Fox Searchlight first announced the upcoming project in March, last year, saying it had the support of the
Ailey Organisation, reported Variety.
Yet on the occasion of
Ailey's 60th anniversary season, the company, which focuses on African-American culture, wanted to look toward the future by commissioning new works.
Yet
Ailey artistic director Robert Battle sees Harris as the right dancemaker and hip hop as the right movement language to help the
Ailey company mark its 60th anniversary.
Having entertained an estimated 25 million people across 71 countries, the dance group will perform two diverse programmes of ballets at Dubai Opera, including Revelations, a 1960 American classic by choreographer and activist Alvin
Ailey.
The Alvin
Ailey American Dance Theater is relocating from its previous site in Long Island City currently undergoing redevelopment.
"I'd like to take credit,'' quips Robert Battle, artistic director at
Ailey, of the timing, noting that the ballet arrives -- and soon tours the country -- just as a national conversation percolates over the state of civil rights in America, sparked by the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
Award-winning Alvin
Ailey (1931-1989) moved to the performance halls of the world when he founded Alvin
Ailey Dance Theater in 1958.
Her tenure, which began in 1981, is the longest of any female dancer in
Ailey company history.
Ailey is now continuing to progress thanks to wonderful support from staff at Yorkhill and her family, not to mention the Turkish medics who saved her in the first place.
The finale was
Ailey's own high-octane Revelations from 1960, set to spirituals, gospel songs and holy blues.
The phenomenal Revelations by Alvin
Ailey is one of the most viewed pieces in modern dance history, with an estimated audience of 23 million to date - and one of my favourites too!
Put in simple terms, when Alvin
Ailey broke out of the racial segregation of his native Texas and created his American Dance Theater in New York in 1958 he gave black choreography identity, legitimacy.
JAMAR Roberts saw the Alvin
Ailey American Dance Theater perform in his home city of Miami just once - but it was enough for him to know this was the company for him.
which ballet For the past 20 years Judith Jamison has led the Alvin
Ailey American Dance Theater across the world.
Sensual, strong and fearless, the
Ailey Woman is part of a divine continuum that stretches from the founder's mother, Lula Cooper, through his childhood friend, Carmen De Lavallade, to current principal, Linda Celeste Sims.
