If you haven't seen a performance by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in a while, you might forget just how accomplished the company's dancers are. You know they can do anything, but the cisible evidence can leave you reeling.
Improvisational jazz is not exactly a choreographer's best friend. If the musicians can change up tempos and tunes, dancers can do their best to chuck their assigned steps and wing it.
When Robert Battle took over as the artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater last year, it was the equivalent of being given the helm of a luxury cruise ship. In the scrappy modern-dance world most directors are still in paddle boats.
With the holidays fast approaching, nothing brings us pirouetting into the snowflake season quite like the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
In the midst of new chapters beginning and old ones ending in my career, I couldn't think of a more appropriate question to ask myself than why I dance. The last couple of years have been extremely challenging emotionally and physically. Having to adjust to a management position while maintaining my body as a dancer at 38 is no joke!
The dance company that was part of the civil rights movement - the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater opens its summer season in Paris to standing ovations.
"I believe that dance came from the people and that it should always be delivered back to the people," said Alvin Ailey. His esteemed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is one of the most highly celebrated dance companies in the world probably for that very reason - they know how to engage an audience.
"In July 2008, I suffered what I thought was a career-ending injury - a cartilage tear in my knee," says Alicia, who's danced with Alcin Ailey since 2005. "I was devastated. But my mom reassured me that whether or not I came back as a dancer, anything I decided to do next would be brilliant."
Iconic dancer/choreographer Judith Jamison, a Philadelphia native and the former artistic director of the internationally acclaimed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is one of four renowned leaders and achievers being honored for their lifetime accomplishments with the 33rd annual Common Wealth Awards of Distinguished Service.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, touring for the first time under new artistic director Robert Battle, delivered a heady, reverberating concoction of pieces - including the company premiere of Paul Taylor's Baroque pure-dance classic "Arden Court" (1981) and the California premiere of hip-hop choreographer Rennie Harris' "Home" (2011).