NEW YORK -- The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returns to Lincoln Center on Wednesday for six performances. A diverse program has been put together to cap a decade of leadership under artistic director Robert Battle. He talked to CBS2's Dave Carlin on Wednesday about his 10 years with Ailey, and what he sees for its future.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is returning to Lincoln Center. The six-performance engagement will cap a decade under the leadership of artistic director Robert Battle. He joined Sandra Bookman to discuss the season opener and his 10th year anniversary program, which features his choreography set to the music of some of the greats, like Ella Fitzgerald, Stevie Wonder and others.
In 2018, Alicia Graf Mack joined the Juilliard School as director of the conservatory’s dance department, the first woman of color to lead the division. During her tenure, the school has done away with gendered ballet classes and expanded the canon of music taught in its history and theory courses to include more works by composers of color.
Alvin Ailey’s “Revelations” is back in the flesh — and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is dancing it as rousingly as ever. If you’ve never seen “Revelations,” or haven’t gotten a dose in a few years, make haste to the Ailey company’s current run at UC Berkeley’s Cal Performances, where this eternal and indestructible 1960 classic is slated to cap every program (there are five of them) on offer through Sunday, April 3. And brace yourself; as one longtime fan was heard telling a newcomer on opening night Thursday, March 29, “You’re about to go to church.”
Season 5: Ep. 1: Mickela Mallozzi kicks off this new season of Bare Feet celebrating black voices in the arts by dancing with Virginia Johnson and the renowned Dance Theatre of Harlem, along with Misty Copeland and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater! She drums and dances with the Brooklyn United Marching Band, celebrating Juneteenth with Black-owned small business owners, restaurants, and festivals throughout the city!
It was at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre where dancers with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater would unknowingly perform for the last time before a nearly two-year hiatus. Fast forward to today, and they’re back on their first national tour. Ailey's Artistic Director Robert Battle and Chicago-native dancer Solomon Dumas speak with Angel Idowu about the Company's return.
Instinct rather than intention guided Robert Battle, artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, when he choreographed the image of dancer Renaldo Maurice, a Black man, draped in the American flag. Battle had envisioned his piece, “For Four,” as a light opener to a jazz score capturing the pandemic’s pent-up energies. But at some level, Battle said, he needed to respond to the murder of George Floyd and “these fragile times in our democracy.”
When he became the artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater 10 years ago, Robert Battle stopped seeing himself as a choreographer. “In fact,” he said in a recent phone interview, “there were parts of me that didn’t really think I would make another work.” Paradoxically, making work is precisely why Battle had landed at Ailey in the first place in 2011. It was his skill as a choreographer and director of his own small troupe, Battleworks Dance Company, that caught the attention of one of the world’s most prestigious modern-dance organizations. Judith Jamison, Battle’s champion and predecessor at Ailey, hailed him as “the creative force of the future.”
This month would have been Alvin Ailey’s 91st birthday; the celebrated modern dance visionary died in 1989. Decades later, his choreography is as vibrant as ever and his company, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater remains as innovative. Christopher Booker spoke with the company’s artistic director Robert Battle about Ailey’s legacy.
Artistic Director Emerita, Judith Jamison sits with Tamron Hall to discuss the AILEY Documentary, the 50th anniversary of Alvin Ailey’s beloved Cry, and the highly anticipated 2022 US Tour, kicking off Philadelphia.