NEW YORK -- A June 8 Cornell event at the Joan Weill Center for Dance in Manhattan, home of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT), explored themes of dance and the importance of the arts, culture and philanthropy with Cornell President David Skorton.

The event, "Cornell Celebrates Cultural Visionaries," also celebrated Judith Jamison's 21 years as artistic director of the groundbreaking dance company and introduced Robert Battle as her successor.

Joan Weill was instrumental in funding the organization's permanent home at Ninth Avenue and 55th Street in Manhattan, which was completed in 2004 and named in her honor. The eight-story building is the largest New York City facility dedicated to dance.

Weill and her husband, banker and philanthropist Sanford Weill '55, are generous benefactors of Cornell and particularly Weill Cornell Medical College, which bears their name. Their daughter, Jessica Bibliowicz '81, spoke briefly and said that her mother joined the board of the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation in 1994 and became its chair in 2000. "In my family, if it's important to one of us, it's important to all of us," Bibliowicz said. "And to my mother, nothing is more special than Alvin Ailey."

Joan Weill was unable to attend the event due to illness.

"Joan fell in love with the company," Jamison said. "She fell in love with the idea that we could communicate on such a wonderful level, that it wasn't just about performance, but it was about heart and soul and spirit."

In an on-stage conversation with Jamison before about 100 New York City Cornellians and friends, Skorton noted that the AAADT made its landmark debut in 1958 at New York's 92nd Street Y and has become a tremendous force in American dance, "sharing the rich experience in African-American dance with people everywhere."

Skorton, who also is a musician and passionate patron of the arts, told Jamison that his 2006 inaugural speech at Cornell was built on the metaphor of dance and that "part of the inspiration of it was early work that you did that I watched from afar."

"In this interconnected world, culture is the thing that will connect people of varying backgrounds," Skorton said. "The most significant problems in our world and the things we need to learn most as people will not be solved by science, or at least not by science alone." He asked Jamison about the challenges of maintaining societal support for cultural institutions.

Jamison said the company stays in touch with the communities it serves (AAADT has performed for some 23 million people in 48 states and in 71 countries on six continents). "We were always reaching out -- before outreach became a buzzword," she said.

As for her approach to leadership, she said: "Get people around you who are talented ... full of love for what they do -- and that includes staff, dancers, crew, everybody -- and if they can do it better than you, let them do it."

To build lasting passions with those who could become supporters, she said that in addition to the variety and diversity of the Ailey dancers, "there is love and passion on the stage that is palpable when you see a performance," Jamison said. "There is integrity. And there is great love of what we do." Then, when an Ailey performance or class resonates with someone, "it works its way up, it gets to funders, it gets to anyone who wants to be engaged."

Jamison introduced Battle, who described how his path to Alvin Ailey was set when he saw a performance of the company's famous piece "Revelations" at the age of 12.

"One of the first things I learned when I started dancing is this gesture," Battle said, arms at his sides. "Start here, lift your arms to your heart, and you open out. That says it all. What I plan to do in the future is keep that going." Battle then introduced one of his own choreographed works for AAADT, "Takademe," performed by Ailey dancer Yannick Lebrun to a score by Sheila Chandra.