Ailey’s Powerful Legacy Ignites Black History Month With Dance, Art, and Inspiration

The nation’s premier modern dance company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will embark on a coast-to-coast 2025 United States tour in late January.

Bringing the Company’s unparalleled celebration of Black artistry and heritage to seven cities during Black History Month. Pride in the Company’s visionary founder, Alvin Ailey, and in the African American experience is also reflected in the ongoing exhibition Edges of Ailey at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the presentation of the documentary film series Portrait of Ailey, available online for free at PBS LearningMedia.

The 18-city US tour celebrates the life and legacy of Artistic Director Emerita Judith Jamison (1943-2024). Led by Interim Artistic Director Matthew Rushing, the tour showcases the passionate spirit and extraordinary technique of the Company dancers in exciting performances featuring world premieres, new productions, and quintessential Ailey classics. During Black History Month, the Company will make present week engagements at Washington, D.C.’s The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, as well as appearances in Cleveland;  Greenville; Charlotte; Charleston; and Philadelphia. The tour will culminate in Newark with a Mother’s Day performance on Sunday, May 11. The full schedule is below (subject to change).

Compelling new productions include the 25th anniversary return of Ronald K. Brown’s spellbinding Grace and Elisa Monte’s Treading, a sculptural, mesmerizing duet. This season’s exciting world premieres are Jamar Roberts’s Al-Andalus Blues, Hope Boykin’s Finding Free, and Lar Luboivitch’s Many Angels—his first premiere for the Company – and Sacred Songs by Interim Artistic Director Matthew Rushing, Sacred Songs features music used in the original 1960 premiere of Alvin Ailey’s seminal Revelations but later omitted, resurrecting and reimaging those spirituals—with the collaboration of creative associate and musical director Du’Bois A’Keen—as an offering to our present need for lamentation, faith, and joy. To coincide with the tour, A’Keen has released a Sacred Songs Suite album featuring his brilliant team of musicians in a live recording of the soundtrack, along with some bonus songs.  The spirituals, influenced by the sounds of jazz, West African drums, gospel, hip hop, and calypso, are available to purchase as an album or individually and on all streaming platforms for free. 

Audiences in every city will be inspired by the power of Alvin Ailey’s must-see American masterpiece Revelations, world-renowned for sending hearts soaring and lifting audiences to their feet with its perfect blend of reverent grace and spiritual elation. An intimate reflection of Mr. Ailey’s childhood memories of growing up in the South and attending services at Mount Olive Baptist Church in Texas, Revelations pays homage to the rich cultural heritage of the African American community and explores the emotional spectrum of the human condition.

Ailey II, the celebrated second company of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, continues the second leg of its 28-city tour, with enchanting performances February 2 through May 1. The next generation of dance is captivating audiences across the United States from Albuquerque, NM, to Kansas City, MO, and Miami, FL, before returning home for its annual New York City season at the Ailey Citigroup Theater, March 26–April 6, 2025.

Also available this February on PBS LearningMedia for free is Portrait of Ailey, an eight-part documentary series using rare archival footage to create a sweeping narrative of Mr. Ailey as a performer, choreographer, celebrity, teacher, social activist, arts advocate, and creator of an enduring institution. Created by Ailey II Artistic Director Emerita Sylvia Waters with Ailey Archivist Dominique Singer and adapted by The WNET Group’s Kids’ Media and Education Team for use on PBS LearningMedia, a free transformative digital media platform with thousands of classroom-ready resources for teachers Pre-K through 12. Accompanying educational materials ignite curiosity about and interest in the work of Mr. Ailey and his groundbreaking legacy.

February also offers the final opportunity to view Edges of Ailey, the first large-scale museum exhibition to reflect the life, work, and legacy of Alvin Ailey. Presented by the Whitney Museum of American Art in its 18,000+ square-foot fifth-floor galleries, this multifaceted presentation encompasses a multimedia exhibition, daily performance program, and scholarly catalogue to provide a richly layered experience that situates Mr. Ailey within a broad social, creative, and cultural context, illuminating the artists who influenced and collaborated with him, the spaces and scenes he frequented, and the dynamic themes he explored in his dances. The exhibition closes on February 9.

Throughout Black History Month, Ailey Extension  is offering several opportunities for people around the globe to celebrate the impact Alvin Ailey and Judith Jamison have had on the dance world with a variety of programs. The celebration kicks off February 7-8 with a Dunham Technique Intensive led by internationally acclaimed former Ailey dancer April Berry. One of few artists who have had a distinctive and enduring artistic relationship with both Alvin Ailey and Katherine Dunham, Berry will focus on the methodology and dynamic movement vocabulary of this style which fuses African and Caribbean movements with modern dance. On Saturday, February 15 at 3pm former Ailey dancer Khalia Campbell will teach excerpts of choreography from Divining, Judith Jamison’s first major work as a choreographer for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater,  during a Remembering Judith Jamison: Divining Workshop accessible in-studio and online. The whole family is invited to get moving together during a West African Family Day Workshop with Ailey Extension instructor Maguette Camara on Sunday, February 16 at 1pm. Camara will also lead a free Honoring Judith Jamison: Dancing Spirit Workshop on Thursday February 20 at 6pm guiding participants through movement as a community during. On Saturday, February 22 at 6pm hear former Ailey dancers Sarita Allen, Renee Robinson, and Tracy Inman discuss Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Judith Jamison Panel.

This month fans in Chicago and Atlanta will also have the chance to dance with elite NYC instructors – including former Ailey dancers – and learn the rich history of Alvin Ailey’s signature style without leaving their hometown when the Ailey Experience Tour makes stops in their city. Ailey Experience is designed to embody the diversity of the Ailey dancer with technique classes and classic Ailey repertory introducing dancers ages 8 and up to the exciting world of choreography in a non-competitive environment. Participants who attend both of the two-day workshops in their city are eligible to win a scholarship to Ailey Experience NYC (Summer 2025).  For more information on AILEY’s upcoming performances, special presentations and Ailey Extension classes and workshops, please visit ailey.org.

Alvin Ailey was born on January 5, 1931, in Rogers, Texas, into a community that would eventually inspire many of his most memorable works, including the American masterpiece Revelations. He was introduced to dance in Los Angeles by performances of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and the Katherine Dunham Dance Company. His formal dance training began with an introduction to Lester Horton’s classes by his friend Carmen de Lavallade. Horton, the founder of one of the first racially integrated dance companies in the United States, became a mentor for Mr. Ailey as he embarked on his professional career. After Horton’s death in 1953, Mr. Ailey became director of the Lester Horton Dance Theater and began to choreograph his own works. In the 1950s and 60s, he performed in four Broadway shows, including House of Flowers and Jamaica.

In 1958, Mr. Ailey founded Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to carry out his vision of a company dedicated to enriching the American modern dance heritage and preserving the uniqueness of the African American cultural experience. He established the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center (now The Ailey School) in 1969 and formed the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble (now Ailey II) in 1974. Mr. Ailey was a pioneer of programs promoting arts in education, particularly those benefiting underserved communities. Throughout his lifetime, he received numerous awards, including the Kennedy Center Honor in 1988 in recognition of his extraordinary contribution to American culture. In 2014, he posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, in recognition of his contributions to civil rights and dance in America. When Mr. Ailey died on December 1, 1989, The New York Times said of him, “you didn’t need to have known [him] personally to have been touched by his humanity, enthusiasm, and exuberance and his courageous stand for multi-racial brotherhood.”

For more information on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater visit alvinailey.org. For additional press materials, including bios, b-roll, and photos, members of the media may visit pressroom.alvinailey.org.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, recognized by US Congressional resolution as a vital American “Cultural Ambassador to the World,” grew from a now-fabled March 1958 performance in New York that changed forever the perception of American dance. Founded by Alvin Ailey, recent posthumous recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the nation’s highest civilian honor—and guided by Judith Jamison beginning in 1989, the Company was led until 2023 by Robert Battle, whom Judith Jamison chose to succeed her on July 1, 2011.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has performed for an estimated 25 million people in 71 countries on 6 continents—as well as millions more through television broadcasts, film screenings, and online platforms— promoting the uniqueness of the African American cultural experience and the preservation and enrichment of the American modern dance tradition. In addition to being the Principal Dance Company of New York City Center, where its performances have become a year-end tradition, the Ailey company performs annually at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC; the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago; The Fox Theatre in Atlanta; Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, CA, and at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark where it is the Principal Resident Affiliate, and appears frequently in other major theaters throughout the United States and the world during extensive yearly tours.

The Ailey organization also includes Ailey II (1974), a second performing company of emerging young dancers and innovative choreographers; The Ailey School (1969), one of the most extensive dance training programs in the world; Ailey Arts in Education & Community Programs, which brings dance into the classrooms, communities, and lives of people of all ages; and Ailey Extension (2005), a program offering dance and fitness classes to the general public, which began with the opening of Ailey’s permanent home—the largest building dedicated to dance in New York City, the dance capital of the world—named The Joan Weill Center for Dance, at 55th Street at 9th Avenue in New York City. For more information, visit ailey.org.

Photo: Alvin Ailey and Judith Jamison (1969). Photo by Jack Mitchell.

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