Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is the African-American dance company that popularized modern dance around the world.

American Spirit

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is the legacy of legendary African – American choreographer and activist Alvin Ailey (1931 – 1989).

The Company is known as the Cultural Ambassador to the World because the U.S. State Department sponsored it to tour overseas as representatives of American society starting in 1962 when we started the process of facing America’s original sin. It is hard to think of anyone better suited to represent us.

There is something about Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater that goes beyond technique, beyond athleticism and beyond choreography. It can only be described as the American Spirit.

The hard journey to the Americas gave us the blues, but the blues are not about being sad. They are about turning pain into something noble.

When governments fail, people band together to survive. Ailey is about this too. It’s about the possibility of redemption when we accept our wrongs and begin working together.

The American Spirit doesn’t live in an ivory tower on Fifth Avenue. It lives in we the American people. Nobody embodies that spirit better than Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Tickets for Alvin Ailey’s Fall Season are available through New York City Center.

Tickets for Alvin Ailey’s Spring Season at Lincoln Center are available through the David H. Koch Theater.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II and The Ailey School are based in The Joan Weill Center for Dance.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

405 West 55th St, New York, NY 10019
(at Ninth Ave)
Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan

Subway

• (1) to 59th St – Columbus Circle
• (A) (C) to 59th St – Columbus Circle
• (B) (D) to 59th St – Columbus Circle
• (N) (R) (Q) (W) to 57th St

Bus

• Uptown/Downtown: M11 to 55th St & Ninth Ave
• Crosstown: M57 to Ninth Avenue

For more information, visit www.alvinailey.org