Hot on the heels of Phildanco's performance last month at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture, the venue opens its doors to another dance force not seen here in several years. Tonight, the Pittsburgh Dance Council will present Ailey II, the junior company of New York City's prestigious Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
Students from The Ailey School pose with Oprah for the December 2015 cover of O Magazine.
Young dancers are carrying forward the legacy of iconic American choreographer Alvin Ailey, who died in 1989. He founded Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958 and, two years later, created his most celebrated work — “Revelations,” an exploration of the grief and “holiest joy” of the African-American experience performed to spirituals, gospel and holy blues.
New picture-book biographies recount the lives of the first computer programmer, an Alvin Ailey dancer and a blue-eyed singer from Hoboken named Frankie.
It's been an eventful year for the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. After the company's annual spring stand at Lincoln Center, it staged a string of summer performances in Paris at the Les Etes de la Danse International Dance Festival.
The inspiring new children's picture book My Story My Dance is based on the life of Robert Battle, the Artistic Director of the world renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is one of the most popular dance companies in the world, touring regularly to major theaters across the United States and internationally. But on Thursday, the company will have the largest audience in its half-century-plus history, appearing in over 600 U.S. movie theaters as part of the Lincoln Center at the Movies: Great American Dance series.
TODAY contributor Lilliana Vazquez gets a sneak peek into The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to experience what the life of a professional dancer is like. The famed dance company even teaches her how to bust a move or two.
In June, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performed over a dozen works at Lincoln Center. Now four of those performances - "Chroma" by Wayne McGregor; artistic director Robert Battle's "Takademe"; "Grace" by Ronald K. Brown; and Alvin Ailey benchmark "Revelations" - can be relived in theaters Oct. 22 with additional material, including interviews with dancers and Battle.
Courtney Celeste Spears - Audra Danielle Noyes is a young designer, having made her way nearly straight from her studies at Savannah College of Art and Design to Paris, where she cut her teeth at Lanvin and John Galliano. And so her Spring précis was one no doubt informed by her own experiences, which delved deeply into the metamorphosis of a young woman.