Costume worn by Judith Jamison in The Mooche

Red dress worn by Judith Jamison as a performer in the Alvin Ailey ballet The Mooche. She portrayed jazz singer Bessie Smith in a segment set to Duke Ellington’s composition “Creole Love Call.” The full length, flared, sleeveless red halter dress has a red knit bodice with knit fabric sewn over a red leotard and skirt made of red stretch satin. The entire dress is embellished with vertical stripes of red sequins and red rhinestones. The rhinestones increase in size as they descend to skirt bottom. The full-length skirt is self-lined, giving the costume great flow and movement.

The Mooche was a musical comedy ballet choreographed by Alvin Ailey for the television special “Ailey Celebrates Ellington,” commissioned by CBS and broadcast on the network in November 1974. Jamison debuted in the piece during the Ailey company’s 1975 season at the City Center 55th Street Theater in New York, and she reprised the role in 1976 for Ailey’s bicentennial Ellington program at the New York State Theater. “The Mooche” refers to an imaginary nightclub; sets for the piece were designed in a mirrored art deco style by Rouben Ter-Arutunian. The piece was inspired by and set to Duke Ellington’s musical portraits of celebrated Black performing artists Florence Mills, Marie Bryant, Mahalia Jackson, and Bessie Smith. The costumes for the piece were designed by Randy Barcelo.

Judith Jamison has been acclaimed as one of the most prominent figures in modern dance. The Philadelphia native studied with Marion Cuyjet at the Judimar School of Dance and the Philadelphia Dance Academy (now the University of the Arts) before making her New York debut with the American Ballet Theatre at the age of 21. She joined the groundbreaking multi-racial Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1965 and over the next fifteen years with the company she earned a reputation as one of its star talents. Ailey often created roles specifically for her, most notably the tour de force solo Cry and Pas De Duke, a duet with Mikhail Baryshnikov to the music of Ellington. Upon Ailey’s death in 1989, Jamison returned to lead AAADT, making her one of a few women in the world to direct a major dance company.

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