This documentary follows the astonishing five-decade marriage of Carmen De Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder and focuses on their careers as dancers, actors, choreographers and more. Continue reading
This documentary follows the astonishing five-decade marriage of Carmen De Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder and focuses on their careers as dancers, actors, choreographers and more. Continue reading
Ailey Celebrates Juneteenth is an uplifting program that features performance highlights from Alvin Ailey’s Cry and Revelations, as well as Rennie Harris’ Lazarus. Continue reading
The Jackson 5 perform Dancing Machine on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (1974) Continue reading
Donald Byrd’s fifth Ailey commission draws on the Company’s theatrical roots and legacy of addressing social injustice. The work’s title references a 1921 tragedy that happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s segregated Greenwood District. At the time, it was one of the country’s most affluent African American communities, known as “Black Wall Street.” Continue reading
Musical guest Lil Nas X performs MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name) on Saturday Night Live. Continue reading
Ailey All Access presents the online premiere of ‘Members Don’t Get Weary,‘ the first work Resident Choreographer Jamar Roberts created for the Company. He says this ensemble work set to the music of legendary American jazz artist John Coltrane, “takes an abstract look into the notion of one ‘having the blues.’” Continue reading
Ailey All Access presents the online encore of Alvin Ailey’s Night Creature. This classic work is a perfect fusion of Ailey’s buoyant choreography and Duke Ellington’s sparkling music. Continue reading
Dance Theatre of Harlem’s iconic Firebird places the Russian folk tale about a magical bird that triumphs over evil in an exotic Caribbean setting. John Taras’ choreography to Stravinsky’s familiar score was further enlivened by sets and costumes by Geoffrey Holder. The 1982 DTH production was a tremendous worldwide success.
The Dance Theatre of Harlem premiered Passage, choreography by Claudia Schreier, during the 2019 DTH 50th anniversary season. Continue reading
Purlie is a musical with a book by Ossie Davis, Phillip Rose and Peter Udell, lyrics by Udell and music by Gary Geld and choreography by Louis Johnson. It is based on Davis’s 1961 play Purlie Victorious, which was later made into the 1963 film Gone Are the Days! and which included many of the original Broadway cast, including Davis, Ruby Dee, Alan Alda, Beah Richards, Godfrey Cambridge and Sorrell Booke.
Purlie is set in an era when Jim Crow laws still were in effect in the American South. Its focus is on the dynamic traveling preacher Purlie Victorious Judson, who returns to his small Georgia town hoping to save Big Bethel, the community’s church, and emancipate the cotton pickers who work on oppressive Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee’s platation. With the assistance of Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins, Purlie hopes to pry loose from Cotchipee an inheritance due his long-lost cousin and use the money to achieve his goals. Also playing a part in Purlie’s plans is Cotchipee’s son Charlie, who ultimately proves to be far more fair-minded than his Simon Legree –like father and who saves the church from destruction with an act of defiance that has dire consequences for the tyrannical Cap’n.
Purlie is a musical with a book by Ossie Davis, Phillip Rose and Peter Udell