Judith Jamison sits down with Sister Circle hosts Rashan Ali and Syleena Johnson to discuss Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s upcoming engagement at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta during the company’s 60th anniversary.
In this interview on "City Lights with Lois Reitzes" artistic director emerita Judith Jamison speaks about the company's 60 year legacy of transforming the ways that we express and understand ourselves and our culture through dance.
Artists, Activists, Policymakers - and a President - weigh in on how to live a fearless life in the Trump era.
In 1958, dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey created a home for dancers to explore identity and self-expression through their art and the dance theater remains a culture institution. ABC's Zachary Kiesch goes behind the scenes of Ailey's 60th and the creation of Lazarus, the Company's first ever two act ballet by hip hop choreographer Rennie Harris.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater celebrates 60 years of achievement of the pioneering legacy of Alvin Ailey that began as a one night engagement that evolved beyond limits to a new era in the arts, naming him "one of the groundbreaking greats in modern dance history." Judith Jamison, Artistic Director Emeritus joins us to discuss her life and work with Ailey... past, present and future.
NEW YORK (AP) — It was March 1958 when an African-American dancer named Alvin Ailey, then making his living on the Broadway stage, gathered up a group of fellow dancers and presented a one-night show of his own works. In the audience at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan was 18-year Sylvia Waters, who was studying dance across town at Juilliard. She had never seen anything like it. “It was absolutely riveting,” she says now. “I had never seen men dance like that.” Most exciting to Waters was seeing people dance “who I could relate to,” she says. “There was something so visceral about the experience. We didn’t know at the time that it was history, but it was definitely special.”
Modern dance is waning in popularity, and young people don't seem to feel as connected with the work anymore. So what's a 60-year-old ballet company like Alvin Ailey to do to seem limber again?
When Alvin Ailey and a small group of African-American modern dancers first took the stage at the 92nd Street Y in 1958, it was groundbreaking and revolutionary. Revelations captured the agony and triumphs of the African American experiences. Now six decades later, his multi-cultural dance company is still charting a new course in its 60th season at City Center.
Alvin Ailey's groundbreaking dance company is celebrating its 60th anniversary with a season at New York City Center. Take a step back through their sensational past productions.
There aren't many people left on earth who can speak to the spirit of Alvin Ailey - not in terms of his dances or the institution he created, but the man. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater celebrates its 60th anniversary this season and along with that, the work of another choreographer who mercifully is on earth right now: Ronald K. Brown. Through his dances, he speaks to the spirit of Ailey, and for nearly 20 years now he has enriched Ailey's company with unaffected, soulful choreography that gives its dancers dimension and depth.