Press Coverage

January 2, 2020

The New York Times - An Ailey Dancer's Goddess Quality

Jacqueline Green was a shy 13-year-old when her mother, considering possible schools in Baltimore, observed two qualities that her daughter possessed. "You're the artsy child," Ms. Green recalled her saying. "You're flexible." Soon after, Ms. Green found herself at a dance audition for Baltimore School for the Arts. It was not only her first audition, it was also her first ballet class. "I had on Payless tights and shoes, and I don't know where we found a leotard," Ms. Green said. "I had my hair slicked back in this bun and I thought: 'People actually do this? Holding our arms out is tiring.'"

December 30, 2019

Dance Spirit - From Summer Intensive To Dream Job

It's every young dancer's fantasy: Attend a summer intensive, dazzle the artistic staff with your flawless technique, land a company contract, and grand-jets into the sunset. If only it were that simple, right?... We caught up with six pros who followed the summer-intensive-to-dream-job route to get the inside scoop on how to give yourself a fighting chance at that coveted end-of-summer offer. For Jamaris Mitchell, who's in her first season with Ailey II, attending the company's summer intensive made all the difference.

December 30, 2019

Dance Spirit - The Rhythms of Life

Why do you dance? Because you live it? To compete, to perform, to express yourself? In the Afro-Cuban folkloric tradition, dance is so deeply entwined with music, storytelling, and religion that almost everyone dances, and there's almost always a reason to be dancing. "In life, there are so many celebrations to dance about," says Noibis Licea, an NYC-based dancer and choreographer from Bayamo, Cuba, who graduated from the National School of Arts in Havana.

December 28, 2019

The New York Times - 'Just Speaking From My Body'

Every so often a great dancer transcends her own brilliance, somehow expanding its outer limit. Last week at City Center, Linda Celeste Sims, a member of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for 24 years, did just that in a rapturous performance of Ailey's 1971 "Cry," a 16-minute solo dedicated "to all black women everywhere - especially our mothers." This season Ms. Sims, 43, danced the work for the first time as a mother - she gave birth to her first child, Ellington, in May - and something shifted.

December 23, 2019

Dance Magazine - 25 To Watch

Khalia Campbell: Emotions flood through Khalia Campbell's every move. As "the umbrella woman" in Ailey's Revelations, her torso and arms ripple with joy. As a soloist in Darrell Grand Moultrie's Ounce of Faith, she turns heads with dancing that's smooth and silky, yet sharp and purposeful.

December 23, 2019

Dance Magazine - How I Did It

Learning Versatility, Summer by Summer: Courtney Celeste Spears. When Courtney Celeste Spears was young, she'd ask her family to skip the Christmas presents: "Just help me go to this intensive," she'd say.

December 23, 2019

Dance Magazine - Dancing While Deaf

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Samantha Figgins will never forget the first time she danced Revelations wearing the small devices held in place by a wire loop over each ear. "I thought they changed the music," Figgins recalls, laughing. All of a sudden, she could make out individual voices in the opening choral number "I Been Buked." When she found herself on the left side of the first formation, she could hear her fellow dancers breathe, and during "Wade in the Water," she discovered a bass line that she never knew was there.

December 23, 2019

The New Yorker - Goings On About Town: Contemporary Dance

Masazumi Chaya, a beloved animating spirit of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre since 1972, first decided to retire in 1986. But Ailey asked him to stay on as an assistant to the rehearsal director, and so Chaya stayed, and stayed - through Ailey's death, two changeovers of artistic director, and several generations of dancers. Now, as Chaya finally follows through on his retirement plan, the company honors its associate artistic director with a tribute evening on Dec. 22, part of its five-week season at City Center.

December 21, 2019

New York Daily News - 'Keeper Of Flame' - G'Bye

After 48 years with the celebrated Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, both as performer and choreographer, Masazumi Chaya is hanging up his dancing shoes. The Japanese-American artist will start the new year by retiring as the modern dance company's artistic director. But the man known as "The Keeper of the Flame" to some colleagues is working until his very last day with the renowned dance troupe, whose members will celebrate his legacy with a special evening of performances on Sunday at New York's City Center. He got his nickname for preserving the New York City-based company's repertoire and for training generations of dancers through the past three decades.

December 20, 2019

WNYC - Jamar Roberts, The First Resident Choreographer At Alvin Ailey

Jamar Roberts, the first ever resident choreographer at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, joins us to discuss his first production in that role, "Ode."