Black, Brown and Beige was choreographed by Alvin Ailey in 1976 as part of the Bicentennial Celebration at Lincoln Center. The music of Duke Ellington was his inspiration. It was a sweeping portrayal of African American History, from slavery and emancipation to the present.  Five pieces of Ellington’s music were used to celebrate the composer and multiculturalism: “Work Song”, “Come Sunday”, “West Indian Dance”, “Emancipation”, and “Sonnet for Caesar.”

This episodic work recalls hundreds of years of African heritage, with robust dancing and changing music. The three river settings – the Nile, the Mississippi, and the Harlem – act as a metaphor for the journey.

I’ve known rivers: 
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in the human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
–Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”

When Caravan premiered in 1976, Judith Jamison led the cast of 19 through Louis Falco's freewheeling choreography. Now a new generation of Ailey dancers put their mark on this high-spirited work. Amidst a spectacular array of richly textured moving panels, scrims and curtains, they explode across the stage in animated bursts of vivacious dancing and frivolity.

According to Masazumi Chaya, Ailey's Associate Artistic Director, that joyful, spirited mood is the essence of Caravan. "There are not a lot of difficult steps in it. There's no trick in it. So you have to be genuine and show how much fun it is to dance," he stresses.

That's not to say that restaging such an ambitious and important work was not without its challenges. "The most difficult thing in restaging Caravan is that Louis Falco had a really specific style," explains Chaya. "No other choreographer does that style. How much we can transfer that, that was my challenge. Because our Company dancers now are so talented, they can do anything. But at the same time we really have to show what the original style was supposed to be. At the time Louis choreographed this ballet it was very unique. At that time the predominant style was more individual dancing. Caravan involves a great deal of contact among the dancers - one putting his weight on another, one moving back and taking the weight… The dancers had to get used to this style and the type of interaction between dancers that it requires. It's a different way of movement, but at the same time it's so much fun. It's really dancing together; it's not just dancing on the same stage, the dancers have to dance actually together, which is different. For us [in the original production] it took a little time to get used to everyone's different size, everyone's different way of moving, so it took a little longer than it did for us to learn other ballets. This is a 30 minute ballet; this group learned the whole thing in two weeks! I was very lucky to have this group. They had, I'm sure, their own issues - the style is different, all those things - but at the same time they really tried." Chaya recalls the original production of Caravan fondly. Asked what he remembers of his experience in the cast he exclaims, "I had a great time, but I didn't know the audience was going to react like they did. I mean screaming! I didn't expect that to happen. At the first performance, the curtain came down and I heard this unbelievable applause and then yelling and screaming from the audience; that was quite a surprise! And that was a consistent reaction every time. Every place we danced that ballet it was hugely successful. And the dancers got to like doing it more and more. In the beginning there was a little hesitation, because we didn't know how the audience was going to react. But their reaction was just tremendous." Chaya is hopeful that audiences will respond just as enthusiastically this time around, and that the power of the dancers' performance will work their magic. "When I look at this group, they just don't hold back," he praises. "They have such energy and beauty. And the generosity of these people works for this dance."

Created for Judith Jamison, this solo blends the blues, a woman’s independence, and sly humor. Five female records play throughout the ballet while Ms. Jamison playfully pulls dazzling dresses from a trunk.

Dedicated to the Free Spirit in All of Us.

Set in the jungle to drumbeats and jazz music, George Faison’s ballet communicates the idea of personal freedom. The story begins with native tribesmen hunting a gazelle; however, the story later shifts as the native tribesmen become the ones targeted.
 

Created as a solo for Dudley Williams, Hobo Sapiens takes place in a red-brick alley and traces a man’s life from youth to middle age. Helping set the street scene are Stevie Wonder and Billy’s Preston’s rock and roll and R&B music.

Pas de Duke is Alvin Ailey’s spirited modern dance translation of a classical pas de deux, originally created in 1976 as a showcase for Judith Jamison and Mikhail Baryshnikov. She was a reigning star of modern dance; he was one of the world’s most famous ballet dancers, having defected from the Soviet Union two years earlier. Ailey made brilliant use of the dancers’ physical and stylistic differences, crafting an elegant, flirtatious work that showed off their exuberance and virtuosity as they engaged in a playful game of one-upmanship.

The work is comprised of five solos and duets that require extraordinary technical facility, flawless timing, and strong acting skills. Since its premiere, it has been performed by generations of dancers who have each put their own unique twist on the choreography, and it has stood the test of time in part for how perfectly it captures the timeless sophistication of Duke Ellington's jazz music. The New York Times has praised it as “one of those special dances that lives in new ways with each new set of performers.”

The Pas de Trois Behind 'Pas de Duke', The New York Times

Support for this production of Pas de Duke was provided by The Ellen Jewett & Richard L. Kauffman New Works Endowment Fund and Daria L. & Eric J. Wallach.

The original Ailey production was made possible, in part, with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts, and by a grant from Ford Foundation.

Generous support for this production was received from Laren and Jesse Brill.

Sophisticated, lush and alluring, Ellington’s music became part of a legendary collaboration with Alvin Ailey and left an indelible mark on American dance.

Three Black Kings was the last major work written by Duke Ellington.  As he lay dying in his hospital bed in 1974, he gave his son, Mercer, final instructions on how it was to be completed and orchestrated.  The first movement with its African rhythmic motifs, depicts Balthazar, the Black king of the Nativity; the second is concerned with Solomon, King of Israel; and the third celebrates, with warm “down-home” feeling, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ellington's good friend whose triumphs are celebrated in the inspiring finale.  At its premiere, The New York Times noted “…with its crescendo of gospel rhythms and its expressionist symbols of marches and martyrdom…moves the spectator” and The Daily News hailed the work as “An intensely moving vision…”

Listen to Company member Glenn Allen Sims talk about dancing in Three Black Kings
 

Leadership support for this production was provided by American Express.

Generous support for this new production was also provided by The Ellen Jewett & Richard L. Kauffman New Works Endowment Fund.