Alvin Ailey News

On Today, June 13, 2014 from 12:00pm to 3:00pm at the Cherry Valley Country Club in Skillman, NJ, Princeton Ballet School, the official school of American Repertory Ballet, will host its first annual fashion show: "Turn Out for Fashion." All proceeds of this event will support the Princeton Ballet School Scholarship Fund.

Michael Cerveris, Isaiah Johnson, Randy Newman, Laura Osnes, Vonda Shepard, Brooklyn Shuck, Tony Vincent and Broadway Inspirational Voices have been cast in Randy Newman's Faust: The Concert, which will be performed on July 1 as the second Encores! Off-Center presentation of the 2014 season. Faust will be directed by Thomas Kail and choreographed by Marcos Santana. Jeanine Tesori is the Encores! Off-Center artistic director; Chris Fenwick is its music director.

“Gotta Dance: A Tribute To…Life!” a spectacular, new stage extravaganza celebrating dance through the years, is set for a World Premiere showcase July 2 and 3, 2014, at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts in the Troesh Studio Theatre, presented by The HAND Company, directed and choreographed by Giulio Scatola, and produced by Steve Hand, with production design by Emmy Award winner, Andy Walmsley and music produced by Josh Connolly.

Twenty-five arts projects have been brought to life for the 2014 - 2015 season, with help through a grant award from Funding Arts Broward (FAB!). That gives four new eligible FAB! grantees an opportunity through this resourceful funding pool. The new arts organizations added to the FAB! portfolio are: Brazilian Voices; Chameleon Musicians; Gay Men's Chorus of South Florida and the Pablo Malco Foundation. Highlights of the most recent 25 awards will give South Florida one more opportunity to see Alvin Ailey - Back in Broward at Broward Center for the Performing Arts; another exposure of Puccini's Madame Butterfly though Florida Grand Opera; and Seraphic Fire's Broward Spring Season. This, just to name a few attractions that Broward residents and visitors can count on thanks to smart arts supporters who collaborate, give and enhance our community. Thank you FAB! 'This grant award has been fundamental in helping the Coral Springs community see an expanded arts and culture portfolio within its very diverse suburban community,' says grantee, Executive Director, Coral Springs Museum of Art, Bryan Knicely.

Good morning, BroadwayWorld! Because we know all our readers eat, sleep and breathe Broadway, what could be better than waking up to it? Today's big news: Radcliffe and Webber make TV appearances, Vanessa Williams oversees Alvin Ailey's Lincoln Center season kick-off, Signature's PIECE OF MY HEART meets the press and Jim Parsons stops by our SAG series!

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's two-week spring engagement at Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater kicks off in an exceptional way today, June 11th with a free workshop - Revelations Celebration on the Plaza - followed by The Ailey Spirit Gala, a one-night-only benefit performance and party.

On Saturday, May 18, 2014, 350 Princeton Ballet School students performed in the school's annual spring production 2014,The Sleeping Beauty, at Patriots Theater at the War Memorial in Trenton. The production featured dancers ranging in age from 5 years to adult, with the lead roles performed by members of American Repertory Ballet Workshop (ARBW), the pre-professional performance wing of Princeton Ballet School.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, beloved as one of the world's most popular dance companies, will return to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts with four different programs for a 15-performance engagement at the David H. Koch Theater June 11 - 22, 2014.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, under the artistic direction of Glenn Edgerton, presents its Summer Series program today, June 5-8, 2014 featuring the 13th world premiere for the company by Resident Choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo, with costumes by Branimira Ivanova, 'Jeff' Award-winning designer of numerous Hubbard Street premieres; and lighting by Michael Korsch, designer for both of Cerrudo's acclaimed works for Hubbard Street's main company in 2012: Little mortal jump and One Thousand Pieces.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, under the artistic direction of Glenn Edgerton, presents its Summer Series program today, June 5-8, 2014 featuring the 13th world premiere for the company by Resident Choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo, with costumes by Branimira Ivanova, 'Jeff' Award-winning designer of numerous Hubbard Street premieres; and lighting by Michael Korsch, designer for both of Cerrudo's acclaimed works for Hubbard Street's main company in 2012: Little mortal jump and One Thousand Pieces.

On Her Shoulders will present a FREE staged reading of SEX by Mae West, directed by Aneesha Kudtarkar on Wednesday, June 18th; doors open at 6:30pm.The Play in Context, which situates the script in its historical time and place, kicks off the evening at 6:45pm with an Introduction by dramaturg Celia Braxton. Running time, including a post-performance Q&A is 2.5 hours. The performance is at The New School, Wollman Hall, 65 West 11th Street. R.S.V.P to OnHerShouldersReservations@gmail.com

Revelations Celebration on the Plaza Workshop: Participants of all ages will be given a rare opportunity to take part in a grand dance workshop celebrating Alvin Ailey's signature American masterpiece,Revelations. Ailey master teacher and former Company member Nasha Thomas-Schmitt will teach movements from three distinctive sections of Revelations: “I've Been 'Buked,” “Wade in the Water,” and “Rocka My Soul.” Live music with a drummer and singers will be featured at the event.

It takes more than talent to tell the life story of a well-known person with passion, humor, and originality in sixty minutes and succeed, but that's just what Francesca Harper accomplished performing her one woman show The Look of Feeling, a Celebration of American Dance Pioneer Denise Jefferson on Saturday May 17, 2014 at the Susan Baston Theater on West 43rd Street.

Mesa Arts Center today announced its 2014-2015 Performing Live Season, which begins with Lyle Lovett & His Large Band on July 24, and includes performances with Tony Bennett, MythBusters, Bill Cosby, Joshua Bell, Evil Dead the Musical, Molly Ringwald, and many more. The shows unveiled today are in addition to the six series packages announced on May 1, including Broadway on Center, Classical, Dance, Jazz, National Geographic Live, and Spoken World.

The National Ballet of Canada opens its summer season with a mixed programme of twentieth century works.

This year's Jacob's Pillow Dance Award, a coveted honor carrying a $25,000 cash prize, will be presented to choreographer John Heginbotham in recognition of his talent and outstanding contributions to the dance field. Heginbotham, an alumnus of The School at Jacob's Pillow, has garnered critical and popular acclaim for his contemporary works, eclectic and rich with “movement that exhibits sharpness, energy, formality and, yes, oddity” (Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times). His company, Dance Heginbotham, will perform the evening-length world premiere of Chalk and Soot in the Doris Duke Theatre July 30-August 3. In Chalk and Soot, Heginbotham joins forces with composer Colin Jacobsen to create a work featuring imaginative, theatrical choreography, live music performed by superstar string quartet Brooklyn Rider, the vocal stylings of Shara Worden (lead singer of My Brightest Diamond), and singer/songwriter Gabriel Kahane on harmonium.

Pump Boys and Dinettes, the final production of the 2014 Encores! Off-Center series, will star Jordan Dean,Hunter Foster, Mamie Parris, Randy Redd, Katie Thompson and Lorenzo Wolff. Pump Boys, running July 16 - 19, will be directed by Lear deBessonet and choreographed by Danny Mefford. Jeanine Tesori is the Encores! Off-Center artistic director; Chris Fenwick is the music director.

Carmen de Lavallade's career as a dancer, choreographer, and stage and film actress spans more than six decades working with luminaries such as Lena Horne, Josephine Baker, Harry Belafonte, Alvin Ailey, and many others. She already holds the distinction of the longest Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival performing career on record, having made her Pillow debut with Lester Horton Dance Theatre in 1953 and performing at the Festival as recently as 2004 (with Paradigm), and she now extends that record by another decade. In the world premiere of her new solo show, As I Remember It, de Lavallade combines powerful movement and poignant storytelling to weave a theatrical memoir about her venerable life on stage. This exclusive engagement opens the 2014 Festival in the Doris Duke Theatre with a limited three-show run, June 20-22.

New Jersey Performing Arts Center has announced a thrilling 2014-2015 season that includes audience favorites, a star-studded line-up, new programming and exciting collaborations.

Enemy Within, a film by director Preston Miller, featuring star performers Tyler Peck of New York City Ballet, Mathew Rushing of Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre, Samantha Higgins of Complexions Contemporary Ballet, and freestyle dancer Margues 'Nonstop' Scott will premier in New York at the second installment of New Dance Cinema on May 23. The film brings together the four unique artists to face a head on battle with insecurity and results in a beautifully shot and compelling tale of struggle and triumph.