Special Events

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Showing 11 – 20 of 85 Items
Observer - Edges of Ailey Brings Dance to the Whitney

Observer - Edges of Ailey Brings Dance to the Whitney

At the edge of Manhattan, in an 18,000-square-foot gallery on the fifth floor of a bright asymmetrical building, is the first large-scale exhibition about the life and work of the groundbreaking Black American choreographer Alvin Ailey (1931-1989). This show is a long time coming, both for Engell Speyer Family Senior Curator Adrienne Edwards (who has been working on the show for about six years) and for fans of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, founded by Ailey in 1958 (I, for one, have been looking forward to it for months).

The New York Times - Alvin Ailey’s Silky Creatures Of The Night

The New York Times - Alvin Ailey’s Silky Creatures Of The Night

The sun sets, the moon rises and New York City is reborn. The night was a source of fascination for the choreographer Alvin Ailey. He understood its power, how bodies could soften in its shadows. It’s a time when some people “become their real selves,” he wrote in his notebooks in reference to his dance Night Creature. It’s no accident that Ailey, the subject of Edges of Ailey, a major exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, choreographed a performance to open Studio 54 in 1977.

The Wall Street Journal - Alvin Ailey's Art On Sprawling Display

The Wall Street Journal - Alvin Ailey's Art On Sprawling Display

Edges of Ailey, curated by Adrienne Edwards with assistance from Joshua Lubin-Levy and CJ Salapare, which runs through Feb. 9, 2025, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, mates a full-floor, 18,000-square-foot gallery display with a program of over 90 live dance performances, classes and talks presented two floors below in the museum’s intimate theater. Its subject is the life, art and what its promotional materials call “adjacencies” of dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey (1931-1989), whose career in modern dance led him to international renown.

The New York Times - Works Inspired By Wonders

The New York Times - Works Inspired By Wonders

Music’s in the air, and there’s painting and sculpture in imaginative variety as an art museum gives rare treatment to an ephemeral medium. With the spirited, sense-surround show called Edges of Ailey at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the New York art season gets off to an exuberant, enveloping, though puzzling start. The show is a major institutional tribute to the American choreographer and performer Alvin Ailey (1931-1989). It’s also a relatively rare example of a traditionally object-intensive art museum giving full-scale treatment to the ephemeral medium of dance.

Frieze Magazine - Carry Forward

Frieze Magazine - Carry Forward

As a retrospective opens at the Whitney Museum, New York, writers, curators and those close to the choreographer explore his vision to transform American dance

W Magazine - Alvin Ailey’s Incredible Life of Dance (Finally) Gets the Museum Treatment

W Magazine - Alvin Ailey’s Incredible Life of Dance (Finally) Gets the Museum Treatment

Alvin Ailey is one of the most accomplished and revered dancers in history. And yet, there has never been a wide-ranging exhibition chronicling his singular life, style of dance, company, and the impact he left on American culture. “Around 2018, there was a range of shows at museums about dance: the Lincoln Kirstein ballet, the Judson Dance Theater, Merce Cunningham,” Adrienne Edwards, senior curator at The Whitney Museum in New York City, told me recently. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Why not Ailey? Why hasn’t a museum done a show about him?’”

Vanity Fair - The Ailey Legacy Takes Center Stage At The Whitney Museum With Edges of Ailey

Vanity Fair - The Ailey Legacy Takes Center Stage At The Whitney Museum With Edges of Ailey

Alvin Ailey has never left the hearts of dancers, and it is that legacy which guides Edges of Ailey, the large-scale, multidisciplinary exhibition opening September 25 at the Whitney Museum. Under the direction of Senior Curator and Associate Director Adrienne Edwards, the life and works of the choreographer, dancer and artist are displayed alongside an archive of personal ephemera, music, and performance.

The New York Times - Alvin Ailey, The Man And The Mind Behind The Unapologetic Sparkle

The New York Times - Alvin Ailey, The Man And The Mind Behind The Unapologetic Sparkle

The name Ailey is synonymous with dance. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is more than a company: It’s a brand, an integral piece of the cultural fabric of this country. It’s huge. But somehow the man who created the Ailey empire has become lost inside it, obscured as if by an eclipse. Alvin Ailey was a choreographer who seamlessly melded dance forms, a dancer of extraordinary strength and beauty, and a man — a queer man — with an expansive, restless mind.

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Showing 11 – 20 of 85 Items