Ailey Heads to Brooklyn for a Bigger Stage

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will spend more time on home ground with a second New York season this year. To celebrate its 50th anniversary season, the Ailey company, which is well-known for its rigorous touring schedule and which has performed in more than 70 countries, is reaching out more to people closer to home with performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music starting Tuesday.“We had a desire to be home more and have a second season in New York,” the executive director of the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, Sharon Luckman, said. “The idea was to have our home audience, our New York audience, see us more than just once a year and also to try to bring people in to see us in the city who don’t get to City Center in December [for the company’s regular season] for whatever reason.”Ms. Luckman and others at Ailey started strategizing on how to celebrate their anniversary season more than three years ago, and their decisions were largely informed by what they learned from fans. Annual spectator surveys during their City Center seasons had taught them that most of their viewers were regulars. They came to see the company whenever it was in town.“What we know about our audience is that if you see Ailey perform once, you’ll want to come back and see them again,” Ms. Luckman said. “Even people who think they don’t like dance, when they see the company for the first time they often find they like it after all. It resonates with people.”They decided to focus on both broadening and deepening their ties to home, starting with initiatives such as free dance classes throughout New York City in August.Although Ailey is no stranger to Brooklyn — the company has been bringing dance to children in Brooklyn public schools almost since its inception — the last time it graced the stage at BAM was more than 35 years ago. A series of collaborative coincidences involving the higher-ups at the Joyce Theater and BAM helped pave the road for their return.“It started over a friendly breakfast with Linda Shelton,” Ms. Luckman said, referring to the executive director of the Joyce Theater. The two women have been friends since the mid-1980s, when they both worked for Twyla Tharp — Ms. Luckman in development, Ms. Shelton in management.“I mentioned that I was interested in doing a second New York season,” Ms. Luckman said, “and Linda told me she had an arrangement with BAM to present dance there.”Ms. Shelton’s arrangement for the Joyce with BAM, too, partially originated with Twyla Tharp. The Tharp company’s offices were located there in the 1980s, when Ms. Shelton was introduced to BAM’s current president, Karen Hopkins. Ms. Hopkins pitched the idea of the Joyce presenting dance at BAM shortly after the Joyce was selected for a new performance space at the World Trade Center site. The new WTC theater is planned at twice the size of the Joyce’s current Chelsea theater; working at BAM, Ms. Hopkins suggested, would provide the chance to practice presenting on a larger scale.“This is a great opportunity to work with a larger company, and with a larger stage and audience,” Ms. Shelton said. “At first I couldn’t think what company that would be that BAM doesn’t already present themselves.” Ailey filled the spot.The company will present two programs during its six-day run at BAM. “Classic Ailey” features Ailey’s own works, including “Night Creature,” “Pas de Duke,” and, for the first time in a decade, “Masekela Langage.” Created in 1969, “Masekela Langage” addresses apartheid in South Africa and may be one of the reasons that Ailey was one of the first major companies to perform in the country after the fall of apartheid years later. The lead role, originally danced by Ailey’s current artistic director, Judith Jamison, will here be danced by Renée Robinson.“This program is in keeping with the goal to broaden and deepen our audience,” Ms. Luckman said. “For audiences who have never seen the company, they will have a whole evening of works by Ailey, and old fans like to see all works by Ailey, too.”The “Best Of” bill includes repertory works such as Robert Battle’s duet “Unfold,” Twyla Tharp’s “The Golden Section,” and Camille Brown’s “The Groove to Nobody’s Business.”And as is almost always the case when the company steps onstage, “Revelations,” Ailey’s most celebrated work, about African-American cultural heritage, will be on the bill every night.

Ailey Heads to Brooklyn for a Bigger Stage

Ailey Heads to Brooklyn for a Bigger Stage

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