Works & Process at the Guggenheim Presents Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: Season Preview Featuring Resident Choreographer Jamar Roberts

• Performing Arts

Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim, presents Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: Season Preview featuring Resident Choreographer Jamar Roberts on Monday, November 18 at 7:30pm.

Preview Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s December season at New York City Center, which includes the world premiere of Ode by Jamar Roberts, Ailey’s first resident choreographer. This new work reflects on the beauty and fragility of life in a time of growing gun violence, set to jazz pianist Don Pullen’s tribute to Malcolm X, Suite (Sweet) Malcolm. Ailey’s acclaimed dancers perform highlights and Artistic Director Robert Battle will participate in a discussion with Roberts, Donald Byrd and Stefanie Batten Bland, moderated by Marina Harss.

TICKETS & VENUE

$45, $40 Guggenheim Members and Friends of Works & Process

House seats may be available for $1,000+ Friends of Works & Process. On a limited basis, house seats may be released to the public before performances at ticket prices of $90, $80 members.

Box Office (212) 423-3575 or worksandprocess.org

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

1071 Fifth Avenue, New York

Lead funding for Works & Process is provided by The Christian Humann Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Evelyn Sharp Foundation, with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Robert Battle became artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in July 2011 after being personally selected by Judith Jamison, making him only the third person to head the Company since it was founded in 1958. A frequent choreographer and artist in residence at Ailey since 1999, he has set many of his works on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Ailey II, and at The Ailey School. The Company’s current repertory includes his ballets

Ella, In/Side, and Mass,. In addition to expanding the Ailey repertory with works by artists as diverse as Kyle Abraham, Mauro Bigonzetti, Rennie Harris, and Paul Taylor, Mr. Battle has also instituted the New Directions Choreography Lab to help develop the next generation of choreographers. Mr. Battle’s journey to the top of the modern dance world began in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami, Florida, studying dance at a high school arts magnet program before moving on to Miami’s New World School of the Arts, and finally to the dance program at The Juilliard School. He danced with The Parsons Dance Company from 1994 to 2001, before founding his own Battleworks Dance Company, which debuted performed extensively nationally and internationally. Mr. Battle was honored as one of the “Masters of African-American Choreography” by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2005, received the prestigious Statue Award from the Princess Grace Foundation-USA in 2007. and was named a 2015 Visiting Fellow for The Art of Change, an initiative by the Ford Foundation. 

Miami native Jamar Roberts graduated from the New World School of the Arts after beginning his studies at the Dance Empire of Miami, where he continues to teach and mentor students each year. He received a fellowship to The Ailey School before becoming a member of Ailey II, Complexions Contemporary Ballet and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2002. Mr. Roberts starred in Moonlight x Ailey, a short dance film (choreographed by Artistic Director Robert Battle) that pays homage to the Oscar-winning film Moonlight. Dance Magazine featured Mr. Roberts as one of “25 to Watch” in 2007 and on the cover in 2013. He performed at The White House in 2010, and as a guest star on So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing with the Stars, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. In 2015 Mr. Roberts won Outstanding Performer at the prestigious New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Awards and was a guest star with London’s Royal Ballet. Prior to being appointed as Ailey’s first-ever Resident Choreographer, he made his Ailey II choreographic debut with Gêmeos (2015), and his Ailey Company debut with Members Don’t Get Weary (2017). In addition, Mr. Roberts has an upcoming commission for New York City Ballet’s 2020 spring season.

Donald Byrd, a TONY nominee (The Color Purple), Bessie Award-winner (The Minstrel Show) and a 2019 Doris Duke Artist Award recipient, is a masterful choreographer often referred to as a “citizen artist” for his ability to craft works that stimulate dialogue through powerful, timely stories and moving social commentary. Byrd has created more than 100 dance works for many companies, including: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Philadelphia Dance Company (Philadanco), Pacific Northwest Ballet, Joffrey Ballet and Donald Byrd/The Group, where he was artistic director from 1978 to 2002. An artistic director of Spectrum Dance Theater since 2002, he recently created works that focus on racial terrorism during the Jim Crow era (lynching), police shootings of un-armed black people, and slavery in its contemporary manifestation (human trafficking). Other productions that showcase his ability to navigate complex societal issues through dance include Interrupted Narratives/War, which tells stories from the war in Iraq, The Theater of Needless Talents, which focuses on the artist victims of the Holocaust, and a cycle of three evening-length works that sought to inspire thoughtful discourse around a post-9/11, globalized America. Byrd has been a cultural envoy for the U.S. Department of State and a fellow at the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue based at Harvard and received. many awards, including a Masters of Choreography Award from The Kennedy Center; a United States Artists Fellowship; and the Mayor’s Arts Award for his sustained contributions to the city of Seattle.

A Jerome Robbins awardee, Stefanie Batten Bland’s interdisciplinary practice interrogates contemporary and historical culture and situates the work at the intersection of installation and dance-theatre. Based in New York City, she founded Company SBB in France in 2008 when she was head choreographer at Paris Opera Comique. In permanent residence at University Settlement, the Company is regularly produced by La MaMa Experimental Theater, which co-presented her new work “Look Who’s Coming to Dinner” for FIAF’s 2019 Crossing the Line Festival. She has been commissioned by Ailey II, Spoleto Italy, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Singapore Frontier Danceland, Brooklyn Museum and others globally. She also makes dance cinema films that have been shown internationally and creates for fashion and lifestyle partners including Louis Vuitton, VanCleef & Arpels and Hermes. Known for her unique movement aesthetic, she served as movement director for “Eve’s Song” at the Public Theater. An inaugural Women’s Movement Initiative Choreographer for ABT, she recently set work on Gibney Dance Company and choreographed for Juilliard New Dances. A 2019 fellow for New York University’s Center for the Ballet Arts, Stefanie has been featured in global media including New York Times, Marie Claire, TV 5 Monde and Dance Teacher Magazine. She received her MFA in interdisciplinary arts from Goddard College and lives in SoHo with her family, where she grew up as the daughter of creatives.   www.companysbb.org

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New York City Center’s Principal Dance Company, returns to the theater’s stage December 4th through January 5th for “Ailey Revealed,” presenting over two dozen diverse works, including world premieres that shine a spotlight on society – Ailey dancer and first-ever Resident Choreographer Jamar Roberts’ Ode offers a meditation on the beauty and fragility of life in a time of growing gun violence and choreographer Donald Byrd will use the 1921 Tulsa riots as a source of inspiration for Greenwood. The five-week holiday season also features company premieres by Aszure Barton and Camille A. Brown, and new productions by Judith Jamison and Lar Lubovitch. For info, visit: www.alvinailey.org

Works & Process at the Guggenheim
Described by The New York Times as “an exceptional opportunity to understand something of the creative process,” for 35 years, New Yorkers have been able to see, hear, and meet the most acclaimed artists in the world, in an intimate setting unlike any other. Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim, has championed new works and offered audiences unprecedented access to generations of leading creators and performers. Most performances take place in the Guggenheim’s intimate Frank Lloyd Wright-designed 273-seat Peter B. Lewis Theater. In 2017, Works & Process established a new residency and commissioning program, inviting artists to create new works, made in and for the iconic Guggenheim rotunda. worksandprocess.org.