Judith Jamison in "Cry"

This 1976 portrait shows thirty-two-year-old dancer Judith Jamison (born 1944) performing her signature role in Cry. The ballet—described as "a hymn to the sufferings and triumphant endurance of generations of black matriarchs"—made Jamison an international celebrity in the world of dance. It also marked a crowning moment in her partnership with Alvin Ailey, who had first recruited her to his dance company in 1965. About their collaboration, the New York Times dance critic raved, "Rarely have a choreographer and a dancer been in such accord." Jamison served as the principal dancer in the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater until 1980, when she left to perform with Gregory Hines in the Broadway musical Sophisticated Ladies. In 1989, just prior to Ailey's untimely death, Jamison was appointed the artistic director of his company, a position she holds to this day.