The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has graced stages across the world for 65 years. Portia discusses the history of dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey with the people who know him best. Nasha Thomas serves as the National Director of the AileyCamp and Amos Machanic Jr. teaches dance under the Ailey brand. The duo come to the table along with a few students from the AileyCamp to talk about the Alvin Ailey legacy.
Alvin Ailey was a choreographer who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958 at just 27 years old. Ailey choreographed over 100 ballets and was known to showcase the many experiences of African Americans. Today, his legacy still lives at his dance theatre in New York.
Newark is one of nine cities where AileyCamp is being held. Instead of going swimming or playing sports at a typical summer camp, some kids in Newark are spending their weeks out of school a little differently. They’re learning various forms of dance and creative skills at AileyCamp, a six-week program that was started by the legendary dancer Alvin Ailey just before his passing in 1989.
Ailey Arts in Education & Community Programs has announced an inspiring new virtual series that expands available Remote Learning Activities for schools and organizations looking for alternatives to in-person dance classes and residencies, supplements to physical education offerings, or to provide an engaging extracurricular activity for students. Launching during Black History Month as Alvin Ailey’s signature American masterpiece Revelations marks six decades, Revelations Virtual Dance Workshop Series furthers Ailey’s mission of using dance to inspire, enlighten and entertain people of all backgrounds and ages.
The Alvin Ailey Dance Theater has become a cultural landmark in the world of dance. For the last six decades, dancers from the iconic company have performed signature masterpieces all over the globe. Now as we celebrate the holidays during these unprecedented times, the theater debuts its first virtual engagement to honor one of its classic ballets called Revelations.
“Dance came from the people and should always be delivered back to the people,” Alvin Ailey said. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, a key part (but not all of) his legacy, works by this ethos. “Dance is for everybody,” asserts Cathryn Williams, director of Arts in Education and Community Programs at Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation. Amongst many other programs offering dance across the five boroughs of NYC, her department offers AileyDance for Active Seniors.
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.”
For 21 years former Alvin Ailey principal dancer Nasha Thomas has traveled to Atlanta with a singular mission. In an age when many public schools have gutted or cut back on their arts programs, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Thomas - in a long and important collaboration with the city - haven shown the value of art in individual lives. The founder of the renowned New York City-based Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey, who died in 1989, was an advocate for the importance of arts education and believed that bringing the arts to underprivileged communities and to public schools was vital.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is known the world over for its vibrant company of dancers dedicated to preserving the uniqueness of the African American cultural experience. Founder Alvin Ailey was a pioneer of programs promoting arts in education, particularly those benefiting underserved communities. For more than 30 years, a nationwide summer program has also been offering inner city children the chance to enrich their lives through dance. We hear from the national director of AileyCamp, Nasha Thomas, and one of this year’s campers, Jada-Ann Parker, on what this program means to all those who participate.
Few fans of football and modern dance will ever get to see the two worlds collide on stage. Tuesday afternoon at Henderson-Hopkins Partnership School, about 55 students from Henderson-Hopkins Partnership School and Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women witnessed just that as Ravens defensive tackle Brandon Williams cut the rug with Courtney Celeste Spears, a Baltimore native and a dancer with the acclaimed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.