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Feb. 23, 2007
An abiding passion for dance
Ailey company executive parlays community-minded background into
business success.
KATHARINE HAMER EDITOR
Sharon Gersten Luckman has a vivid memory of the first time she
saw Alvin Ailey perform his signature piece, "Revelations."
It was 1962 and the teenaged Luckman was studying at the American
Dance Festival in New London, Conn., with modern dance legends Martha
Graham, José Limon and the then-relatively unknown Ailey.
At the end of their studies, she and her classmates were treated
to a performance by all of their teachers, and were blown away by
Ailey.
"I just will never forget it," she said, in a recent interview
with the Independent. "Most people who see 'Revelations,'
they always remember when they saw it: how old they were, where
they were ... it's such a fabulous thing, and I remember it, we
were screaming, all the students, and running – we went running
out onto the lawn from there, so exhilarated. It was immediate that
I was so touched by it and so was everybody, and that we'd seen
something that was so special – that, 'Oh, my gosh, he is in
a league with Martha Graham and José Limon. None of us really
knew that until the performance."
Luckman saw Ailey perform again while she was studying dance at
the University of Wisconsin. She wrote a letter home to her parents
that read: "I just saw the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre
last night. Now I know what I want to do with my life."
Nearly 40 years later, Luckman serves as executive director of that
same dance company. The younger dancers of its offshoot, Ailey II,
will perform in Vancouver March 1 and 2. Though "Revelations"
will be on the program, so will works by emerging choreographers
like Robert Battle, Jessica Lang and Scott Rink. Ailey II, said
Luckman, is like a hothouse for dancers and choreographers with
an exceptionally bright future ahead of them.
Though she trained as a dancer for years (her mother was a dance
teacher), Luckman never saw herself, ultimately, as someone who'd
spend her life on stage. She just wanted to be involved in the dance
world.
She began by leading the dance program at the 92nd St. Y in New
York City, where Ailey had his first performance in 1958, and was
director of development and then executive director for the Twyla
Tharp Dance Foundation before moving to Ailey in 1992. She's been
executive director there since 1995, and has been the driving force
behind the company's financial revitalization.
From walking into a foundation that was in the red 15 years ago,
Luckman now oversees an organization with an annual budget that's
upwards of $20 million, situated in a state-of-the-art new building
in Midtown Manhattan. The building is designed so that staff and
visitors can look down at the dance studios, she said, "Which
always reminds you of what you're raising money for."
Raising that money didn't come easy. Ailey was in the midst of its
capital campaign for the new building on Sept. 11, 2001.
"We thought we were never going to be able to raise money for
something in New York at that time," she recalled, "because
everyone was worried, obviously, about what had happened to the
[World Trade Centre], and people were fund-raising around 9/11....
At first, people weren't going to the arts, or to anything, right
after – no one was in the mood – but that year, the audiences,
people would say, 'We have to see Ailey.' It's so uplifting. You
go out of the theatre really feeling transformed every time, and
you've been emotionally so connected and touched. It's what Ailey
dancers say about the human spirit. There's something about an Ailey
performance that was especially meaningful to people after 9/11.
"In fact, we got this response every time: 'Oh, now, more than
ever, it's very important that you build this building,' and that
spoke to Ailey, really, to the Alvin Ailey company and what it meant
to people, and it also spoke to some degree on building a new building
in New York. People wanted to support us."
In the end, Luckman and her colleagues raised $74 million.
Keeping the ball rolling on funding for the company is an ongoing
challenge, however – one that's forced Luckman to get creative.
Although "what we don't do is invent programs just to make
funders happy," she said, there are ways to draw in philanthropists
who might otherwise not give to the arts.
"I think that unfortunately, really, there are some funders
who look at the arts as less important than humanitarian causes
or social service or research or education of some kind," she
observed, "and if that's their attitude, I'm not going to be
the one that's going to change them. But what I can do, and what
we at Ailey have done very successfully, is we've been able to speak
to other things that interest them. For instance, we have Ailey
camps around the country. It's for at-risk youth for ages nine to
11. We're using dance to teach discipline, to teach respect for
your own body – you can't take drugs if you're dancing ...
to teach, you know, you can't do this step yesterday, but, you know,
you try very hard, you could do it tomorrow. So it's really using
dance in a social service way.
"Then the funder says, 'Oh, that is interesting to me, that
does fit my guidelines.' So it's just emphasizing that part of our
program. And also, Ailey is primarily an African-American company.
Certainly, it's about diversity and bringing people together, and
there are funders who are interested in that, whether they're interested
in dance or not."
It's part of a tradition that goes back to the roots of the company,
said Luckman. "Mr. Ailey, 48 years ago, he said, "Dance
came from the people, it should always be delivered back to the
people,' by which he meant – and it was pretty radical 48 years
ago – dance is not just about being on the stage, it's about
being in schools and it's about being on.... Ailey dancers actually
danced on the back of flatbed trucks, in different parts of the
city, so we were doing arts and education and community work before
there was such a word as that."
Community involvement was something Luckman was raised with, too.
Her parents ran a summer camp for years and her father was also
dean of a community college where he started a program for African-American
students. Both of her parents "were very passionate about what
they did, and they taught me you can actually make a living if you
do something you really care about and you can succeed in it because
you care so much about it. That was kind of an example they set.
They're people who always gave back to their community, so it came
kind of naturally to me."
She doesn't see her transition from dancer to powerhouse executive
as veering that much off the path she was already on. There are,
she said, multiple similarities between her two selves.
"One thing about dancing or choreographing is, you have a deadline,"
she mused. "It happens. It's concrete, in a way, as creative
as it is. It has to happen, you have to do certain things to make
it happen, and then the curtain goes up and you have to be ready.
One of my big slogans that I have on my door here to administrate
is, 'A goal without a deadline is just a wish.' It's important that
you give yourself a deadline and you finish things at a certain
time, and that's just a thing that dancers take for granted.
"But also, there's a real set of standards in dance and studying
dance – there's a feeling of excellence that really makes people
who dance, I think, very good later in whatever they do. They have
discipline, they have standards. They know that you can't do a step
one day, [but] if you keep working on it, you're going to get it."
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