Press Coverage

February 02, 2020

Atlanta Journal Constitution - Two Takes On Topic Of Race Hit Two Stages

Two major dance companies take very different approaches to the topic of race in productions debuting on Atlanta stages this month.... Meanwhile, during a recent rehearsal at The Ailey Studios in New York, a white woman and a black man stood side by side facing opposite directions in a confined space. She took his hand, pulled away in taut counterbalance, then snapped like a rubber band to his other side, one leg sweeping open as she turned away from him. The duet depicts an imaged encounter that could have sparked the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre - considered one of the worst episodes of racial violence in U.S. history. It's the subject of Donald Byrd's "Greenwood," a new contemporary ballet slated for its Atlanta debut during Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Feb. 20-23 run at the Fox Theatre.

January 26, 2020

The CW Atlanta - Focus Atlanta: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre Returns To The Fox Theatre

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre returns to the fabulous Fox Theatre February 20-23.

January 24, 2020

Smithsonian Magazine - Trove Of Stunning Dance Photography Now Online

Modern dance impresario Alvin Ailey once asked photographer Jack Mitchell to shoot publicity images of his dancers for their next performance without even knowing the title of their new work. Seeing “choreography” in the images Mitchell produced, Ailey leapt into an ongoing professional relationship with Mitchell. “I think that speaks to the trust that they had in one another,” says Rhea Combs, a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Ailey “knew it would work out somehow, some way.” This partnership, which began in the 1960s, led to the production of more than 10,000 memorable images, and the museum has now made those photos available online.

January 22, 2020

Lonely Planet Magazine - 2 Days in 4 Ways: The Dancer

New York is a city of opportunities. People come here from all over the world to achieve their dreams and I love the diversity it creates: the sense of constant cultural exchange. Yannick Lebrun is a modern dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Originally from French Guiana, he moved to New York 15 years ago and lives in Washington Heights.

January 16, 2020

WABE - Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre Highlights The Importance Of History In Dance

When the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre returns to Atlanta each year, it’s a joyous occasion like a family reunion, if your relatives happened to be brilliant dancers. The ensemble will perform at the Fox Theatre from Feb. 20-23. Ailey Artistic Director Robert Battle and choreographer Donald Byrd will speak at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights on Thursday, Jan. 16 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. The event, “Greenwood & Stories From The Soil: Reveal, Remember, Reconcile” is free and open to the public. Battle and Byrd joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes to talk about the dance.

January 02, 2020

The New York Times - An Ailey Dancer's Goddess Quality

Jacqueline Green was a shy 13-year-old when her mother, considering possible schools in Baltimore, observed two qualities that her daughter possessed. "You're the artsy child," Ms. Green recalled her saying. "You're flexible." Soon after, Ms. Green found herself at a dance audition for Baltimore School for the Arts. It was not only her first audition, it was also her first ballet class. "I had on Payless tights and shoes, and I don't know where we found a leotard," Ms. Green said. "I had my hair slicked back in this bun and I thought: 'People actually do this? Holding our arms out is tiring.'"

December 28, 2019

The New York Times - 'Just Speaking From My Body'

Every so often a great dancer transcends her own brilliance, somehow expanding its outer limit. Last week at City Center, Linda Celeste Sims, a member of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for 24 years, did just that in a rapturous performance of Ailey's 1971 "Cry," a 16-minute solo dedicated "to all black women everywhere - especially our mothers." This season Ms. Sims, 43, danced the work for the first time as a mother - she gave birth to her first child, Ellington, in May - and something shifted.

December 23, 2019

Dance Magazine - 25 To Watch

Khalia Campbell: Emotions flood through Khalia Campbell's every move. As "the umbrella woman" in Ailey's Revelations, her torso and arms ripple with joy. As a soloist in Darrell Grand Moultrie's Ounce of Faith, she turns heads with dancing that's smooth and silky, yet sharp and purposeful.

December 23, 2019

Dance Magazine - How I Did It

Learning Versatility, Summer by Summer: Courtney Celeste Spears. When Courtney Celeste Spears was young, she'd ask her family to skip the Christmas presents: "Just help me go to this intensive," she'd say.

December 23, 2019

Dance Magazine - Dancing While Deaf

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Samantha Figgins will never forget the first time she danced Revelations wearing the small devices held in place by a wire loop over each ear. "I thought they changed the music," Figgins recalls, laughing. All of a sudden, she could make out individual voices in the opening choral number "I Been Buked." When she found herself on the left side of the first formation, she could hear her fellow dancers breathe, and during "Wade in the Water," she discovered a bass line that she never knew was there.