Revivals of works by Ronald K. Brown and Jamar Roberts and world premieres by Amy Hall Garner and Elizabeth Roxas-Dobrish will come to the City Center stage for Alvin Ailey Dance Company’s winter season, the company announced Thursday.
The world-renowned dance troupe will perform two programs at BAM — one featuring the seminal works of Alvin Ailey himself, and the other featuring a distinctly Brooklyn mix of rare and recent works. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater six-day series at the Brooklyn Academy of Music is going to feel like a homecoming. Maybe it's because of the Brooklyn-themed program. Perhaps it's because BAM is where Ailey first performed as a dancer in 1956, two years before he founded his paradigm-shifting dance company.
NEW YORK -- Starting Tuesday night, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater begins a summer season that will be filled with pride and rejuvenation. One of the company's most beloved choreographers is back from a serious medical setback. "Dancing Spirit" is the title of a famed work, a choreographer tribute to Ailey living legend Judith Jamison.
Mack, whom one student called an agent of change, wants to “create a place where people feel like themselves” — and a model for the professional world. When Alicia Graf Mack taught the final ballet class for students graduating in spring from the dance division of Juilliard, it was a gentle, valedictory session: a lot of laughter, inside jokes and memories, a few tears. She’s a warm, gracious teacher who sometimes calls herself Mama Mack, and she got a little teary herself.
The one- night-only Ailey Spirit Gala, which benefits the Ailey organization’s extensive educational and training programs for young people, was held for the first time at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. Led by Artistic Director Robert Battle, the evening celebrated the art and soul of dance. A powerful new piece created specifically for the occasion by choreographer and former Ailey company member Hope Boykin featured Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Ailey II dancers, students from The Ailey School, and youngsters from AileyCamp, the organization's dance and personal development summer enrichment program.
ou gotta realize that there ain’t no party like The Ailey Spirit Gala! For the first time The Ailey Spirit Gala was held at the beautiful Jazz at Lincoln Center on the evening of May 24th in Manhattan. The spectacular one night only benefit was a celebration of the art and soul of dance to benefit Ailey’s uplifting programs for young people including scholarships for talented students of The Ailey School and Arts In Education & Community Programs.
Christopher Taylor will soon perform at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, New Jersey, as part of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s annual season at the vaunted Garden State venue. For Taylor, the performance will be something of a homecoming because he’s originally from Newark, and he actually started his dance career in AileyCamp Newark’s summer program. He rose through the ranks, joining The Ailey School Junior Division, The Ailey School Professional Division and Ailey II, before making the jump (literally and figuratively) to the main company, according to his biography.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s annual Boston visit has become a treasured cultural tradition, bringing with it dynamic dance and a whiff of spring. Each program’s inclusion of Ailey’s stirring “Revelations” is a reminder of the choreographer’s humanity and ground-breaking legacy. Fueled by spirituals, the 1960 creation has been seen by more audiences around the world than any other modern dance work, yet it retains a heartfelt power that never gets old.
“There is about her an aura of mysticism. She appears onstage, larger than life, more an apparition than a performer, compelling us to look upon her as we might a temple dancer—with a sense of religiosity, of awe.” Those were the opening lines of Olga Maynard’s November 1972 Dance Magazine cover story on Judith Jamison, then in her late 20s and at the height of her powers as a star performer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
BOSTON - Movement, music, and "Ailey magic" drew a dancing crowd to the Salvation Army Kroc Center in Boston Wednesday night. Dancers of all ages and abilities came to experience the energy and emotion of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. "I feel like I'm a part of Mr. Ailey's legacy. When he founded his company in 1958 to celebrate the beauty of the African American experience and modern dance tradition, he wanted to put the beauty of Black people forward," said professional dancer Yannick Lebrun of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Company.