Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater – Program I: Excerpts from Ailey Classics

As part of the Edges of Ailey exhibition, the world-renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performs excerpts from Ailey classics. Featuring a dance set to music by Duke Ellington, Pas de Duke is an elegant, flirtatious work that shows off the exuberance and virtuosity of the dancers’ physical and stylistic differences. Only four minutes long, Reflections in D is a solo Ailey created for himself, as an interlude to give other dancers time to change costumes between ballets. Delving into universal themes that are still relevant today, Masekela Language draws parallels between the era of South African apartheid and the racial violence of 1960s Chicago. Also included is the solo Cry, created by Ailey as a birthday gift to his mother and dedicated to “all Black women everywhere—especially our mothers.” Closing the program is a selection from Ailey’s masterpiece Revelations, which fervently explores the soul’s deepest grief and holiest joy and was born from what Ailey described as his  “blood memories” of childhood in rural Texas and the Baptist Church.