The New York Times - Alvin Ailey, The Man And The Mind Behind The Unapologetic Sparkle
The name Ailey is synonymous with dance. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is more than a company: It’s a brand, an integral piece of the cultural fabric of this country. It’s huge. But somehow the man who created the Ailey empire has become lost inside it, obscured as if by an eclipse. Alvin Ailey was a choreographer who seamlessly melded dance forms, a dancer of extraordinary strength and beauty, and a man — a queer man — with an expansive, restless mind.