Alvin Ailey | The Guardian

Sky’s the limit! Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater – in pictures

All photographs by Tristram Kenton — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 09:29:47 GMT

The always revelatory dance company is at Sadler’s Wells in London this month with two programmes, celebrating their legacy and presenting ‘heavenly’ new works

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: New Works review – a heavenly night

Sanjoy Roy — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 11:03:00 GMT

Sadler’s Wells, London
Skill, craft and beauty infuse pieces including Lar Lubovitch’s Many Angels and Judith Jamison’s A Case of You

The Alvin Ailey company’s New Works programme might be seen in some circles as dated, and it’s true that it is neither cutting edge nor modishly contemporary. Yet it rests on more perennial qualities that underpin the company’s enduring appeal: skill, craft, beauty and humanity, and beneath them an artistic aim that can reach up towards the sublime, out towards the world, or in towards the heart.

Medhi Walerski’s Blink of an Eye, new to the company but created in 2011 for Nederlands Dans Theater, tilts towards transcendence, being as spare, composed and unbound as the Bach music for solo violin it inhabits. The eight dancers repeatedly form a kind of visual chord – first a line, later a circle – which dissolves to let solos, duets and trios unspool. The counterpointed lines of movement remind you of the music: limbs stretch like strings, torsos curve and coil like the body of a violin, and the inflections of phrasing are somehow exact yet unfettered. It is a rare, spacious and beautiful composition.

Judith Jamison obituary

Lyndsey Winship — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 17:16:12 GMT

Dancer and choreographer who rose to fame with Alvin Ailey’s company in New York and became its artistic director

It was a failed audition that set in motion the superlative career of the American dancer and artistic director Judith Jamison, who has died aged 81. In 1965, the then 22-year-old had spent the summer “pushing buttons at the log flume ride” at New York’s World’s Fair, when she auditioned for a television special. She did not get the job; “I was really bad,” she said in a TV interview. But unbeknown to her, the choreographer Alvin Ailey had been watching, and a few days later he called and asked her to join his company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT).

For 15 years she was one of the company’s most popular and vivacious dancers, and a muse to Ailey. When he died in 1989, she took over as artistic director and the predominantly African American company thrived under her stewardship for 22 years, nurturing new generations of dancers and passing on Ailey’s, and her own, sense of a higher purpose.

Judith Jamison, acclaimed dancer and Alvin Ailey artistic director, dies aged 81

Maya Yang in New York and agencies — Sun, 10 Nov 2024 20:14:08 GMT

Jamison joined Alvin Ailey’s dance company in 1965 and performed there for 15 years, premiering solo Cry in 1971

Judith Jamison, an acclaimed dancer and choreographer who for two decades was artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, died on Saturday in New York, at the age of 81.

Her death came after a brief illness, according to a post on the company’s Instagram page.

Royal Ballet: Legacy review – a joyous celebration of Black and Brown brilliance

Sarah Crompton — Sun, 03 Nov 2024 10:00:40 GMT

Royal Opera House, London
Royal Ballet principal Joseph Sissens emphatically turns the spotlight on leading dancers of colour from around the world

Joseph Sissens is one of the Royal Ballet’s most inspiring dancers. Promoted to principal this summer, he doesn’t come from a background where ballet is encouraged, and had to be supported by a neighbour even to begin fulfilling his obvious talent. He has worked hard to get where he is – a gorgeous classical prince but also an intelligent and powerful interpreter of more contemporary styles.

He is of Anglo-Jamaican heritage, which makes him one of six dancers of colour in the Royal Ballet and he has become an activist as well as an example. Legacy, “a celebration of Black and Brown excellence in ballet”, was his idea. He wanted to create an evening where they could come and be themselves. It is his giving back and looking forward.

Alvin Ailey: new exhibition celebrates the life and legacy of a dance icon

Veronica Esposito — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 08:02:08 GMT

At the Whitney in New York, an expansive exhibition six years in the making looks back at the visionary artist and choreographer

Alvin Ailey was a momentous figure in American dance. One of his most substantial and lasting achievements was to transform ideas of what a modern dance company could be, collapsing distinctions between diverse worlds like concert dance, jazz and Hollywood entertainment. He was also a transformational figure for the Black community: the dance institutions that he built in his lifetime – the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center – have cultivated generations of Black dance talent while sharing the experience of Black people in America.

Ailey’s creative roots go back to his childhood in rural Texas in the 1930s, where he faced racism and segregation, and stood alongside his mother in the cotton fields. He discovered dance as a teenager, and while he was coming of age he even briefly had a nightclub act in San Francisco with the writer and activist Maya Angelou. Ailey’s art was also deeply impacted by his identity as a gay Black man, although his sexuality remained largely hidden during his lifetime. Throughout his career he would also draw from other geographies and traditions, such as West Africa and the Caribbean, and this mixture of elements led to a unique figure who gave something special to the world of dance.

Dancing City; Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater – review

Sarah Crompton — Sun, 17 Sep 2023 08:00:54 GMT

Greenwich+Docklands international festival; Sadler’s Wells, London
A change of clothes proves transformative in Canary Wharf’s al fresco dance fest, while Alvin Ailey’s season ends as it began, with dazzling grace

Dance in the open air is something you come across on holiday abroad. British weather has traditionally put a dampener on it. It doesn’t seem so much fun in the rain. The recent heatwave gave Dancing City at Canary Wharf, a mini jamboree of movement within the Greenwich+Docklands international festival, a chance to thrive, and crowds duly gathered. Events included the French group Le grand jeté acrobatically moving around a giant Newton’s cradle in Valse à Newton, huge yellow balls swinging towards them as they flexed and bent, and Vivace, which featured a duo, also French, moving in hypnotic harmony to a variety of dance tracks.

There was a mixture of kathak and contemporary in You & Me, the slightly confusing story of a thwarted relationship from Amina Khayyam Dance, and Bouncing Narratives, an immersive performance in a shipping container from the Oslo-based Iranian choreographer Roza Moshtaghi, in which two dancers jumped on a trampoline over the audience’s heads.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Mixed Bill review – community-spirited joy

Sarah Crompton — Sun, 10 Sep 2023 08:00:47 GMT

Sadler’s Wells, London
The pioneering company’s warmth and athletic grace is showcased in a selection of old and new work

There’s something generous about Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. It’s there in the dancing – full of skill, passion and a charismatic warmth not always seen in contemporary dance companies. It’s there too in the programming: at Sadler’s Wells over the coming week, the company will perform four carefully curated bills, full of rarely seen and new work. At the same time, the young company Ailey II sets off on tour around Britain, with more treats planned.

For all the new commissions on display, nearly every bill ends with Revelations, Ailey’s 1960 tribute to the gospel music of his southern childhood, full of agonised reaching for salvation and joyful stretches into the light. For those of us who have watched the company, it feels as if it might be overfamiliar. Yet the dancers fill it with a rounded sense of character and a deep understanding of its significance.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Mixed Bill is at Sadler’s Wells, London, until 16 September

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater review – extraordinary soul-stirring dance

Lyndsey Winship — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 12:22:10 GMT

Festival theatre, Edinburgh
The American company brought Ailey’s legendary Revelations, still hugely powerful after 65 years, alongside modern pieces of precision and fire

The thing about the dancers of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is that they are precision performers – technique visible, placings academic – but at the same time, they can elasticate and undulate their bodies; they can be sensual and spiritual. Above all, they dance with great sincerity.

On one hand, they are still performing many works of founder Alvin Ailey, who died in 1989, including the legendary Revelations (1960). On the other, under the direction now of Robert Battle, they are gracing the stage to Drake and Kendrick Lamar in work that is bang up to date. This opening programme for the Edinburgh international festival was supposed to include two newer works, Kyle Abraham’s Are You in Your Feelings? and Aszure Barton’s Busk, alongside Revelations, but due to injury, Busk was replaced by Twyla Tharp’s Roy’s Joys (1997).

‘I was flabbergasted by the sight’: Alvin Ailey dancers on their legendary Revelations

Interviews by Lyndsey Winship — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 04:00:37 GMT

For more than 60 years, the spiritual power of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s signature work has stunned audiences including Obama. Here, company members explain what it’s like to dance a masterpiece

Sylvia Waters, former company dancer: I saw the first performance of Revelations, which was at the 92nd Street Y, New York, in 1960. At the time you are part of history you never realise it, of course. But I had a very visceral experience – deeply soulful. It was different from anything I’d seen a dance company do. That version of Revelations was almost an hour long and the audience reaction was explosive.

Judith Jamison, former company dancer and artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT), 1989-2011: I was at university in the early 60s. One of our assignments was to go see this company, Alvin Ailey. I had never heard of them but I was flabbergasted by the sight of this Black company. I think there might have been eight dancers, but they filled the stage. The next day in our improv class we were just copying everything we had seen.

SW: I saw several versions between then and 1965. Alvin edited it down to 30 minutes and it became more succinct, clearer, crisper.

JJ: It was a shower of blessings seeing Mr Ailey dance. He looked so muscular, not your usual “dancer”. He had a big chest and muscles, that whole macho thing. And he was gorgeous. But the dance was flowing like water. It takes your breath away.

Constance Stamatiou, dancer, AAADT: When I was a very little girl – four or five – I saw a TV show about Revelations. I was in awe, growing up in the 80s and seeing a company full of dancers that looked like me.

Edinburgh festival 2023: 50 shows to see

Brian Logan, Arifa Akbar and Lyndsey Winship — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 12:38:32 GMT

Cracking comedy, an eclectic mix of theatre – and aerial dance in an ice rink. Our critics share their picks for the August arts extravaganza

Top Edinburgh fringe shows we’ve already reviewed

Rhod Gilbert: Work in Progress
Gilded Balloon Teviot

Shelley Maxwell: the soul-stirring master mover who makes superheroes dance

Chris Wiegand — Tue, 02 May 2023 11:35:16 GMT

From The Secret Life of Bees to The Marvels, she is the choreographer everyone wants. The Jamaican dynamo talks about turning humans into horses, turbo-charging TV debates and a dream Bob Marley gig

When the couples took to the dance floor in Kingston, Jamaica, they had their eyes on quite the prize: flights to England. But one contestant didn’t have a holiday in mind. Shelley Maxwell had secured a place for a master’s in choreography at London’s Trinity Laban conservatoire and couldn’t afford the travel. Here was her chance to waltz away for free.

“I kid you not – there was this ad in the paper,” she says. “British Airways ballroom dance competition … Yes please!” Maxwell enlisted a friend and, despite sparse ballroom experience, assembled an audacious routine. “We were watching videos on YouTube cos I was like: ‘I have to win.’ I loved being thrown, tossed, whatever – crazy swing stuff. And that’s how I flew to this country.”

The best theatre to stream this month: Heathers, Alvin Ailey and more

Chris Wiegand — Mon, 01 May 2023 05:00:27 GMT

Our roundup of drama to watch at home includes Panti Bliss’s drag journey, Athol Fugard’s ballroom dreamers and Alain Platel’s nightmarish dance-theatre

How very! The sour bubblegum musical inspired by the cult 80s teen movie was filmed during its residency at London’s Other Palace, where they offer karaoke nights and “freeze your brain” cocktails. Make your own slushie and sing along on the sofa as Veronica and JD do some damage. On Icon Film Channel.

Edinburgh international festival draws on MLK with themes of hope and community

Severin Carrell and Imogen Tilden — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 11:00:06 GMT

Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theater and Budapest Festival Orchestra among performers named in lineup

This year’s Edinburgh international festival will focus on themes of hope, community and new perspectives as it attempts to draw audiences back into theatres after the Covid pandemic.

In its first year led by the Scottish concert violinist Nicola Benedetti, the festival will host Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theater, the Budapest Festival Orchestra playing to an audience on beanbags, and the youthful Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela.

Ailey review – absorbing tribute to African American dance icon

Peter Bradshaw — Sun, 09 Jan 2022 16:18:57 GMT

Jamila Wignot’s documentary about choreographer Alvin Ailey has touching testimonies and a look at his secret private life

Jamila Wignot’s documentary is a tribute to the work of the African American dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey, a man who grew up in Texas during the Great Depression and Jim Crow years – and embraced his destiny in dance in California, where his mother had taken him as a child while she was looking for work. This film focuses a good deal on Ailey’s most renowned and arguably greatest creation, Revelations (1960), a dance piece inspired by the church and spirituals which had a transcendent passion, a surmounting of the rage and pain of slavery. The generosity and urgency in this work allowed Ailey’s vision to cross boundaries, using dancers’ bodies almost as a kind of folk history of black American experience.

There are some absorbing testimonies from the dancers who worked with him, particularly about the ecstatic ovations his company would get on tour. About a Frankfurt show, one says wonderingly: “I’ve never seen people take their shoes off and hit the wall like that!” Ailey’s own private life as a gay man was opaque, because he was not someone given to joining political movements. The nearest this film comes to criticising him is when his younger dance contemporary, Bill T Jones, says that, despite the Aids crisis, Ailey did not speak out and his sexual identity was covered up “and he participated in the cover-up”.

Ailey review – illuminating film about the choreographer Alvin Ailey

Simran Hans — Sun, 09 Jan 2022 11:30:19 GMT

Jamila Wignot’s subtle documentary explores the influences, legacy – and private life – of the American dance pioneer

“Alvin Ailey is black and universal,” says the actor Cicely Tyson as she presents him with a lifetime achievement award in a clip from 1988 that opens this thoughtful documentary about the African American dancer and choreographer. Film-maker Jamila Wignot pays particular attention to the specificity of Ailey’s black influences: the church, blues music and his southern upbringing, all of which informed his best-known work, Revelations (1960).

Though Ailey was widely acclaimed, interviews with his former dancers, including Judith Jamison and George Faison, reveal the extent of his personal alienation. Being “the only one” in the predominantly white field of modern dance was only one aspect of his plight. Wignot subtly teases out the fact that despite having relationships with men, Ailey was not integrated into the queer community. He died from Aids-related complications, aged 58, in 1989.

In cinemas and on demand

Alvin Ailey: the towering figure of dance who lived in the shadows

Alexandra Villarreal — Mon, 26 Jul 2021 06:32:13 GMT

In new documentary Ailey, the acclaimed public persona and troubled private life of the dance icon are explored

When Jamila Wignot was a sophomore at Wellesley College, the Black student group on campus scored tickets to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Wignot had no expectations. A financial aid kid, she was just grateful for the night out.

But as Ailey’s dancers defied gravity, she felt herself lean in, transfixed by the drama of everyday life captured through their movements.

Masked moves and ballet in the bath: a year of digital dance

Lyndsey Winship — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 14:00:47 GMT

With stages closed, dancers have thrived on Instagram and TikTok, given innovative online performances and found a huge new audience

The first time I cried watching someone dance in their living room was in April last year. A few weeks into the first lockdown, unnerved by sudden confinement, there was ballerina Céline Gittens on my laptop screen, bourréeing past a pot plant. Then in a different living room, cellist António Novais drawing out a Saint-Saëns melody, and in another house, pianist Jonathan Higgins, all deeply engrossed in this re-creation of The Dying Swan, music crossing the divide.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the dance that appeared online was all about trying to connect. That’s what was moving about Birmingham Royal Ballet’s The Swan, or the Alvin Ailey company’s dancers performing Revelations in their New York apartments, or the companies doing their ritual daily class over Zoom and inviting us to watch or join in. It was a way of witnessing people apart but moving in harmony, absorbed in the same actions, finding a rhythm together, closing the distance.

Reach for the Stars review – high-flying heroines take children to infinity and beyond

Chris Wiegand — Mon, 16 Nov 2020 12:12:59 GMT

Available online
The Little Angel theatre’s inspirational show uses dance, rap and puppets to tell real and fictional tales about trailblazing female astronauts

Before she became the first woman of colour to go into space, Mae Jemison trained as a dancer. When she embarked on her 1992 mission on the shuttle Endeavour, she took with her an inspirational photograph of Alvin Ailey’s ballet Cry performed by her near namesake, Judith Jamison. So it is fitting that Reach for the Stars, an online physical theatre show for children, puts choreography at its heart as it entwines the trailblazing African American astronaut’s story with that of an aspiring space-rocketeer, Nat.

Yasmin Keita gives a warm, spirited performance using dance and rap routines to explore science, Jemison’s story and the importance of representation. Jemison drew inspiration from seeing Nichelle Nichols play Lieutenant Uhura in Star Trek.

Reach for the Stars is available online until 6 December.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: Shelter review – moves with our times

Sanjoy Roy — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 11:17:38 GMT

Available online
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s three-decade-old piece on homelessness takes on potent new meaning during Covid crisis

The best theatre and dance to watch online

Some dances seem timeless; Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s Shelter seems perennially timely. Created in 1988 in response to homelessness on the streets of New York, the piece was taken into the repertory of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1992. Zollar adapted it for her company performances in New Orleans, post-Katrina, and the Ailey company revived it again in 2017. Now showing in the online Ailey All Access season, it has become newly urgent during the coronavirus crisis.

Just 20 minutes long, it draws its power not from where it starts, but what it points to. Performed by six women (the company also perform an all-male version), it’s a ragged, scrabbling work, driven by Junior Wedderburn’s stuttering percussion and layered with spoken and sung texts that – like the bodies on stage – bring their own irregular rhythms. The opening scene, narrating the all-too-easy fall into homelessness, ends with a pivotal line: “It can happen to you, too.”

Shelter is available online until 27 August .