DUDLEY WILLIAMS (1938–2015)

An East Harlem dance prodigy who performed as a lead at the Alvin Ailey company, Dudley Williams died over the weekend, according to the New York Times‘ Sam Roberts. He was seventy-six.

Williams was recruited by the choreographer Alvin Ailey as a last-minute replacement for an Ailey troupe member in 1963. He was a dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company at the time. At Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, he performed until 2005 and taught at the Ailey School, on West Fifty-fifth Street in Manhattan. He also continued to perform with a trio of older dancers that included him, Carmen de Lavallade, and Gus Solomons Jr., in a group they called Paradigm.

Judith Jamison, who succeeded Ailey as artistic director, called Williams the epitome of “the male lyric modern dancer.”

And Anna Kisselgoff, the chief dance critic in the New York Times, wrote: “Williams manages to inject the smallest gestures with an understated but powerful poignancy. One of the finest American dancers of his era, he has carved a niche for himself as that rare performer who can dazzle technically without for a moment losing sight of the dance’s dramatic resonance.”