Ailey II dancer Josh Johnson spends most of the year touring the United States, performing in Ailey's modern repertory virtually every night, rehearsing during the days, and subsisting on an unholy mix of backstage catering, Applebee's, and Outback Steakhouse.
It's been 50 years since Alvin Ailey founded his dance company on 92nd Street; for the past twelve, Andrew Eccles has been all but embedded in the group, snapping thousands of photographs of its dancers.
Once, while on tour, Alvin Ailey noticed a young company member gazing wistfully out of the bus window. "She must be thinking about her son," he said to himself. And Sylvia Waters was.
When Francis Scott Key spent the rainy night of September 13, 1814, watching the British bombardment of Fort McHenry - a pivotal battle in the War of 1812 - he had only one question in his mind. Which flag would fly in the morning?
Wanted: Ken doll in tights to dance with new Barbie.
Clifton Brown was such a clumsy kid that his grandmother enrolled him in tumbling class when he was just four. The experiment took, and Brown soon turned to ballet, but an awkward growth spurt as 13 gave him pause.
The Bessies — more formally known as the New York Dance and Performance Awards — are often described as the dance world’s equivalent of the Oscars.
As this last great building boom winds down, our architecture critic asks: does the new see-through city look better or worse than the one it replaced? A building-by-builing survey.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater celebrated its 50th anniversary and its alumni with a block party at the New York City Center on West 55th Street. The event included free performances.
Operating out of its new state-of-the-art space on 59th Street and 9th Avenue in New York City, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is reaching highs that few dance companies can dream of.