Alvin Ailey News

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will perform at New Jersey Performing Arts Center on Saturday, May 10th and Sunday, May 11th for three performances. Metropolitan Area Audiences will enjoy the opportunity to see this beloved company perform their spring season in Newark.

FLASHDANCE: THE MUSICAL is a neat, sanitary, emotionless version of the 1983 classic movie. It's not quite ready for prime time.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Artistic Director Glenn Edgerton are pleased to announce the main company's 2014-15 season performances in Chicago, to include two weeks spotlighting a diverse trio of Princess Grace Award-winning choreographers, Hubbard Street's first performances of choreography by acclaimed artist Crystal Pite, and a celebration of Resident Choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo.

Elisa Monte Dance, an emotionally charged and highly acclaimed dance company that champions individuality, will celebrate its 33rd season with three world premieres in three days from May 15-17 at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Artistic Director, Elisa Monte, will add to her collection of more than 50 works with the world premiere of Lonely Planet, the fourth and final movement in a succession of works that began in 2011. Additionally, Associate Artistic Director Tiffany Rea-Fisher will present Persona Umbra in its New York premiere and long time EMD principal dancer and choreographer Joe Celej will premiere their roots rest in infinity. The company will also restage Elisa Monte's 1987 Audentity.

On May 17, 2014, Princeton Ballet School will present its 2014 annual spring production, The Sleeping Beauty, at the Patriots Theater at the War Memorial in Trenton at 2:00pm and 7:00pm. Over 300 students will dance in this production.

Alonzo King, the celebrated contemporary ballet company, is guided by its uniquely global artistic vision. Drawing on a diverse set of deeply rooted cultural traditions, the company's works imbue classical ballet with new expressive potential. Alonzo King's visionary choreography is renowned for its ability to connect audiences to a profound sense of shared humanity-of vulnerability and tenderness, but also of furious abandon and exhilarating freedom. The program includes Concerto for Two Violiins, Writing Ground, and Rasa, set to an original score created and performed live by tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain.

This celebrated contemporary ballet company is guided by its uniquely global artistic vision. Drawing on a diverse set of deeply rooted cultural traditions, the company's works imbue classical ballet with new expressive potential. Alonzo King's visionary choreography is renowned for its ability to connect audiences to a profound sense of shared humanity-of vulnerability and tenderness, but also of furious abandon and exhilarating freedom. The program includes Concerto for Two Violiins, Writing Ground, and Rasa, set to an original score created and performed live by tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain.

Juilliard Dance, under the direction of Lawrence Rhodes, opens its 2014-15 season in December 2014 with New Dances: Edition 2014 featuring four world premiere dances by innovative choreographers, Juilliard alumnus Austin McCormick (1st-Year Dancers); alumna Loni Landon (2nd-Year Dancers); Kate Weare (3rd-Year Dancers); and Larry Keigwin (4th-Year Dancers). Mr. Keigwin is returning to Juilliard where he already choreographed and premiered, in December 2008, Runaway, a large-scale piece that riffs on the high fashion runway scene, and in December 2009, Megalopolis.

Award-winning choreographer Dwight Rhoden has been selected as the Honorary Degree Recipient at The Boston Conservatory's 2014 Commencement, scheduled for May 17, 2014. He will also deliver the 2014 keynote commencement speech.

After a semester of learning, collaborating, and developing their theatrical skills, Kimmel Center Education Department's Show Stoppers celebrates the end of its spring session with Rave Revues, a program of works featuring the music of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Bernstein's West Side Story, and Porter's Anything Goes in Perelman Theater on May 13 at 7 p.m.

This just in! Leslie Odom Jr. ("Smash") will join Lin-Manuel Miranda and Karen Olivo in the New York City Center Encores! Off-Center production of Jonathan Larson¹stick, tick… BOOM!, running for five performances, June 25 ­ 28. The opening show of City Center's acclaimed Encores! Off-Center series of landmark Off-Broadway musicals will be directed byOliver Butler with choreography by Camille A. Brown and music direction by Chris Fenwick. Jeanine Tesori is Encores! Off-Center Artistic Director.

The Southern Vermont Dance Festival returns to Brattleboro July 17-20 for its second year with a wide range of dance classes, workshops and lectures, performances, several formal, informal and site specific concerts, free community events including outdoor performances, and live music.

The Music Center celebrated 12 teen performing artists and four teen visual artists at The Music Center's 26th Annual Spotlight Awards during a finale performance on Saturday, April 26, 2014, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Hosted by Oscar-nominated actor, musician and author, John Lithgow, the awards show culminated The Music Center's year-long free recognition and scholarship program for Southern California high school performing and visual artists. A first place and runner-up were named in each of eight categories, including ballet, non-classical dance, classical voice, non-classical voice, classical instrumental, jazz instrumental, two-dimensional art (works of art with height and weight, but no depth, using drawing, painting, computer generated or mixed media) and photography (black/white, color and digital). This year's top performing and visual artists were awarded more than $100,000 in cash scholarships with $5,000 for students selected as first place finalists and $4,000 for runners-up in each category; five honorable mentions in each category received $250.

The University of Connecticut announces a new online graduate certificate in Arts Administration beginning in the fall semester, 2014. For information about the certificate and new online classes in arts administration, visit artsadmin.uconn.edu or contact Frank Mack, Associate Professor, Arts Administration at 860-486-1210. Arts Administration is new program within the Drama Department of the School of Fine Arts and the certificate is being offered through UConn's eCampus.

The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts will feature many exciting events as part of its April-June calendar.

Pittsburgh Dance Council, a division of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, brings you Wayne McGregor | Random Dance tonight, April 26, 2014, at 8:00 p.m., at the Byham Theater. Award-winning, anatomy-defying British choreographer Wayne McGregor has crafted a stunning piece for the ten dancers from Wayne McGregor | Random Dance that will present the evening length work, FAR.

As part of the second annual Live Ideas festival, James Baldwin, This Time!, New York Live Artspresents Baldwin Through Dance: Charles O. Anderson and Dianne McIntyre. The shared program features the world premiere of Time is Time created and performed by acclaimed dancer and choreographer Dianne McIntyre, and the New York City premiere of Charles O. Anderson's Restless Natives.

Tony and Grammy Award winner and 2011 Kennedy Center Honoree Barbara Cook will be returning to New York-area stages with her new concert ARE YOU HAVIN' ANY FUN? Barbara Cook in Concert, with upcoming performances scheduled for: Saturday, April 26 at Symphony Space in Manhattan; Saturday, May 10 at the Colden Auditorium at the Kupferberg Center at Queens College; Saturday, May 31 at the South Orange Performing Arts Center in South Orange, New Jersey; and at the Tarrytown Music Hall in Tarrytown, NY on Saturday June 14.

This year's New World School of the Arts' College Spring Dance Concert will be an exciting and varied program, featuring the work of respected faculty choreographers as well as other world renowned choreographers including Robert Battle, Artistic Director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Company and Darshan Wing Bhuller.

DanceWorks Chicago (DWC), under the direction of Andreas Bottcher and Julie Nakagawa, will return to the Harris Theater for Music and Dance on Wednesday, May 7 at 5:30PM for the third Eat + Drink to the Beat of the Theater's 2013-2014 season. The Harris Theater launched the inaugural Eat + Drink to the Beat performance with a program by DanceWorks Chicago this past January. The award-winning dance ensemble will once again present new works of the company repertoire, including aman, choreographed by Ruth Page Award winner Harrison McEldowney and aerial dance specialist Jeremy Plummer, and the Chicago premiere of self-portrait of a woman by Stuttgart Ballet Resident Choreographer Demis Volpi. Patrons will have the opportunity to enjoy cocktails specially created for the evening, and food from some of Chicago's most popular food trucks.