Press Coverage

August 09, 2020

The New York Times - Robert Battle Likes To Cook, And Connect

Since the pandemic lockdown in March, Battle has been consumed with keeping the company in shape until its dancers can safely return to the stage. From Aug. 6-12, a collaboration among Battle, his predecessor, Judith Jamison, and the choreographer Rennie Harris will stream on Ailey All Access. Battle has recently been considering the organization’s role in the Black Lives Matter movement. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the notion of, before it was a hashtag or a movement, that the Ailey company was demonstrating that Black lives matter in all of the work that we do,” he said. “But it’s almost not enough to live it. You have to say it expressly, that this is what we do and we are in solidarity. It’s not that we need to reinvent the wheel, but we need to roll it.”

August 06, 2020

Town & Country - Amazing Grace - Still, We Dance: An Ode To The Deliverance And Joy Of Self-Expression

Every year, in theaters and concert halls around the globe, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater takes audiences to church. Not just any house of worship, but the working-class, Black, Southern temples of rural Texas. The gospel they see and feel is Revelations, the company’s signature dance, which has been staged more often than the troupe’s other celebrated works, for some 25 million fans. This year Revelations turns 60, and it has lost none of its incantatory power.

June 29, 2020

CBS New York - All These Years Later, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Continues Spreading Message Of Inclusion

While protests across the country call for racial justice, an organization in New York City has been spreading a message of inclusion for decades. And they’ve been doing it through dance. CBS2’s Jenna DeAngelis has more on the work of Alvin Ailey. A powerful video was created in the midst of protests, following the death of George Floyd. It featured poetry, paired with a universal language, which at times, says more than words. “We. Dance.” by Hope Boykin. “This was my form of protest. This was the way that I could say it best to honor the organization that had started doing this more than 60 years ago,” Boykin said.

June 20, 2020

CNN - Dance Troupe Tells The Story Of Massacre Of 300 Black Americans

Tulsa's 1921 massacre involved white mobs killing 300 black residents in their uniquely prosperous community. That painful chapter in American history was the focus of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater this season, before it was sprupt interrupted by covid-19 shutdowns. Now with this renewed attention on the Tulsa massacre, the dance group is streaming its Greenwood story starting this week. Artistic Director Robert Battle discusses Donald Byrd’s Greenwood.

June 12, 2020

Vogue - Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Hosted Its Spirit Gala Online — And You Can Watch It Through June 18

This spring has seen ballet leap into the digital world... Hosted last night on YouTube, the night raised funds for the Ailey company as well as the Equal Justice Initiative (a non-profit organization providing legal representation to the wrongly convicted and the disadvantaged). The night would bring a world premiere, archival footage of one of Mr. Ailey’s first-ever performances, and an expanded reimagining of Revelations. With cameos and kind words delivered by Ailey fans like Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom, Jr., Timothy Shriver (whose own daughter was student at The Ailey School), Angela Bassett, and more, it was a celebration of the dance company’s rich history and a moment of much-needed togetherness in honor of Black Lives Matter.

June 03, 2020

The Wall Street Journal - 'Revelations' For Trying Times

Since 2013, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has appeared annually at Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater. This year is the exception, somewhat. As part of its Ailey All Access series of online presentations, begun March 30 in the wake of the pandemic, the troupe has been working on ways to still offer a June season of a sort. Before the theater shutdown, live performances had been scheduled for June 10 to 14. Instead, starting this Thursday at 8 p.m. EDT, viewers at home will be able to stream a four-part mixed bill, performed on the Koch stage, the was filmed in 2015.

May 22, 2020

NPR's Here & Now - Celebrating 'Revelations' In These Times

If life were normal this spring, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater would be on the road performing its annual national tour. They'd be celebrating the 60th anniversary of the company's signature work, “Revelations”, described by The New York Times as “modern dance's unquestionably greatest hit.”

May 12, 2020

PBS News Hour - Alvin Ailey's Beautiful Vision For Dance, Captured In Thousands Of Photos

It’s a simple photograph: a young man staring directly into the camera, arms folded. In the image captured in 1962, dance maestro Alvin Ailey looks defiant. Rhea Combs also sees something else when she looks at the black-and-white image. To her, the fact that photographer Jack Mitchell captured the performer shirtless is a visual metaphor, as if Ailey is telling the viewer, “I’m just baring my chest to the world and giving my all,” Combs said.

April 23, 2020

Detroit Public TV - Arts Engines: Bennett Rink

"You can see this tremendous need for people to connect to their sense of creativity... their sense of how to find hope... and I think the arts are crucial to keeping us feeling that we do have hope... at times when we are really in need of that." Bennett Rink, Exec. Dir. of Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation speaks to the role of dance and the arts today.

March 31, 2020

CNN - Ailey Artistic Director Robert Battle Answers The Question: What Drives You?

Robert Battle has been charged with continuing Alvin Ailey's formidable legacy, bringing mesmerizing, educational dance to audiences around the world.

The Ailey Organization