When Robert Battle goes to visit Dessie Williams, the cousin who raised him, she loves to brag that she always knew he was special. "You didn't have to encourage him to do anything; he did them. He was self-motivated," she said.
Masazumi Chaya, the associate artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater since 1991, will retire on Jan. 5 after the company's annual City Center season. But he'll still be involved with the organization: After he steps down, Chaya, 72, will be in charge of a licensing project that will assist in the restaging of Ailey's works. Matthew Rushing, a veteran dancer and the company's rehearsal director, will take over as associate artistic director, while Ronni Favors, a former Ailey member, will become the company's rehearsal director. Clifton Brown, a current dancer, will join Linda Celeste Sims as an assistant to the rehearsal director.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater celebrated the 50th anniversary of The Ailey School with a gala on June 13 at Lincoln Center.
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.
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.
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.”
When Alvin Ailey and a small group of African-American modern dancers first took the stage at the 92nd Street Y in 1958, it was groundbreaking and revolutionary. Revelations captured the agony and triumphs of the African American experiences. Now six decades later, his multi-cultural dance company is still charting a new course in its 60th season at City Center.
We celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, a jewel in Manhattan’s artistic crown.