Ronni Favors, Rehearsal Director

Rehearsal Director Ronni Favors
Please Credit Photo: Rehearsal Director Ronni Favors. Photo by Dario Calmese
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Ronni Favors is from Iowa City, Iowa. After studying at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan, with the Camp Scholarship, she continued her training at The Ailey School as a Fellowship student. Ms. Favors was a member of Ailey II, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, and a recipient of the Min-On Art Award. Ms. Favors was the ballet instructor at the 1989 inaugural session of AileyCamp in Kansas City and served as Artistic Director of the Camp. She is the Founding Director of Children’s Aid AileyCamp New York and provided guidance in the national implementation of the AileyCamp program. In 1997, Ms. Favors was named Assistant Rehearsal Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and was its Rehearsal Director from 1999 to 2010. She worked with local dance students who performed in Alvin Ailey’s Memoria in Johannesburg, South Africa, as well as in Seattle, Copenhagen, Los Angeles, Chicago, Kansas City, and New York. Most recently, she set Alvin Ailey’s Night Creature on TU Dance and Oregon Ballet Theatre. Ms. Favors rejoined the Company as Rehearsal Director in 2019.

Featured News Releases

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Announces Programming For New York City Center Season December 1-19, 2021

NEW YORK – UPDATED October 19, 2021— Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New York City Center’s Principal Dance Company and America’s beloved cultural ambassador to the world, returns to the stage for a much-anticipated annual season in their “home” theater December 1–19, 2021. Marking a decade of leading the Company forward, Artistic Director Robert Battle will present Ailey’s renowned artists in a diverse repertory of premieres, new productions and Ailey classics. The repertory features two world premieres adapted from video to stage by Robert Battle and Ailey Resident Choreographer Jamar Roberts as well as four new productions.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Announces Programming For New York City Center Season December 4, 2019 - January 5, 2020

NEW YORK – UPDATED October 24, 2019 — Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New York City Center’s Principal Dance Company, returns to the theater’s stage from December 4, 2019 – January 5, 2020. Artistic Director Robert Battle leads Ailey’s 32 extraordinary dancers during this annual five-week engagement, which has become a joyous holiday tradition. The repertory features more than two dozen diverse works by some of the world’s preeminent choreographers, including world premieres by Donald Byrd and Ailey dancer and newly announced Resident Choreographer Jamar Roberts, company premieres by Aszure Barton and Camille A. Brown, and new productions by Judith Jamison and Lar Lubovitch.

Masazumi Chaya, Associate Artistic Director And Beloved Mainstay Of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, To Retire At The End Of Upcoming New York City Center Season

NEW YORK, NY, July 9, 2019 – Robert Battle, Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, announced today that the Company’s beloved mainstay for nearly five decades, Associate Artistic Director Masazumi Chaya, intends to retire on January 5, 2020, following the conclusion of the Company’s New York City Center season. Having joined the Company in 1972 as a dancer, Mr. Chaya performed under Mr. Ailey’s direction for 15 years, subsequently assumed responsibility for rehearsing the Company—a role for which Mr. Ailey had cultivated him—and for more than 28 years, as Associate Artistic Director, has maintained the repertoire, handled innumerable creative decisions, and guided generations of the Company’s dancers.

Featured Press Coverage

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Portia - Alvin Ailey: The Joy Of Judith Jamison

In this tribute to legendary dancer and choreographer Judith Jamison, Portia sits down with Alvin Ailey rehearsal director Ronni Favors and Alvin Ailey dancer Vernard Gilmore to celebrate Jamison’s contributions and to discuss how the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater carries on her legacy of artistic excellence.

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Dance Teacher - Ronni Favors’ Tips for Teaching Long, Extended Lines

Odds are, your dance students’ Instagram feeds are filled with images of professionals showing off their 180- degree penchés or demonstrating their highest extensions. It’s enough for a student to come to equate the length of their lines with the quality of their dancing—after all, dancers so often hear “long lines” as something to strive for.

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Iowa Public Radio - Celebrating 60 Years Of Alvin Ailey's 'Revelations'

Set to spirituals, gospel songs and blues, Alvin Ailey’s modern dance masterpiece "Revelations" was first performed in 1960. It was unlike anything audiences had seen before, and since then it’s been performed continuously around the globe. On this edition of Talk of Iowa, host Charity Nebbe speaks with Iowa native Ronnie Favors of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater about her journey through modern dance and the troupe’s upcoming Iowa performance.