Renee Robinson, Ailey Dancer, Retiring After Three Decades Jack Mitchell Renee Robinson in "Episodes" in 1989 with Desmond Richardson. ON Dec. 9 at City Center, Renee Robinson will do something she has done more times - in front of more people, in more cities of the world - than she can easily calculate. This time, though, will be the last: the last time as a member of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater that she holds the white parasol above the baptism scene in "Revelations," the last time she and her yellow dress help turn the whole theater into a rocking church. Ms. Robinson is retiring. Her tenure, which began in 1981, is the longest of any female dancer in Ailey company history. She is the last dancer still performing with the troupe to have been chosen by the founder, Alvin Ailey (who died in 1989). She is the only Ailey dancer to have performed under all three of the company's artistic directors: Ailey, Judith Jamison and, starting last year, Robert Battle. But none of these facts explains entirely why Ms. Robinson will be missed. In the Ailey building recently Matthew Rushing - the company's rehearsal director, who has shared stages with Ms. Robinson for 20 years - recalled the first time he saw her perform: "She transcended technique. It was more than just stage presence. And it wasn't just talent. It opened my eyes to another realm, how she could command a stage but also make people feel comfortable to let their guards down. "From then on," Mr. Rushing continued, "I looked for that thing. And Renee always delivered. She did it in rehearsal. And over the years she got better and better. That was another lesson: that it doesn't have to go downhill after a certain point. Ms. Robinson does not disclose her age, and in a conversation at the Ailey studios she would speak only reluctantly about her decision to stop dancing with the company. "Oh man," she said, "it was super hard." But she recently returned to school, earning a master's degree in dance from Hollins University in Virginia. Going back to school also closed a loop that Ms. Robinson's three decades with Ailey had interrupted. Her early training was in classical ballet. She began at the Jones-Haywood School, a Washington institution founded to offer ballet instruction to African-Americans who were not always welcome elsewhere. Her dancing won her a scholarship to New York University, where she majored in dance but minored in economics, thinking she would become a lawyer. "Back then," Ms. Robinson recalled, "the thought was, if you went to college, by the time you graduated you would be too old to start a dance career." After her first year in New York though, friends persuaded her to audition for a scholarship at the Ailey school. Despite her minimal background in modern dance she was accepted. She dropped out of N.Y.U., joined an Ailey workshop troupe, and, after twice auditioning unsuccessfully, entered the main company. Asked which Ailey dancers she emulated, Ms. Robinson said, "All of them." Asked which Ailey role was her favorite, she answered the same. What she remembers about working with the choreographer Ulysses Dove is that he didn't mind that she fell. "I fell a lot my first year," she remembers. What she appreciates about rehearsing Judith Jamison works is that she "wants you to come into the studio already sparkling, and I have a tendency to be a little clunky at first, and those ballets pushed me right out of the starting gate." Over the years Ms. Robinson has danced in dozens of works, from Ailey's tour-de-force solo "Cry" to Rennie Harris's hip-hop workout "Home." But she may be best known for her roles in "Revelations," Ailey's evocation of the black church of his childhood, set to spirituals, that the company performs to unfailing ovations hundreds of times each year. The first time Ms. Robinson saw her name on the callboard for the next day's rehearsal of "Revelations," she couldn't sleep, she said. She wanted to be perfect. She picked out a special outfit. She recalled eagerly scanning the casting sheet at the beginning of each subsequent season and saving the sheet - and the programs too - each time she was entrusted with a new "Revelations" role. Ms. Robinson also remembers when she and few friends decided to put $5 into an envelope each time they performed "Revelations," but she can't remember what happened to the envelope.