Alvin Ailey — An Evening with The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has defined artistic excellence and Black cultural legacy since 1958. Enjoy a series of performances that pay tribute to the great Black choreographer and founder Alvin Ailey (1931-89), featuring four fantastic works from the company’s repertoire, recorded in studio. We begin with Talley Beatty’s The Stack-Up, an extraordinary commissioned work depicting an American community’s turbulence in an urban summer night. Ailey's Cry follows suit, a birthday present for his mother dedicated to “all Black women everywhere — especially our mothers." Judith Jamison’s Divining was her landmark 1984 choreographic debut, set to music by Kimati Dinizulu and Monti Ellison. The work builds on a variety of African dance idioms and themes to create a strikingly modern masterpiece. The evening concludes with Ailey’s Revelations, one of his first and most famous ballets — a socio-political statement drawing its title from the Bible and unfolding as a suite of spirituals in three sections.