Growing up in Albany, DuBois A’Keen developed a complicated relationship with his hometown. It is the city that produced Ray Charles and provided the template for the Civil Rights Movement, but it was also segregated, impoverished and confining for a Black boy with creative leanings. A’Keen couldn’t wait to flee to the big city.
Where is the dance field headed next? The dancers, choreographers, directors, and companies on our annual “25 to Watch” list offer heartening, imaginative, exciting possible answers to that question. Whether or not you’re already familiar with these up-and-comers, our editors and contributors from across the dance world predict that we’ll be hearing a lot more from these artists on the verge of a breakout in 2025 and beyond.
The version we know today of Alvin Ailey’s Revelations, presented continuously for more than six decades on stages around the world, is only about half the length it was when it premiered in 1960. Nine songs, originally performed live, were cut from the score in order to tighten the production for a tour of Asia and Australia, sponsored by the U.S. government while John F. Kennedy was president.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has officially kicked off its holiday season at New York City Center. Choreographer Hope Boykin, who was a principal dancer for the company, is premiering her new work.
She is transcendent and glowing: a mysterious woman in white. Standing center stage in a bandeau top with a strip of transparent fabric hanging down her front, and wide, loose pants, she remains still and rooted. This dancer, the mother god of Ronald K. Brown’s Grace, anchors the stage with a quiet strength as the sound of Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday” builds, calling her body — and with it her costume, its fabric swelling and dipping like waves — to action.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performs on The Kelly Clarkson Show, celebrating 25 years of Ronald K. Brown’s Grace.
The sun sets, the moon rises and New York City is reborn. The night was a source of fascination for the choreographer Alvin Ailey. He understood its power, how bodies could soften in its shadows. It’s a time when some people “become their real selves,” he wrote in his notebooks in reference to his dance Night Creature. It’s no accident that Ailey, the subject of Edges of Ailey, a major exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, choreographed a performance to open Studio 54 in 1977.
HELL'S KITCHEN, Manhattan (WABC) -- Eyewitness News got a behind-the-scenes look at rehearsals for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's upcoming holiday season. The company is preparing for several productions including the world premiere of, Sacred Songs. It will feature spirituals from the original 19-60 premiere of Alvin Ailey's influential work, Revelations.
If a hot girl summer was a dance, it might look something like choreographer Kyle Abraham’s Are You in Your Feelings? It’s vibrant and beautiful, fleeting and flirtatious, curious, casual and messy — in a good way.
On this episode of AOS, choreographer Amy Hall Garner and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Matthew Rushing talk about CENTURY, one of the ballets that will be performed Saturday, May 11 at NJPAC. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will have three shows on Mother's Day weekend at NJPAC (May 10-12).