The Guardian - Sky’s the limit! Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater – in pictures
The always revelatory dance company is at Sadler’s Wells in London this month with two programs, celebrating their legacy and presenting ‘heavenly’ new works
The always revelatory dance company is at Sadler’s Wells in London this month with two programs, celebrating their legacy and presenting ‘heavenly’ new works
The Alvin Ailey company’s New Works program might be seen in some circles as dated, and it’s true that it is neither cutting edge nor modishly contemporary. Yet it rests on more perennial qualities that underpin the company’s enduring appeal: skill, craft, beauty and humanity, and beneath them an artistic aim that can reach up towards the sublime, out towards the world, or in towards the heart.
The famed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has a new leader. Alicia Graf Mack is only the fourth artistic director of the groundbreaking dance company.
What a night. The Dance Magazine Awards yesterday at the Ailey Citigroup Theater was jam-packed with love for dance. From legendary icons to early-career choreographers we can't stop obsessing over, the Dance Magazine Awards, presented by the Dance Media Foundation, recognized a wide spectrum of our field. And with more performances than ever before, the night was an incredible celebration of the dance community. As host Wendy Perron pointed out, in many ways, we doubled the usual fun this year: Some honorees had two performances, some had two presenters, and David Gordon and Valda Setterfield were themselves, well, two awardees.
Whatever you may say about Robert Battle's new "Awakening," you can be sure that it resembles little else in the repertoire of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which opened its annual Berkeley residency Tuesday, March 29, at UC's Zellerbach Hall. That is the first dance Battle has made for the company since he became artistic director five years ago may have something to do with it.