Photo: Paul KolnikAlvin Ailey presents Blues Suite – through July 30, 2020 Online LiveEvents July 24, 2020 2068 Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater presents Blues Suite Blues Suite is the ballet that launched the sensational Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958. What is extraordinary is that Alvin Ailey was just 27 years old when the dance premiered and it was only the sixth ballet that he had choreographed. Blues Suite is often documented as Mr. Ailey’s first masterpiece, where he had found his own miraculous voice as a creative artist presenting real people on the concert dance stage, defining his choreographic genius. As Jennifer Dunning wrote in her book Alvin Ailey: A Life in Dance, “[Blues Suite] is set in a ‘sporting house.’ The characters are the men and women who frequent the place, drinking, dancing, and flirting to the music of the blues over the course of a night that ends with the early morning sounds of a train and church bells.” The New York Times adds: “Created two years before the first version of Revelations, it has often been described as that spiritual work’s secular counterpart, a representation of the Saturday night sinning that precedes the Sunday churchgoing… hailed for its social observation, for putting ‘real people’ onstage, characters from the milieu of Ailey’s Southern childhood, then underrepresented.” Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater grew from a now-fabled performance in March 1958 at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. Led by Alvin Ailey and a group of young African-American modern dancers, that performance changed forever the perception of American dance. The Ailey company has gone on to perform for an estimated 25 million people at theaters in 48 states and 71 countries on six continents – as well as millions more through television broadcasts, film screenings, and online platforms. In 2008, a U.S. Congressional resolution designated the Company as “a vital American cultural ambassador to the world” that celebrates the uniqueness of the African-American cultural experience and the preservation and enrichment of the American modern dance heritage. When Mr. Ailey began creating dances, he drew upon his “blood memories” of Texas, the blues, spirituals, and gospel as inspiration, which resulted in the creation of his most popular and critically acclaimed work, Revelations. Although he created 79 ballets over his lifetime, Mr. Ailey maintained that his company was not exclusively a repository for his own work. Today, the Company continues Mr. Ailey’s mission by presenting important works of the past and commissioning new ones. In all, more than 235 works by over 90 choreographers have been part of the Ailey company’s repertory. www.alvinailey.org
