work that flowed from the choreographer’s bone-deep memories of growing up in a rural African-American community in central Texas.
Chaya recalled, “When Mr. Ailey was teaching me ‘Wade in the Water,’ he says, ‘This is the first time they step into the water, a little bit scared to go through the baptism,’ ” referring to a section from “Revelations.”
“I tell what I remember that Alvin said in order to make sure the dancers don’t just do clinical stuff.
“They are so beautiful; they can do anything. . . . I think, if I had to come to audition for the Ailey company now, there’s no way I could have made it.”Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
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Where: Zellerbach Hall, Bancroft Avenue and Dana Court, University of California-Berkeley
When: 8 p.m. Wednesday through March 7,
2 and 8 p.m. March 8, 3 p.m. March 9
Tickets: $34-$60
Details: (510) 642-9988 or www.calperformances.org
