Ronni Favors, Rehearsal Director

Ronni Favors began dancing as a child in her hometown of Iowa City, Iowa. After studying at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, MI as the recipient of the Camp Scholarship, she traveled to New York to continue her training at The Ailey School as a Fellowship student. Ms. Favors was a member of Ailey II, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, and she is a recipient of the Min-On Art Award. As the assistant to Lar Lubovitch, Ms. Favors set his works on several companies, including Cleveland Ballet, the Juilliard Dance Ensemble, Ballet du Nord, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Ms. Favors was the ballet instructor at the 1989 inaugural session of AileyCamp in Kansas City and served as Artistic Director of the Camp in 1990. She is the founding Director of Children’s Aid AileyCamp New York and provided guidance in the national implementation of the AileyCamp program. In 1997, Ms. Favors was named Assistant Rehearsal Director of the Company and was its Rehearsal Director from 1999 to 2010. Ms. Favors engaged and rehearsed local dance students who performed with the Company in Alvin Ailey’s Memoria in Johannesburg during Ailey’s return to South Africa in 1998, as well as in Seattle in 2003 and in Copenhagen, Los Angeles, Chicago, Kansas City, and New York in 2008. Most recently, she set Alvin Ailey’s Night Creature on TU Dance in St. Paul, MN, and on Oregon Ballet Theatre. Ms. Favors rejoined the Company as Rehearsal Director in 2019.

Featured News Releases

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Announces Programming For New York City Center Season December 1-19, 2021

NEW YORK – UPDATED October 19, 2021— Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New York City Center’s Principal Dance Company and America’s beloved cultural ambassador to the world, returns to the stage for a much-anticipated annual season in their “home” theater December 1–19, 2021. Marking a decade of leading the Company forward, Artistic Director Robert Battle will present Ailey’s renowned artists in a diverse repertory of premieres, new productions and Ailey classics. The repertory features two world premieres adapted from video to stage by Robert Battle and Ailey Resident Choreographer Jamar Roberts as well as four new productions.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Announces Programming For New York City Center Season December 4, 2019 - January 5, 2020

NEW YORK – UPDATED October 24, 2019 — Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New York City Center’s Principal Dance Company, returns to the theater’s stage from December 4, 2019 – January 5, 2020. Artistic Director Robert Battle leads Ailey’s 32 extraordinary dancers during this annual five-week engagement, which has become a joyous holiday tradition. The repertory features more than two dozen diverse works by some of the world’s preeminent choreographers, including world premieres by Donald Byrd and Ailey dancer and newly announced Resident Choreographer Jamar Roberts, company premieres by Aszure Barton and Camille A. Brown, and new productions by Judith Jamison and Lar Lubovitch.

Masazumi Chaya, Associate Artistic Director And Beloved Mainstay Of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, To Retire At The End Of Upcoming New York City Center Season

NEW YORK, NY, July 9, 2019 – Robert Battle, Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, announced today that the Company’s beloved mainstay for nearly five decades, Associate Artistic Director Masazumi Chaya, intends to retire on January 5, 2020, following the conclusion of the Company’s New York City Center season. Having joined the Company in 1972 as a dancer, Mr. Chaya performed under Mr. Ailey’s direction for 15 years, subsequently assumed responsibility for rehearsing the Company—a role for which Mr. Ailey had cultivated him—and for more than 28 years, as Associate Artistic Director, has maintained the repertoire, handled innumerable creative decisions, and guided generations of the Company’s dancers.

Featured Press Coverage

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Dance Teacher - Ronni Favors’ Tips for Teaching Long, Extended Lines

Odds are, your dance students’ Instagram feeds are filled with images of professionals showing off their 180- degree penchés or demonstrating their highest extensions. It’s enough for a student to come to equate the length of their lines with the quality of their dancing—after all, dancers so often hear “long lines” as something to strive for.

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Iowa Public Radio - Celebrating 60 Years Of Alvin Ailey's 'Revelations'

Set to spirituals, gospel songs and blues, Alvin Ailey’s modern dance masterpiece "Revelations" was first performed in 1960. It was unlike anything audiences had seen before, and since then it’s been performed continuously around the globe. On this edition of Talk of Iowa, host Charity Nebbe speaks with Iowa native Ronnie Favors of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater about her journey through modern dance and the troupe’s upcoming Iowa performance.

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WABC 7 - Celebrating 50 Years Of Alvin Ailey's Ailey School

In March of 1958, Alvin Ailey and a small group of dancers first performed at the 92nd street "Y" on the Upper West Side. Nine years later, he started the Ailey School. Now, 50 years later, the school continues celebrating Ailey's vision. "He could see almost the future in dance, and what he did, he did with such heart and honesty and love that it still is alive today," co-director Tracy Inman said. And it shapes these dancers are both personally and professionally. Young people from all over the world go there to learn and perfect their craft. Guided by Mr. Ailey's mission that dance is for everybody, the young people pour every ounce of their souls and bodies into their craft. The Alley School has trained 75% of the current members of the first company.