Jazz class at the Berkeley/Oakland AileyCamp: 12 children standing in rows. 'Tweens and barely teens. Three boys in front, two rows of girls behind. Roughly at attention. It was midafternoon in early July, on the vast stage of Zellerbach Hall on the UC Berkeley campus.
Fifteen years. Wow. I'm entering my 15th year as a dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater! I remember my very first tour with the Company. We embarked on a 10-week international tour, and here I am 15 years later on an international tour with the exact same length of time.
The Alvin Ailey dance camp is held in cities around the country, this is the first time it has been held in Newark.
Dance teacher Wayne Williams stood at the lip of the Newark Arts High stage, his back to the two dozen black-clad students lined up behind him. "Where are your hands?" he asked over his shoulder. "Out" they shouted. "Chin?" he called. "Up," they said. "Stomach?" "In," they replied a few giggles distupting their perfect unison.
Step at a Time: Matilda Mackey from Ohio City, Ohio, practices jumps and poses on the main plaza at Lincoln Center as temperatures were in the high 80s on Tuesday.
AileyCamp Boston 2011 started yesterday at Orchard Gardens K-8 school in Roxbury. AileyCamp Boston is a tuition-free summer camp designed for Boston-area middle school students. Running July 5 through August 11, the program is operated by the Celebrity Series of Boston Arts, Education and Community Program.
2011 Ailey at the Apollo Spring Gala at the Apollo Theater
This morning, down at the Berkeley Marina, 56 East Bay middle schoolers were experiencing a host of "firsts". Many of them were taking to the water for the first time - donning life-jackets and sailing out into the Bay - not without a certain amount of trepidation in many cases.
One of the world's most celebrated modern dance troupes, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, opens a six-performance run Thursday at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical theater, bringing with it two programs centered around and dedicated to "Revelations," a work choreographed by company founder Alvin Ailey half a century ago that has gone on to become, according to Dance Magazine, "the most popular modern dance piece of all time."
In these cash-strapped times, arts organizations need all the help they can get. The Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey recently received a much-needed assist from the National Endowment for the Arts, which has awarded a grant of $25,000 to benefit AileyCamp and AileyCamp the Group.