Check our our new YouTube channel!

Our new YouTube channel is up and running! In honor of our 75th Anniversary Season we are featuring special messages from Celebrity Series of Boston performers. Our first posting is from Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater artistic director Robert Battle.

Celebrity Series of Boston on YouTube

Videotaping Robert Battle at Citi Wang Theatre

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Artistic Director, Robert Battle, was kind enough to tape some personal thoughts before tonight's performance on the Celebrity Series of Boston's 75th Anniversary.

Ailey in the news and at Citi Wang this weekend

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater begins its 5 performance run at Citi Performing Arts Center tonight at 7:30pm. Media coverage of the company's 42nd Celebrity Series appearance has been copious. Here are a few samples:

Robert Battle looks within to lead Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (Boston Globe)

Alvin Ailey troupe wants to bring everyone to their feet (Boston Herald)

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: Leaping to an opportunity (Metro Boston)

Tickets are available at www.celebrityseries.org.

Welcome back Ailey!

Notes from Debra Cash on Ailey and Robert Battle

Ailey Artistic Director Robert Battle

Debra Cash has written a brief overview of Robert Battle and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in advance of their April 26-29 engagement at Citi Wang Theatre.

Read: New Shoes: Robert Battle at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

AileyCamp Boston to perform at site of 1968 Ailey performance

 


Celebrity Series of Boston is pleased to announce that AileyCamp Boston's 2010 final performance will take place in the John Hancock Hall At Back Bay Events Center, 180 Berkeley Street (corner of Berkeley & Stuart), in Boston's Back Bay on August 5. The then Boston University Celebrity Series first presented
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in John Hancock Hall in 1968 (the start of a relationship that continues today) and now
this beautiful theatre will be the venue for our final performance!



Thank you to the staff at John Hancock Hall, Back Bay Events Center and Tillinger’s for their generous assistance.

Ailey co. names Robert Battle as new artistic director

The much-anticipated news is finally here and Robert Battle has gotten the nod to replace Judith Jamison at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater:

Read New York Times article

Recent previews & reviews

We've fallen a little behind in our tracking of reviews and previews of our performances in the local press, so Aisle Be Seeing You will now fall back on lists of links to cover more ground. Don't worry, once we get our 2010-2011 subscription season launched, and once we're showered with enough compliments (and once we stop using the royal "we"), we'll pick up the delightfully informative and unrelenting narrative you all know and love. In the meantime, let's hear from the critical establishment:

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (April 15-18, Citi Wang Theatre)

Boston Globe/Boston.com

Boston Herald

Boston Phoenix

The Tufts Daily

Imani Winds with Stefon Harris (April 16, NEC's Jordan Hall)

Boston Globe/Boston.com (preview)

Maya Beiser, World to Come (April 23, Paramount Theatre)

Boston Globe/Boston.com (review)

Maurizio Pollini (April 25, Symphony Hall)
 
Boston Globe/Boston.com

The Boston Musical Intelligencer

The Boston Musical Intelligencer
(Thoughts on Hearing Maurizio Pollini's Hamburg Steinway Fabbrini in Concert)

Danish Dance Theater (April 27 & 28, Paramount Theatre)

Boston Globe/Boston.com

Boston Globe review of Ailey company's opening night

Karen Campbell's review of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's opening night performance is online (it will be in print tomorrow, April 17). The program covered in Campbell's review will be repeated Saturday evening:

"When the music pops into a funky groove, flat-footed jive walks combine with
rippling bodies. An African beat brings on rolling shoulders, arms swinging,
legs bent, dancers briefly launching themselves into backward turns, bodies
curved like commas in the air. Robinson’s swirling, swooping solo seems to
invoke the spirits, her arms repeatedly curling inward as if drawing in curling
tendrils of smoke. She turns in place, head thrown back."

Read all of Ailey troupe celebrates director's dancing spirit.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performs at the Wang Theatre through Sunday.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in "Uptown" (video)

Check out Matthew Rushing's "Uptown" (and dig that jive, Jack!).

April 15 is opening night of Ailey in Boston (April 15-18, Citi Wang Theatre).

Ailey: Ronald K. Brown's "Dancing Spirit" (video)

Ronald K. Brown pays tribute to Judith Jamison with Dancing Spirit, a new work that echoes the title of Jamisons autobiography. Set to music by Duke Ellington, Wynton Marsalis, Radiohead and War, Brown uses movement from Cuba, Brazil and the United States to conjure dancing spirits who embody the elegance, vision, dignity and generosity of Jamison.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returns to The Citi Performing Arts Center's Wang Theatre April 15-18
(Dancing Spirit will be performed April 15 and 17).

Check out Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in "Hymn" (video)

Check out Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Hymn.



And don't miss them at Citi Wang Theatre this April 15-18.

Judith Jamison on PBS Newshour tonight

 
Judith Jamison (center) and the Ailey dancers

PBS NewsHour will air a profile of Judith Jamison, Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to be broadcast nationally on Monday, January 4 (that's tonight!). The program will air in the Boston area at 6:00pm on WGBH 2 and at 11:00pm on WGBH 44: wgbh.org.

Visit www.pbs.org/newshour to check local listings in your area and to view a planned online version of the report.

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performs at Boston's Citi Wang Theatre April 15-18 as part of the Celebrity Series of Boston.