There were not one, but two anniversaries to toast when the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater sashayed into the District. Case in point: The 20th annual DC opening night gala also celebrated the company's diamond jubilee. And what a soiree it was.
Liberty City native Robert Battle currently serves as the Artistic Director of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. Battle spoke with NBC 6's Joan Strader about his childhood and his rise to the top.
(WSVN) - The famous Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is performing at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in South Florida. The company's artistic director grew up in Miami and while he's in town, he is taking time to step off the stage and into the classroom. Fox 7's Craig Stevens shows us how he's making "All The Right Moves." New York City may be where he lives, but Miami will forever be home for Robert Battle, the artistic director for the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater.
Dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey gathered a handful of modern black dancers in 1958 to perform with him at New York’s 92nd Street YM-YWHA. It was here that the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, as well as Ailey’s vision for a more inclusive world of the art form, was born. Since then, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has grown to include 32 dancers who have gone on to perform more than 235 works for an estimated 25 million people across six continents. This season, the dance company celebrates its 60th anniversary.
Sometimes, the less said, the better. Even when kicking off a triumphant occasion, such as the 60th anniversary of a modern dance company, which is, by the way, a monumental mile-marker in the economically stressed field of dance. On Tuesday night at the Kennedy Center, Alvin Ailey Artistic Director Robert Battle kept his opening remarks blissfully simple. At the D.C. premiere of a work he'd commissioned to celebrate six decades as a primarily African American dance company, Battle spoke of the late company founder Ailey as 'a black man who had a vision 60 years ago, and here we are, living in his wake."
WASHINGTON (ABC7) — As we honor Black History Month, we were happy to welcome back the historic Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. The company’s long-standing impact on ballet and promoting the African American experience is celebrating 60 years. Company members Courtney Celeste Spears and Daniel Harder offered a sneak peek at this week’s Kennedy Center showcase were. For more information, visit alvinailey.org.
A dinner-and-dance homage paid tribute to Alvin Ailey, as his company turns 60, at this season's opening gala in New York.
In 1958, dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey created a home for dancers to explore identity and self-expression through their art and the dance theater remains a culture institution. ABC's Zachary Kiesch goes behind the scenes of Ailey's 60th and the creation of Lazarus, the Company's first ever two act ballet by hip hop choreographer Rennie Harris.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater celebrates 60 years with an Opening Night Gala. Celebrity guests included Jane Krakowski, Angela Bassett, and Cicely Tyson.
NEW YORK (AP) — It was March 1958 when an African-American dancer named Alvin Ailey, then making his living on the Broadway stage, gathered up a group of fellow dancers and presented a one-night show of his own works. In the audience at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan was 18-year Sylvia Waters, who was studying dance across town at Juilliard. She had never seen anything like it. “It was absolutely riveting,” she says now. “I had never seen men dance like that.” Most exciting to Waters was seeing people dance “who I could relate to,” she says. “There was something so visceral about the experience. We didn’t know at the time that it was history, but it was definitely special.”