Robert Battle is ready for his second City Center season as AAADT artistic director, along with dancers Antonio Douthit, Rachael McLaren, Jacqueline Green, Jamar Roberts, and Alicia Graf Mack (photo by Andrew Eccles)
ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER
New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
November 28 – December 30, $25-$135
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org
Since 1958, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has been a central part of the New York City performing arts scene, revolutionizing the perception of dance through its special programs, workshops, classes, and unique melding of music and movement. Originally inspired by Alvin Ailey’s “blood memories” of growing up in Texas with a single mother, the company has gone on to be named by Congress as “a vital American cultural ambassador to the world.” Now led by artistic director Robert Battle, AAADT begins its annual New York City Center season this week, presenting such works as Ohad Naharin’s Minus 16, Paul Taylor’s Arden Court, Rennie Harris’s Home, Ulysses Dove’s Vespers and Urban Folk Dance, Camille A. Brown’s The Evolution of a Secured Feminine, Battle’s The Hunt, In/Side, and Takademe, and Ailey’s Memoria and other classics. (To see which work nine of the dancers are most looking forward to, go here.)
TICKET GIVEAWAY: With so much to choose from, it’s hard to decide which programs to see, but twi-ny has teamed up with AAADT to make the decision easy. We are giving away two pairs of tickets to the Tuesday, December 12, show at 7:30, consisting of the company premiere of Battle’s duet Strange Humors, Dove’s Episodes, and Ailey’s Night Creature and Revelations. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and all-time-favorite Ailey dance to contest@twi-ny.com by Wednesday, November 28, at 3:00 to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; two winners will be selected at random.