NEW YORK: Judith Jamison, an acclaimed dancer and choreographer who for two decades was artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, died on Saturday in New York at the age of 81.

Her death at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center came after a brief illness, said Christopher Zunner, managing director of public relations at the dance company.

“We remember and are grateful for her artistry, humanity and incredible light, which inspired us all,” Zunner said.

Jamison grew up in Philadelphia and began dancing at the age of six, she said in a 2019 TED talk. She joined Ailey’s modern dance company in 1965, when few Black women were prominent in American dance, and performed there for 15 years.

In 1971, she premiered “Cry,” a 17-minute solo that Ailey dedicated “to all Black women everywhere—especially our mothers,” and which became a signature of the company, according to its website.