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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at Lincoln Center

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9 years ago

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The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will return to Lincoln Center this June for 15 performances. This engagement will feature new productions of works by Judith Jamison and Robert Battle, as well as a world premiere of Exodus by Rennie Harris. Also included in the program are crowd favorites, Grace by Ronald K. Brown, Ulysses Dove‘s Bad Blood, and Revelations by Alvin Ailey.

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was founded in 1958 with a mission to bring African-American cultural expression and the American modern dance tradition to the world. This mission was first carried out with the creation of Ailey’s masterpiece, Revelations, in 1960. A school was established in 1969 and the following year, both school and company found a home in Manhattan. In the years to come, the company gained national and international acclaim as the ensemble grew and Ailey collaborated with the Metropolitan Opera (Carmen) in 1972, performed at the Duke Ellington Festival at Lincoln Center with the Ellington Orchestra in 1975, and performed for President Carter at the White House in 1978. In 1987, Alvin Ailey received modern dance’s greatest honor, the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award

The following year, he was the recipient of The Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime contribution to American culture through the performing arts. Shortly before Ailey’s untimely death in 1989, Judith Jamison, a company member since 1965, was named Artistic Director. Jamison continued to take the company further causing Dance Magazine to call the Ailey company “recession-proof” due to its worldwide success in 1992. Under her leadership, the company has continued to tour all over the world and dancers from all over the world have come to study at the Ailey School. In 2011, Jamison became Artistic Director Emerita and choreographer Robert Battle became the active Artistic Director, continuing a legacy of dance that has become vital in the artistic fabric of America.

Check out Alvin Ailey’s REVELATIONS below!


The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will perform at Lincoln Center at the David H. Koch Theater June 10-21.
For tickets and more information, visit www.alvinailey.org

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  1. Pingback: Rest In Poise: Alvin Ailey Dancer, Dudley Williams, Deceased At 76

  2. Pingback: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre Comes to the Big Screen

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A Must See

Alvin Ailey Dancers Perform to Beyonce’s ‘Freedom’

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8 years ago

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July 21, 2016

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Harry Belafonte once said, “Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s anchor. We are the compass for humanity’s conscience.”

This past year we’ve seen a multitude of artists from every field, be those gatekeepers of truth. In films like the upcoming, powerful “Birth Of A Nation,” or in music with Beyonce’s  unapologetically black Lemonade album, to game-changing Broadway shows like Hamilton, Shuffle Along and Eclipsed, it’s no secret black artistry went to a whole new level.

So what do we do then when our nation is at its most intense, chaotic state? Like many, art is the first thought. Whether it be poetry, music, dance, spoken work, theater, photography -our art allows us to express ourselves wholeheartedly without restrictions.

At least that’s what Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater company member and choreographer Sean Aaron Carmon and fellow Alvin Ailey dancers did. Last week they took social media by storm, with their powerful one-minute choreographed dance to Beyonce’s “Freedom.”

A dance the NYTimes deems as a protest dance, Carmon and Co. pour their hearts and souls into every synchronized movement they make, even in the improvised solos where dancers were given free reign to express whatever they were feeling.

Carmon told dancers “I don’t have to tell you a single thing about what you should do. We all know what’s going on in our country. We all have our visceral responses to it. I’m going to put the music on. Give me everything you have.”

They gave everything and then some.Check out the video below.

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A Must See

Misty Copeland to Dance in Disney’s The Nuctracker Film

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8 years ago

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July 15, 2016

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American Ballet Theatre principle dancer Misty Copeland will join the cast of Disney’s live action film The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. She’ll portray the leading ballerina role in the only dance sequence in the movie.

Lasse Hallström directs the project, based on E.T.A. Hoffman’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, also the basis for the Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ballet we all know and love.


Last summer, Copeland leaped onto the map when ABT promoted her to principle dancer, becoming the first Black woman in the 76-year history to hold the title.

Last Fall she made her Broadway debut in the Tony-nominated revival On the Town for select performances. This week, she prepares to dance Romeo & Juliet at the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Vienna, Virginia.

It appears Copeland has a lot to look forward to within the next year. She launched her first dancewear line, Égal Dance. New Line has found screenwriter Gregory Howard (“Remember the Titans”) to adapt her memoir, “Life In Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina,” into a film. As reported by Deadline last year, she’s teamed up with writer Tracy Oliver to develop a Fox series set in the world of dance.

A documentary about her life, “A Ballerina’s Tale” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2015.

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