Tag Archives: Talley Beatty

ALVIN AILEY: ON THE CUTTING EDGE

Carmen de Lavallade performs with Alvin Ailey at Jacob’s Pillow in 1961 (photo by John Lindquist)

EDGES OF AILEY
Whitney Museum of American Art
99 Gansevoort St.
Wednesday – Tuesday through February 9, $24-$30 (eighteen and under free; Friday nights and second Sundays free)
212-570-3600
whitney.org

“I’m trying to hold up a mirror to our society so they can see how beautiful they are, Black people, you know?” Alvin Ailey once said.

When I was in junior high, we were visited by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. I had never seen anything like it, certainly not in my all-white class on Long Island. It opened my eyes to a world of possibilities, now highlighted at the end of every year when I go see AAADT in their annual season at City Center. I was even pulled onstage once by Ailey dancer Belén Pereyra to join her and others for an audience participation section of Ohad Naharin’s Minus 16.

The continuing legacy of Alvin Ailey himself and his company is celebrated in the exhilarating exhibition “Edges of Ailey,” on view at the Whitney through February 9. The dazzling multimedia show features painting, sculpture, drawings, photography, postcards and letters, video, notebooks, posters, and more, along with a multichannel loop of rare archival footage of the troupe’s remarkable history, circling around the top of the gallery in an awe-inspiring video installation. The artworks are divided into such categories as “Blackness in Dance,” “Black Spirituality,” “Black Liberation,” “Ailey’s Collaborators/Nightlife,” and “After Ailey,” arranged in sections that encourage fluid but random movement; you can wander through at your own pace, following your own path.

The exhibit is supplemented by several vitrines filled with wonderful ephemera, from family photos, programs, and research notes to epistolary exchanges with Dudley Williams, Langston Hughes, and Ailey’s mother, Lula Cooper. The notebooks are utterly fascinating, with exciting and revealing notations, early drafts, intricately detailed schedules, and such quotes as “One must discover what the music is about + visualize it if possible.” and “Very important: The choreographer as storyteller / story inventor.”

Exhibit includes notebooks filled with intimate and intricate details of Alvin Ailey’s life and career (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

A handful of the pieces were created specifically for the show, while others date back to the 1860s. Among the artists represented are Carrie Mae Weems, Jacob Lawrence, Lorna Simpson, James Van Der Zee, Alma Thomas, Kevin Beasley, Elizabeth Catlett, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Driskell, Purvis Young, Horace Pippin, Theaster Gates, and Lyle Ashton Harris. A poem by Nikki Giovanni, “Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea (We’re Going to Mars),” hangs on a long, narrow vertical panel. Three stark 1970 woodcuts by Aaron Douglas are titled Bravado, Flight, and Surrender.

In the center of the space is a daring untitled sculpture by David Hammons made of human hair, wire, metallic mylar, a sledge hammer, plastic beads, string, a metal food tin, panty hose, leather, tea bags, and feathers. Faith Ringgold’s United States of Attica map is in the red, black, and green colors of the Pan-African flag. One of the most poignant sections is “Black Women,” a gathering of such works as Emma Amos’s 1985 Judith Jamison as Josephine Baker, Elizabeth Catlett’s 1947 I Am the Negro Woman, Beauford Delaney’s 1965 Marian Anderson, Geoffrey Holder’s 1976 Portrait of Carmen de Lavallade, Kara Walker’s 1998 African/American, Mickalene Thomas’s 2024 Katherine Dunham: Revelation, and Karon Davis’s 2024 Dear Mama, paying tribute to Black women artists and performers — and, particularly, longtime Ailey dancer and artistic director Judith Jamison, on whom Ailey choreographed the 1971 solo Cry, a birthday present for his mother that he dedicated “to all Black women everywhere — especially our mothers.”

Ailey collaborator Romare Bearden’s “Bayou Fever” series is a colorful depiction of joy and movement. Choreographer and visual artist Ralph Lemon’s Untitled (On Black Music) consists of forty-one ink and watercolor on paper drawings, leaving one slot empty at the lower right. Video stations show performances by Jack Cole, the Katherine Dunham Company, Martha Graham, Duke Ellington, Lester Horton, Pearl Primus, and Ailey himself, including in the three-minute black-and-white A Study in Choreography for Camera, directed by Maya Deren and Talley Beatty.

Ailey was born in Texas in 1931 and died from an AIDS-related illness in New York City in 1989, at the age of fifty-four. He left behind a thrilling legacy of movement and music honoring the African American experience and supporting civil rights and social justice. It’s evident not only in the exhibition itself but in the accompanying program of live performances, which has already featured Ronald K. Brown and Matthew Rushing and continues November 7-9 with Yusha-Marie Sorzano’s This World Anew, November 16 with Bill T. Jones’s Memory Piece: Mr. Ailey, Alvin… the un-Ailey?, December 13-15 with Will Rawls’s Parable of the Guest, January 17-19 with Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s Solo Voyages, January 24-26 with Excerpts from New Works, February 6-8 with Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born’s let slip, hold sway, and Ailey II: Harmonic Echo November 20-24, December 21-22, and January 22-26.

Hope Boykin’s Finding Free makes its debut at Ailey season at City Center (photo by Paul Kolnik)

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER
New York City Center
131 West 55th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
December 4 – January 5, $42-$172
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

Before or after visiting “Edges of Ailey,” you must see the real thing, taking in a a show or two at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s five-week season, its sixty-sixth, at New York City Center, running December 4 through January 5. As always, it’s a combination of world and company premieres, classic favorites by Ailey and other choreographers, and presentations with live music; many programs conclude with the AAADT’s masterpiece, the thirty-six-minute multipart Revelations.

“This season we celebrate the lineage and legacy of Mr. Ailey, highlighting his acclaimed works as well as new ballets by choreographers for whom he paved the way,” interim artistic director Matthew Rushing said in a statement. “As I look at the repertory for our season, I am reminded that dance is both a reflection of our past and a guide to our future. We are excited to welcome audiences this holiday season to be inspired by Ailey’s extraordinary artistry and rich story, as it continues to be written.”

“All New” evenings feature former Ailey dancer Jamar Roberts’s Al-Andalus Blues, set to music by Roberta Flack and Miles Davis; former company member Hope Boykin’s Finding Free, with an original jazz and gospel score by pianist Matthew Whitaker that he will perform live at several shows; Lar Lubovitch’s Ailey debut, Many Angels, which explores St. Thomas Aquinas’s question “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?,” set to Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5; and Rushing’s Sacred Songs, built around music from the original 1960 version of Revelations that was eventually edited out because of length.

There will also be new productions of Elisa Monte’s twelve-minute duet, Treading, and Ronald K. Brown’s spectacular Grace, which premiered at City Center twenty-five years ago. The opening night gala honors dance educator Jody Gottfried Arnhold with presentations of Grace with Leslie Odom Jr. and Revelations with a live choir.

Other highlights are Dancing Spirit, Brown’s tribute to Jamison; Roberts’s 2019 Ode; Elizabeth Roxas-Dobrish’s Me, Myself and You; Amy Hall Garner’s CENTURY; Hans van Manen’s Solo; Alonzo King’s Following the Subtle Current Upstream; and Kyle Abraham’s Are You in Your Feelings? Among the Ailey classics on the schedule are Memoria, A Song for You, Cry, and Night Creature. Saturday matinees are followed by Q&As with the dancers, which this year welcome newcomers Leonardo Brito, Jesse Obremski, Kali Marie Oliver, and Dandara Veiga and the return of Jessica Amber Pinkett; closing night will celebrate what would have been Alvin Ailey’s ninety-third birthday.

And to keep your Ailey fix rolling, you can stream the eight-part Ailey PBS documentary Portrait of Ailey here.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

BALLET HISPÁNICO AT THE 92nd ST. Y

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Línea Recta is part of special Ballet Hispánico program at 92Y (photo by Ben McKeown / courtesy of the American Dance Festival)

Who: Ballet Hispánico
What: Celebrating 150th anniversary of the 92nd Street Y
Where: The 92nd Street Y, Kaufmann Concert Hall, 1395 Lexington Ave. between Ninety-First & Ninety-Second Sts.
When: Wednesday, February 21, $10-$40 in person, $20 virtual, 7:30
Why: As part of the 92nd St. Y’s continuing celebration of its 150th anniversary, New York City–based Ballet Hispánico will present a special evening at Kaufmann Concert Hall that can be seen live in person February 21 or online February 22-24. The night features a restaging of Talley Beatty’s 1985 Recuerdo de Campo Amor, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s 2016 flamenco piece Línea Recta, and Pedro Ruiz’s 2000 Cuban-infused Club Havana. Ballet Hispánico celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of artistic director Eduardo Vilaro in its spring season, which arrives April 25-28 at City Center, consisting of the world premiere of Vilaro’s Buscando a Juan, a restaging of Ochoa’s 2010 House of Mad’moiselle, and Gustavo Ramírez Sansano’s 18+1.

AILEY ASCENDING 60th ANNIVERSARY

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will be celebrating its sixtieth anniversary at City Center, which is celebrating its seventy-fifth anniversary

New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
November 28 – December 30, $29-$159
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

On March 30, 1958, a troupe of black dancers performed as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for the first time, at the 92nd Street YM-YWHA Dance Center, traveling around in station wagons. Now AAADT’s sixtieth anniversary tour pulls up to City Center for the company’s annual monthlong residence, this year running November 28 to December 30. The season, known as “Ailey Ascending,” features new and old works, looking back at the troupe’s glorious history and exciting future. Under the leadership of artistic director Robert Battle, thirty-two dancers, including longtime favorites Hope Boykin, Clifton Brown, Vernard J. Gilmore, Daniel Harder, Rachael McLaren, Akua Noni Parker, Jamar Roberts, and the incomparable Glen Allen Sims and Linda Celeste Sims, will be presenting the world premiere of Ronald K. Brown’s The Call, which Brown refers to as a “love letter to Mr. Ailey,” with music by Johann Sebastian Bach (performed by Chris Thile, Edgar Meyere, and Yo-Yo Ma), Mary Lou Williams, and Asase Yaa; Rennie Harris’s Lazarus, the first two-part AAADT ballet, by AAADT’s first artist-in-residence, dealing with racism and Ailey’s legacy from 1958 to today, set to music by Nina Simone, Terrence Trent D’Arby, Michael Kiwanuka, Odetta, and Darrin Ross, along with the voice of Alvin Ailey; and EN by Jessica Lang (who just announced that Jessica Lang Dance is in its final season, closing on April 30, 2019), her hundredth ballet, with original music by Jakub Ciupinski. There will also be the company premiere of Wayne McGregor’s Kairos, set to Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” reimagined by Max Richter and with set design by Idris Khan. New productions consist of Battle’s Juba and former artistic director Judith Jamison’s Divining and Forgotten Time.

Among the special programs are “All Ailey” (Memoria, Masekela Langage, Revelations; Night Creature, Cry, Masekela Langage, Revelations), “All Battle” (Juba, Ella, No Longer Silent, In/Side, Mass), “All New” (Kairos, Lazarus), “3 Visionaries” (Mass, Ella, Divining, Forgotten Time, Cry, Revelations), and “Timeless Ailey,” comprising excerpts from many well-known and rarely performed Ailey works, including Opus McShann, For “Bird” with Love, Mary Lou’s Mass, The Lark Ascending, Phases, Hidden Rites, and Pas de Duke. The opening-night gala will be chaired by Angela Bassett and Cicely Tyson and features special appearances by Ledisi, Norm Lewis, and Brandie Sutton, a new piece by Battle set to Nina Simone’s “Black Is the Color,” and the premiere of the multimedia Becoming Ailey, which will also kick off every performance except the December 11 celebration of New York City Center’s seventy-fifth anniversary. Also on the schedule are Jamar Roberts’s Members Don’t Get Weary (music by John Coltrane), Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s Shelter (music by Junior “Gabu” Wedderburn), Talley Beatty’s Stack-Up (music by Earth, Wind & Fire, Grover Washington Jr., Fearless Four, and Alphonze Mouzon), and Twyla Tharp’s The Golden Section (music by David Byrne).

AILEY AT LINCOLN CENTER 2018

Mauro Bigonzetti’s Deep is part of Ailey season at Lincoln Center (photo by Paul Kolnik)

David H. Koch Theater
20 Lincoln Center Plaza
June 13-17, $25 – $135
212-496-0600
www.alvinailey.org
www.davidhkochtheater.com

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s annual Lincoln Center season might be short but it’s packed with highlights. From June 13 to 17, AAADT will present three programs, in addition to the gala, at the David H. Koch Theater. On June 13 at 7:30 and June 16 at 8:00, “Celebrate Women” consists of the world premiere of Jessica Lang’s EN, with her husband, Ailey company member Kanji Segawa, serving as her assistant and music by Jakub Ciupinski; new productions of Judith Jamison’s A Case of You, with Joni Mitchell music interpreted by Diana Krall, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s Shelter, with music by Junior “Gabu” Wedderburn and Victor See Yuen; and the Ailey standard Revelations. On June 15 at 8:00 and June 17 at 3:00, “Ailey, Then & Now” comprises a new production of Talley Beatty’s Stack-Up, restaged by Masazumi Chaya and with music by Earth, Wind and Fire, Grover Washington Jr., Fearless Four, and Alphonze Mouzon; artistic director Robert Battle’s Mass, with music by John Mackey, and In/Side, set to Ned Washington and Dimitri Tiomkin’s “Wild Is the Wind”; and Revelations. On June 16 at 2:00 and June 17 at 7:30, the “Musical Icons” program brings together a new production of Twyla Tharp’s The Golden Section, with music by David Byrne; the world premiere of longtime company member Jamar Roberts’s Members Don’t Get Weary; Battle’s Ella, set to songs by Ella Fitzgerald; and Revelations. Finally, the Ailey Spirit Gala takes place June 14 at 7:00, with an excerpt of Members Don’t Get Weary, Ailey II performing an excerpt of Juel D. Lane’s Touch & Agree, students from the Ailey School in an excerpt of Battle’s Battlefield, and an original hip-hop performance by AileyCamp.

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER: NEW YORK CITY WINTER SEASON 2017

Linda Celeste Sims in Twyla Tharp’s The Golden Section . Photo by Paul Kolnik.

The exquisite Linda Celeste Sims will perform in a new production of Twyla Tharp’s The Golden Section in annual Ailey winter season at City Center (photo by Paul Kolnik)

New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
November 29 – December 31, $25-$200
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

“When I think about why people should come to see the company right now, this is a moment in time where it is important to take a stand, and sometimes taking a stand means taking a seat to see something that represents the best of humanity,” Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater artistic director Robert Battle says in a video about the troupe’s upcoming season at City Center. “When Alvin Ailey says that dance comes from the people, and should always be delivered back to the people . . . he wanted this company to be a mirror to society so that people could ultimately see how beautiful they are.” The season kicks off November 29 with a special opening-night “Modern American Songbook” gala program consisting of George Faison’s Suite Otis, two parts of Judith Jamison’s Love Stories, the Ray Charles section of Camille A. Brown’s The Groove to Nobody’s Business, the central duet in David Parsons’s Shining Star, and Revelations with live music. This year’s world premieres are Gustavo Ramirez Sansano’s Victoria and longtime Ailey dancer Jamar Roberts’s Members Don’t Get Weary, with company premieres of Battle’s Mass and Johan Inger’s Walking Mad, while there are new productions of Talley Beatty’s Stack-Up, Twyla Tharp’s The Golden Section, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s Shelter. Other highlights include Battle’s Ella and In/Side, Billy Wilson’s The Winter in Lisbon, Ailey’s Night Creature, Mauro Bigonzetti’s Deep, Ulysses Dove’s Episodes, Ronald K. Brown’s Four Corners, and Ailey dancer Hope Boykin’s r-Evolution, Dream. On December 17 at 7:30, “Celebrating the Men of Ailey” features Clifton Brown, Vernard Gilmore, Yannick Lebrun, Glenn Allen Sims, and Roberts performing works by Ailey, Battle, and Gilmore. In addition, the Saturday family matinees will be followed by Q&As with Ailey dancers. The season comes to a close with a New Year’s Eve party boasting a one-night-only, to-be-announced program that concludes with Revelations.

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER: NEW YORK CITY WINTER SEASON 2016

Alvin Ailey winter season at City Center includes company premiere of Johan Inger’s WALKING MAD (photo by Paul Kolnik)

New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
November 30 – December 31, $25-$150
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

For many people, the coming of Thanksgiving signals that Christmas is not too far off. For others, like us, it means that Alvin Ailey’s annual season at City Center is right around the corner. From November 30 to December 31, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will be at the West Fifty-Sixth Street institution, presenting three world premieres, one company premiere, four new productions, and sixteen returning favorites. Mauro Bigonzetti follows up his 2008 Ailey piece, Festa Barocca, with Deep, set to music by French-Cuban twin sisters Ibeyi. Kyle Abraham’s three-part Untitled America, the first two parts of which debuted in December 2015 and this past June, will now be seen in its entirety for the first time. Longtime Ailey dancer Hope Boykin has choreographed r-Evolution, Dream., a large ensemble work inspired by the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with music by Ali Jackson and writings recorded by Hamilton Tony winner Leslie Odom Jr. Johan Inger reimagines Ravel’s Bolero with Walking Mad, with additional music by Arvo Pärt.

GRACE will be part of an all-Ronald K. Brown evening on (photo by Paul Kolnik)

GRACE will be part of Ailey celebration of Ronald K. Brown on December 14 at City Center (photo by Paul Kolnik)

AAADT artistic director Robert Battle’s The Hunt is getting a makeover, as are Alvin Ailey’s Masekela Langage, Ulysses Dove’s Vespers, and Billy Wilson’s The Winter in Lisbon, which pays tribute to Dizzy Gillespie. The season also includes pieces by Christopher Wheeldon, Rennie Harris, Judith Jamison, Matthew Rushing, Paul Taylor, Talley Beatty, and Ronald K. Brown, who will be celebrated on December 14 with performances of Open Door, Ife / My Heart, Four Corners, and Grace. There are still tickets left for the opening-night gala ($70-$90), “An Evening of Ailey and Jazz,” with Battle’s Ella, excerpts from John Butler’s Portrait of Billie, Beatty’s The Road of the Phoebe Show, Wilson’s The Winter in Lisbon, Ailey’s For Bird – With Love and Pas de Duke, and live music and a gospel choir joining in on Revelations. On December 17 and 20, “Bold Visions” consists of r-Evolution, Dream., Vespers, The Hunt, and Revelations, while several “All Ailey” programs consist of a mix of repertory classics. Saturday matinees are followed by a Q&A with the dancers, while the always greatly anticipated season finale takes place on New Year’s Eve.

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER: NEW YORK CITY WINTER SEASON 2015

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Robert Battle’s NO LONGER SILENT (photo by Paul Kolnik)

New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
December 2 – January 3, $25-$150
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

For many people, the coming of Thanksgiving signals that Christmas is not too far off. For others, like us, it means that Alvin Ailey’s annual season at City Center is right around the corner. From December 2 to January 3, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will be at the West Fifty-Sixth Street institution, continuing to spread its wings under the inspired leadership of artistic director Robert Battle. This season is highlighted by four world premieres: Ronald K. Brown’s Open Door, set to music by Arturo O’Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra; Rennie Harris’s Exodus; Kyle Abraham’s Untitled America: First Movement, the start of a trilogy that examines the prison system; and Battle’s own Awakening, his first new work with AAADT since taking the reins from Judith Jamison. Jamison’s A Case for You, an excerpt from her longer piece, Reminiscin’, gets a new production, set to Diana Krall’s version of the Joni Mitchell song. There will also be new productions of Ailey’s Blues Suite, Love Songs, and Cry and Talley Beatty’s Toccata, an excerpt from Come and Get the Beauty of It Hot. The company will be premiering two works, Battle’s No Longer Silent, with a score by Nazi-banned Jewish composer Erwin Schulhoff, and Paul Taylor’s Piazzolla Caldera, set to tango music by Astor Piazzolla.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Linda Celeste Sims in Alvin Ailey’s CRY (photo by Nan Melville)

On December 15, 20 (matinee), and 29, “Ailey Visionaries” presents works exclusively by past and present AAADT artistic directors Ailey, Jamison, and Battle. Revelations will be performed with live music on December 2, 4, and 5, while live music will also accompany Blues Suite on December 16, 19 (matinee), 20 (evening), and 31. Five programs will consist of only new works, on December 17, 19 (evening), 22, and 26 (evening) and January 2 (evening). And true Ailey fanatics can catch five programs of pieces by the legendary dancer and choreographer, on December 8, 13 (matinee), 16, 19 (matinee), and 20 (evening). As always, Saturday matinees will be followed by Q&As with members of the company. As a bonus, Ronald K. Brown will teach a master class on November 30, Donna Wood will lead a Blues Suite class on December 6, and Hope Boykin will teach a Beyond the Stage Master Class on December 14. And Jamison’s fiftieth anniversary of joining AAADT will be celebrated on New Year’s Eve, featuring the return of Clifton Brown, who will dance A Case of You. In addition to those special events, the season includes such returning favorites as David Parsons’s Caught, Brown’s Four Corners and Grace, Aszure Barton’s Lift, and Hans van Manen’s Polish Pieces, among others. So yes, you have your work cut out for you to choose just the right performance, but you can’t go wrong with any of them. Or you can do what we would like to do and just move in to City Center for the month.