Ailey was born to his 17-year-old mother, Lula, in Rogers, Texas. Alvin developed an early interest in dance. In 1943 he and his mother moved to Los Angeles.

Initially, he took dance classes from choreographer Katherine Dunham, and later studied under Los Angeles, California dance teacher Lester Horton. While studying with Horton, Ailey pursued college courses in the Romance languages. At various times Ailey was enrolled at UCLA, Los Angeles City College, and the University of California, Berkeley. He studied authors like James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, and Carson McCullers. Ailey was fascinated by Horton`s choreography, which consisted of theater pieces based on pictures by Paul Klee, poems by Garcia Lorca, music by Duke Ellington and Igor Stravinsky, and even Mexican themes. When Lester Horton died in 1953, 22-year-old Ailey was chosen to fill the shoes of his mentor. He became the director and resident choreographer for the Lester Horton Dance Theater. Within one year he choreographed three original dances for Horton`s company: Creation of the World, According to St. Francis, and Mourning Morning.


The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Ailey started his own dance company, the American Dance Theater, in 1958 featuring primarily African American dancers. He integrated his dance company in 1963. He also directed; one notable production was Langston Hughes`s Jericho-Jim Crow (1964).

The American Dance Theater popularized modern dance throughout the world with his international tours sponsored by the U.S. State Department. As a result of these tours, Ailey`s choreographical masterpiece Revelations, based on Ailey`s experience growing up as an African American in the South, is among the best-known and most frequently seen of modern dance performances. After his death, the American Dance Theater was renamed the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Ailey has been memorialized by the renaming of West 61st Street between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues in New York City as "Alvin Ailey Way"; the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was located on that block at 211 West 61st Street from 1989 until 2005, when it moved to a new, bigger facility at the corner of West 55th Street and Ninth Avenue. Ailey was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors in 1988.