Donald Byrd’s Shards is a skillfully crafted work, which showcases his eclectic and complex choreography. Set to music by Mio Morales, Byrd expertly combines passion and formality in this ballet, creating the perfect vehicle for the stunning Ailey II dancers.

Quintet is in its way a small masterwork and one that differed significantly from other Ailey signature works before it. Like Reflections in D, the piece was an imaginative and sensitive reading of its score, and it offered yet more proof of Alvin's distinctive gift for blending serious choreography and themes with affectionate teasing of his characters. In the new piece, however, Alvin explored for the first time the private being behind a highly public face, a subject he would return to repeatedly."
- Jennifer Dunning, Alvin Ailey: A Life In Dance

Using African-American spirituals, song-sermons, gospel songs and holy blues--this suite fervently explores the places of deepest grief and holiest joy in the soul.

Thang Dao’s Echoes began as a haunting depiction of the choreographer’s memories of life in Vietnam and his migration to America. This poignant ballet has grown into a deeply moving reverie that transcends personal history.

Paris-born choreographer Benoit-Swan Pouffer, a former member of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the current artistic director of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, brings a European sensibility to Ailey II’s repertory with this new work.

In 1984, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Artistic Director Emerita Judith Jamison created Divining, on a major company for the first time at the request of her mentor, Alvin Ailey.  The ritualized ballet is set to a score that incorporates North African, Central African and Latin rhythms.