Judith Jamison

The way Alvin Ailey has transformed modern dance and dance in general is the fact of variety. It's a cornucopia of ways to move. There are choreographers in the company as - as diverse, as different from each other as Donald McKayle and Bill T. Jones, or Jawole Zollar and John Butler, Lar Lubovitch, you know, and Judith Jamison.

I don't think of people as black or white. It's a question of are they photogenic or not? I don't think anyone says, 'Let's book her. She's black.' I think they say, 'Let's book her. She's good.' We've come that far.