Dancer, actress, model, writer, entrepreneur, teacher and now businesswoman: Courtney Celeste Spears, Fordham College at Lincoln Center '16, is a master at turning her dreams into reality and is determined to use her platform to change the world.
This spring has seen ballet leap into the digital world... Hosted last night on YouTube, the night raised funds for the Ailey company as well as the Equal Justice Initiative (a non-profit organization providing legal representation to the wrongly convicted and the disadvantaged). The night would bring a world premiere, archival footage of one of Mr. Ailey’s first-ever performances, and an expanded reimagining of Revelations. With cameos and kind words delivered by Ailey fans like Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom, Jr., Timothy Shriver (whose own daughter was student at The Ailey School), Angela Bassett, and more, it was a celebration of the dance company’s rich history and a moment of much-needed togetherness in honor of Black Lives Matter.
Since 2013, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has appeared annually at Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater. This year is the exception, somewhat. As part of its Ailey All Access series of online presentations, begun March 30 in the wake of the pandemic, the troupe has been working on ways to still offer a June season of a sort. Before the theater shutdown, live performances had been scheduled for June 10 to 14. Instead, starting this Thursday at 8 p.m. EDT, viewers at home will be able to stream a four-part mixed bill, performed on the Koch stage, the was filmed in 2015.
When Jamar Roberts, the resident choreographer of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, got a call from Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum inviting him to contribute a video, he had been sheltering for a few weeks in a friend’s basement outside New York, not dancing or feeling at all inspired to dance. Since the museum closed, Works & Process, a long-running performance series, has been commissioning its alumni to make videos no longer than five minutes. Each Sunday and Monday, another installment is posted on YouTube. The playlist now includes more than a dozen, with dozens more on the way.
Now you can enjoy dancing virtually, thanks to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Here to speak with us today about Ailey All Access is Ailey dancer and Charlotte native Jacquelin Harris.
If life were normal this spring, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater would be on the road performing its annual national tour. They'd be celebrating the 60th anniversary of the company's signature work, “Revelations”, described by The New York Times as “modern dance's unquestionably greatest hit.”
Since Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater began rolling out its online programming in March, I've been waiting for Ailey's always uplifting "Cry" to make an appearance. It arrived, approximately, just in time for Mother's Day. Ailey created this bracing 16-minute solo in 1971 as a birthday present to his mother, dedicating it to "all black women everywhere - especially our mothers."
It’s a simple photograph: a young man staring directly into the camera, arms folded. In the image captured in 1962, dance maestro Alvin Ailey looks defiant. Rhea Combs also sees something else when she looks at the black-and-white image. To her, the fact that photographer Jack Mitchell captured the performer shirtless is a visual metaphor, as if Ailey is telling the viewer, “I’m just baring my chest to the world and giving my all,” Combs said.
The world-renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is bringing the Ailey experience to you, at home. The virtual experience is called Ailey All Access. It is designed to provide families around the globe with joy and inspiration during this difficult moment in time. Jacquelin Harris, a Charlotte native and Alvin Ailey Company member, says dance enthusiasts and novices alike can take virtual classes and indulge in full length Alvin Ailey performances. This week, Ailey All Access will offer the historic 1972 video of Judith Jamison performing Alvin Ailey’s Cry. Ailey All Access is free and available online.
Jamar Roberts is an Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater icon. He's danced with the company for more than 15 years, and at 6' 4", he cuts a powerful and immediately recognizable figure onstage. As a choreographer, he is prolific, passionate, and political—his most recent, instantly iconic piece for Ailey, Ode, is a meditation on the fragility of life in the age of gun violence. Though several of Roberts' planned premieres have been postponed because of the COVID-19 outbreak, we can't wait to see his works performed again.