MILLENNIAL TRIUMPH: JAMISON TO RECEIVE KENNEDY CENTER HONOR DURING AILEY COMPANY'S NEW YORK SEASON.

NEW YORK CITY--Judith Jamison, artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and a world-renowned performer, will receive a Kennedy Center Honor on December 5. Jamison is cited for what the Kennedy Center describes as "unique and extremely valuable contributions to the cultural life of our nation." The award celebration in Washington falls during the Ailey company's New York season, which runs from December 1 to January 2 at Manhattan's City Center.

In a recent interview at the AAADT studio, Jamison, was relaxed but regal in an African-print top and strands of Brazilian beads. When she first received notification of the award, "it didn't register," she explains. "I told my assistant to read the thing again, thinking it said give the award. But she said, `No Judy, it says receive the award.' And that's when it dawned on me!" Eleven years ago Jamison's mentor, Alvin Ailey, was honored by the Kennedy Center. "We had a chance to look up at that box and applaud him for all of his work.

"I'm just flattered to death," Jamison continues, relishing the selection of artists who will be honored with her: "Stevie Wonder. Love it! Sean Connery, one of the most divine and sexy men in the world. Victor Borge, who as a kid I was laughing at all the time, and of course Jason Robards." Jamison claims she hasn't really won that many awards. But even as she spoke, her staff was mounting a display for her recent Emmy for Outstanding Choreography, awarded for her PBS documentary, "A Hymn for Alvin Ailey." When Jamison's onetime Horton. teacher, Milton Myers, stopped in after teaching in the bustling Ailey School, Jamison told him delightedly, "Go in my office and see Miss Emmy!"

As the most-traveled performing arts company in the world, AAADT is frequently thrust into the role of cultural ambassador. It is a role that Jamison takes very seriously. The Ailey company has "been around for forty-one years, but we can't just rest on our laurels," she says. "We're always reinventing ourselves, via repertory, via places that we go. Like South Africa," which the company visited in 1997, heralding the end of a long boycott of the former apartheid regime. In 1985 AAADT was the first modern dance company to tour the People's Republic of China. Back in 1970 AAADT became the first American modern dance company to tour the Soviet Union since Isadora Duncan and, later, Pauline Koner won the hearts of the Muscovites. But it was the 1966 first Negro Arts Festival in Dakar, Senegal, that made the most lasting impact on Jamison.

"Everybody was there--from Langston Hughes to Katherine Dunham to Duke Ellington to [Senegalese] President Senghor. There were dance companies from all over the diaspora." Jamison describes her experience in Senegal as her "first realization that Tarzan wasn't it. I said, `Oh, that's what's going on in Africa!'"

In 1967 the State Department sponsored an Ailey tour of ten African countries in two-and-a-half months. "I didn't realize how vast the history was," says Jamison. "I was overwhelmed with the music, the dance, the cultures. West Africa had significance for me because my ancestors are from the Yoruba territory." The tour of the African continent had a lasting impact on the Ailey repertory as well. Jamison recounts how "Alvin and I went to this club in Kinshasa, Zaire. The war was going on and there were mercenaries being brought through the downtown city streets.

"We've been through a lot of wars," she adds. "One of the last steps in Cry comes from these two young women from the bush who we saw dancing in this club." Cry, Ailey's masterful solo created on Jamison, is scheduled to be danced during the New York season by Renee Robinson, Linda-Denise Evans, and Dwana Smallwood.

AAADT's commitment to new choreography is evidenced by the three world premieres the company is presenting in December. Ronald K. Brown's Grace is one of the most beautiful pieces that I've acquired in the repertory," says Jamison, explaining that Brown "speaks to me of the future, while Jawole [Willa Jo Zollar] speaks to me of womanhood. Her piece is C-sharp Street--B-flat Avenue, I love that title. Ulysses Dove's memorial service at the State Theater was such a sad occasion for all of us; it propelled her to do something with humor." Jamison describes Donald McKayle's Danger Run, which addresses the African diaspora in America, as "the master choreographer's piece." A revival of John Butler's After Eden, rehearsed by the original dancers, Lawrence Rhodes and Lone Isaksen, is to be danced on pointe. Scheduled to perform the female roles are Mucuy Bolles, Linda Caceres, Linda-Denise Evans, and Bahiyah Sayyed. "This is the kind of dancer Alvin always wanted," says Jamison, "a ballet bottom and a modern top."

Jamison embraces the populist aesthetic that has made AAADT a favorite among people who "would rather go to a hockey game." She noted that 80 million people saw the company dance on the American Express ad broadcast during the Academy Awards. "More people saw us in that 60 seconds than in our entire years of existence. To get young people to a live concert, we first must go where they are the most: in front of computers and televisions." Jamison emphasizes her reliance on Ailey veterans Sylvia Waters (artistic director of Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble), Ronnie Favors (assistant rehearsal director of AAADT), and Masazumi Chaya (associate artistic director of AAADT), who help her balance marketing savvy with artistic leadership. Opening her articulate arms wide she adds, "I'm a pilot at heart, and this is a great ship to be piloting."