On June 10, I interviewed 36 teenagers and adults in Central Park, New York. I asked every single person the same question: “Do you know who Alvin Ailey is?”
The results I received were shocking.
Only five of the 36 people I interviewed recognized his name.
For someone whose work transformed American dance, I expected far more people to know who he was. In case you’re one of those people who didn’t know, Alvin Ailey was a groundbreaking choreographer who used dance to tell stories about identity, struggle, faith, and resilience. He was also the founder of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
Through works such as “Revelations,” Ailey brought Black experiences to audiences around the world and proved that movement could communicate emotions in ways words often cannot.
Yet many people seem unfamiliar with his legacy.
As a dancer, I find that concerning.
The fact that so few people recognized his name made me wonder: in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence and instant answers, are we beginning to overlook the value of human creativity itself?
Today, creativity is becoming increasingly valuable and increasingly threatened. AI can now write essays, generate artwork, answer questions, and complete assignments within seconds. While these technologies offer undeniable benefits, they also make it easier for people to skip the creative process entirely.
Alvin Ailey’s work reminds us why that process matters.
I have been dancing since I was three years old. For most of my life, my training focused heavily on technique. I studied ballet through the Royal Academy of Dance method before transitioning to the Vaganova method in middle school. Success was measured through flexibility, pirouettes, extensions, and leaps. I focused on executing the movement correctly rather than understanding what the movement was trying to say.
That changed when I began learning more about Alvin Ailey and his philosophy of storytelling through dance.
After watching “Revelations” and later performing excerpts from the piece in a school production, I experienced a shift in how I approached choreography. For the first time, I saw dance as more than a collection of technically impressive movements. Every gesture carried meaning. Every formation told a story. Every movement choice reflected an emotion, memory, or experience.
When I was thirteen, I participated in my first student-run dance production called In Our Hands. The production focused on nature, destruction, and environmental responsibility. During one rehearsal, my dance teacher, Mr. Schenck asked us to imagine ourselves as animals.
I thought the prompt was ridiculous.
“I’m an angry chipmunk,” I joked.
My classmates laughed. But Mr. Schenck didn’t. He nodded.
At the time, I wanted to focus on technique. I wanted to dance to popular music and perform movements I already knew how to do well. I did not understand why storytelling mattered so much.
As rehearsals continued, however, my perspective changed. The instrumental music I once considered boring forced me to create my own interpretation. The storytelling exercises challenged me to think beyond myself. Instead of asking what tricks would look impressive, I began asking what message I wanted to communicate.
One moment in particular stands out. During one rehearsal, the class was divided into four groups of four to five dancers. Mr. Schenck instructed us to embody trees. My group created an opening shape, and I lay completely flat on my stomach against the marley floor. My arms curved softly in front of me, and my fingertips pressed into the ground like roots reaching into the soil.
As the music began, I heard the sound of a woman breathing, yawning, and eventually singing a long, powerful “ahh.” At first, I was unsure of what the movement meant. Yet as I remained connected to the floor, the marley beneath me slowly transformed into earth in my imagination. My breathing became deeper and more intentional. I no longer felt like a dancer lying on a studio floor; I felt like a tree rooted firmly in the ground.
As the dance continued, I became increasingly aware of the dancers around me. Just as trees in a forest are connected through an underground network of roots, our movements seemed to connect us to one another. We rose, swayed, and expanded together, responding not only to the music but also to the energy of the group. In that moment, I felt grounded, present, and connected – to nature, to the story we were telling, and to the people dancing beside me.
For the first time, I understood that choreography was not simply arranging steps together.
It was storytelling.
That lesson has remained with me for years.
Unlike AI, creativity cannot simply be generated with a prompt. Genuine artistic expression requires experimentation, collaboration, disagreement, reflection, and failure. It requires people to wrestle with ideas before arriving at meaningful conclusions. Through that process, young people discover not only what they think but who they are.
This is why arts education remains essential.
Too often, dance, music, theater, and visual arts are treated as optional additions to education rather than core components of it. Yet the arts teach skills that are becoming increasingly important in a world of instant answers. They teach imagination. They teach empathy. They teach students how to communicate experiences that cannot always be expressed through words.
Alvin Ailey understood this decades ago.
His choreography was not memorable because it showcased technical perfection. It was memorable because it connected deeply with human experiences. His work invited audiences to feel, reflect, and understand one another.
As AI continues to reshape society, schools should not reduce their investment in the arts. They should strengthen it. Technology may help us complete tasks more efficiently, but creativity teaches us how to think independently and connect with others.
In an age increasingly defined by automation, Alvin Ailey’s legacy serves as a reminder that creativity, storytelling, and human expression are not luxuries. They are necessities.
