Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is an African American modern dance company. The “American Cultural Ambassador to the World” (U.S. Congress) popularized modern dance around the world ~ really. Ailey is one of New York City’s Big Three dance companies along with American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet. In African Diasporic traditions, dance is how we pray and Ailey has a spiritual dimension that makes every performance a revelation.
Ailey is in residence at New York City Center, but also dances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), and Lincoln Center. The second company Ailey II dances as well as most first companies, and is an incubator for talent across the performing arts. Ailey Studios is one of New York’s leading dance schools. You can study many forms of dance at social, amateur, and professional levels. Ailey Citigroup Theater is the dance theater at Ailey Studios. Fordham University in The Bronx has an Alvin Ailey BFA Program that produces great dancers.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater presents a December Holiday Season in residence at New York City Center, and a Summer season at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) or David H. Koch Theater in Lincoln Center. It also performs in the BAAND Together dance festival of New York City’s leading dance companies at Lincoln Center in July and August.
Alicia Graf Mack Artistic Director
Alicia Graf Mack was a star Ailey dancer from 2005 to 2014, mentored by the legendary Judith Jamison. Graf Mack was last the Dean and Director of the Dance Division at Juilliard. She started her career under Arthur Mitchell at Dance Theatre of Harlem, danced with Complexions Contemporary Ballet, and as a guest artist at Alonzo King LINES Ballet. They say that to become a master in the performing arts, you have to study with one. The 2023 Dance Magazine Award-winner has worked as a teacher, administrator, and artist with many masters of the dance and music worlds. We wish her well leading the next generation of great American dancers.
Latin Dancers in the 2025-2026 Season
- Leonardo Britto is Brazilian American from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil @leonardobrittom 🇧🇷 🇺🇸
- Sarah Daley-Perdomo is an American with some Latin heritage. 🇺🇸
- Sebastian Garcia is Dominican American from The Bronx, New York. 🇩🇴 🇺🇸 🗽
- Yannick Lebrun is Guyanese American from Cayenne, French Guiana @yannicklebrun 🇬🇫 🇫🇷 🇺🇸
- Dandara Veiga is Brazilian American from Alegrete, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil @iamdandaraveiga 🇧🇷 🇺🇸
There may be more American dancers with a Latin heritage.
DECEMBER 2025
New York City Center
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, the African American dance company that popularized modern dance around the world, starts a new era with Artistic Director Alicia Graf Mack. Her inaugural season features world premieres by Fredrick Earl Mosley, Maija García, Matthew Neenan, Jamar Roberts, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar in collaboration with Samantha Figgins and Chalvar Monteiro; plus a company premiere of Medhi Walerski’s “Blink of an Eye” and Ailey company classics. It’s for five weeks at New York City Center in Midtown, Manhattan; from December 5, 2025 to January 4, 2026. From $45.
New York City Venues
- 92nd Street Y, New York
- Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM)
- David H. Koch Theater
- Joyce Theater
- Lincoln Center
- New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC)
- New York City Center
- Whitney Museum of American Art
About Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre
Ballet is considered the pinnacle of dance, but Ailey is the equal of any ballet company in the world. In addition to masterful choreography, perfect technique, and beautifully athletic dancers, Alvin Ailey performances have a special dimension derived from the experience of being African American or Afro-Latin American. Many Ailey dancers became dance stars of their generation and mentors of the next in the African American tradition of “Each one, Teach one.” 🇺🇸
Alvin Ailey Jr. was born in Rogers, Texas in 1931. 1930s Texas was another world. Ailey often choreographed from his childhood memories. He founded the Company in 1958. It first performed at the 92nd Street Y which was a modern dance incubator and still is. As an American ambassador for the U.S. State Department, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater popularized modern dance around the world.
There is something deeply spiritual about Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater that we haven’t seen in any other dance company. Ailey’s “Revelations” (1960) is the Company’s signature masterpiece. It’s a reflection of Ailey’s childhood memories of attending Mount Olive Baptist Church near Fort Worth, Texas. The piece eloquently expresses that life is a mix of joy and pain, but always tempered with HOPE.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Tickets
I love this image. It’s much more than a simple photograph of a beautiful dancer. The African Diaspora has its own code which unlocks a parallel universe if you can read it. This is my interpretation.
The blue background represents indigo blue, a color deeply associated with West Africa that is a symbol of protection, dignity, and harmony. The white dress represents a spiritual presence. The blue and green cloths represent the Kalûnga, the dividing line between the worlds of the living and the ancestors in Central Africa’s traditional Kongo culture. In life the Kalûnga is the Atlantic Ocean. Kongolese knew that anyone taken away across that ocean never returned. It was a terrifying journey to the land of the dead. It turns out there was life on the other side, but you had to keep your faith and reach for it.
The dancer keeps one outstretched foot in Mother Afrika, holds her head high with tremendous pride, and looks to the future with her outstretched arm. The parasol symbolizes an elegant person of high-status. In one photo of one dancer, this is Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. ~ Iroko “Kíko” Keith
Tickets are generally sold by presenting theaters.
Ailey Studios
405 West 55th St
(at Ninth Ave)
Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan