Thursday, Aug. 11, more than 100 youngsters will take the stage at Hostos Center for Arts & Culture for a festive performance that caps their six-week summer at CAS/AileyCamp New York. They will showcase skills nurtured by the innovative program that combines dance and classes in creative communication and personal development to give kids ages 11 to 14 tools that help them reach their full potential by encouraging self-awareness, self-esteem and discipline. One of the youngsters who will take center stage during the program is 16-year-old Christopher Taylor. Taylor is a former AileyCamper in Newark who has spent the summer participating in an Ailey School summer intensive training program.
Recently, Taylor sat down for a brief conversation about the AileyCamp experience with Solomon Dumas, a new member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, who got his first taste of dance at AileyCamp in his hometown of Chicago. Both were on a brief rehearsal break—Taylor from preparing for the AileyCamp New York’s Aug. 11 final performance for the summer and Dumas from rehearsals for the AAADT 2016 season that kicks off with a national tour and culminates in December with its New York City Center season.
The skill, discipline and joy of dance nurtured at CAS/AileyCamp manifests itself in kids lives in a variety of ways. For Dumas, it ignited a laser-focused determination to become a professional dancer. Taylor’s path is still unfolding, but his attention-grabbing performance during the AAADT 2015 Lincoln Center gala in a piece d’occasion featuring AileyCampers, Ailey School students and Ailey II company members captured attention. Now, he’s taking part an Ailey summer intensive and rehearsing for the Aug. 11 CAS/AileyCamp performance while doing all he can to follow in Dumas’ footsteps.
AileyCamp was clearly a good place to start. National AileyCamp Director Nasha Thomas has described this remarkable program as part of choreographer Alvin Ailey’s brilliant vision decades ago. Since its inception in 1989 in Kansas City, Mo., AileyCamp has evolved into a year-round program reaching thousands of youngsters in cities across the country, as far away as Berkeley, Calif. and as close as Newark, N.J. Some young campers have even gone on like Dumas to become professional dancers.
Taylor said he has attended AileyCamp for three summers, beginning in 2011. When he sat down with Dumas to discuss his dream of a career as a dancer, it is possible to hear echoes of sentiments expressed by Ta-Nehisi Coates open letter, “Between the World and Me.” Sure, Coates open letter is to his son, but this intergenerational exchange, these words of wisdom between the 27-year-old Dumas and 16-year-old Taylor—two young Black males at different points in their journey—resonates. These two are, after all, young African-American men who could, like so many, encounter what calls “an array of lethal puzzles and strange perils that seem to rise up from the asphalt itself” on streets that “transform every ordinary day into a series of trick questions, and every incorrect answer risks a beat down, a shooting or a pregnancy.” Following their dreams is no easy journey, as Langston Hughes pointed out years ago. Every inspiration and affirmation is invaluable, and institutions such as AileyCamp can make a profound difference.
Dumas tells Taylor how inspirational it was to learn about Alvin Ailey’s own life. “There are some parallels between my life and Mr. Ailey’s,” said Dumas. “He was raised by a single mother. I was raised by a single mom. He grew up poor in Rogers, Texas. I grew up on the South Side of Chicago. AileyCamp is not just about dance. It’s a lot of things, including personal development. Of course, as an artist we go through times of doubt and insecurity and questioning: Am I good enough? Is this something that’s possible? You’re bombarded with so many different ideas and you receive all this information. You see a dancer who may be taller than you, or one able to turn better than you or who picks up choreography faster than you or may be more muscular than you or more flexible. Definitely I experienced all of those things.”
Taylor’s expression showed the shock of recognition.
As Dumas described what attracted him to the Ailey company and how he worked hard to achieve his goal, Taylor smiled and said that although it’s overwhelming hearing Dumas describe his experiences he is “an example of what I want my future to be.”
Dumas tells Taylor he is well on the way to realizing that dream. “At 16 years old, I was not dancing at Lincoln Center the way you did last year,” Dumas said.
They discussed the important role the AileyCamp tradition of teaching kids affirmative sayings that must be repeated each day has played in their lives. Dumas said, “When I began the camp, we started the day with affirmations and ended it the same way. It set the tone for the day and how you were to conduct yourself as a citizen when you left the camp. Now that I’m 27 and I look back as a 12-year-old, I understand how important that was. People need encouragement and it starts with affirming it from within.”
Taylor agreed. “I feel like saying the affirmations build character,” he said. “One of my teachers said that by telling yourself something like ‘I am a winner,’ it can change your life. It may sound cheesy but it’s amazing.” Looking squarely at Dumas, Christopher added “I want to be in your shoes one day. I want this to be my future.”
Dumas replied, “It could be. I’ve seen you perform on ABC-TV. It was right before the gala last year. That’s a big thing. I don’t’ know about you, but my first performance I was a nervous wreck. So to see you at the age of 16 so in control and so confident—that takes a lot of courage. At 16, I was still a child navigating my life in Chicago on the South Side trying to battle with being a man and an artist, and while I had support from my mom, I didn’t necessarily have the support from the community. That’s why I say you are well on your way from what I can see, comparing you to myself at your age.”
Taylor asked,, “How do you handle it, like you said before, when you start to doubt yourself?”
“Knowing that you’re in the room, being in the room is like 90 percent of the battle,” Dumas answered. “You’ve made it into the room. Now that you’re in the room you must remember that you are just as important as everybody else. There’s a book I’m reading it’s called ‘David and Goliath,’ and it talks about being the underdog. I always consider myself the underdog. The book talks about how what some consider weaknesses are actually strengths, and what sets us apart and makes us unique. That’s something that Mr. Ailey really embraced. He embraced the uniqueness of art and dancers in general. He said he wasn’t interested in cookie-cutter dancers. The only uniformity he was interested in was the uniformity of different people speaking with one voice, different people from different backgrounds coming together and saying what they have to say,”
As their brief rehearsal break drew to a close and Dumas prepared to return to the studio where he is rehearsing with the rest of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and Taylor prepared to return to the studio where the CAS/AileyCampers are preparing for their Aug. 11 performance at Hostos Center for Arts & Culture in the Bronx, they shake hands. Dumas smiles and, as one former AileyCamper to another, offers a few final words of wisdom that bears a slight similarity to an affirmation, “As an artist remember you are unique. Never compare your journey or your trajectory or your background to anyone else.”