"It's pretty clear that there's a love affair between audiences and 'Revelations'," choreographer Alvin Ailey wrote in his autobiography, speaking of the work that would become the signature of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He was not overstating the case.
The rise of the Nazis meant the demise of Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff, whose jazz-inspired, avant-garde classical compositions were blacklisted as the work of a Jew. Under German occupation in Prague starting in 1939, Schulhoff desperately tried to escape to the United States, then to the Soviet Union, but he was arrested in 1941 and died the next year at the Wulzburg concentration camp in Bavaria.
"Art is universal; art connects people." Those sentiments may seem trite -- maybe even cliche to the point of losing meaning. But sometimes a notion or phrase becomes trite because it is true.
Roxanne Vargas and Robert Battle, Artistic Director of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, discuss the new season and Battle's new book.
A marvel of power and poise, Jacquelin Harris is one of the brightest lights at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Repertory doesn't lie, and Harris is a natural, having graced the stage in Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain Pas de Deux, Ailey's Pas de Duke and Matthew Rushing's ODETTA.
On New Year's Eve, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will celebrate with a 50th anniversary tribute to Artistic Director Emerita Judith Jamison, the program featuring a work she choreographed ("A Case of You"), an Ailey classic created on and identified with her ("Cry") and an Ailey masterpiece she has left an indelible stamp on ("Revelations").
The Alvin Ailey Dance Company premiered its artistic director Robert Battle's new work "Awakening" this winter. Battle stops by the studio to discuss juggling both roles as well as the children's book, "My Story, My Dance," which chronicles his journey to Alvin Ailey.
