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Dance|Alvin Ailey Dance Chooses Alicia Graf Mack to Be Next Leader
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/21/arts/dance/alvin-ailey-american-dance-theater-alicia-graf-mack.html
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Mack, director of the dance division at Juilliard, will be the popular company’s fourth artistic director.
Nov. 21, 2024, 4:58 p.m. ET
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has chosen Alicia Graf Mack to be its next artistic director, it announced on Thursday.
A former member of the company, Mack, 45, currently the director of the dance division at Juilliard, will take on her new role in July.
“I have been inspired by the Ailey organization since I was a baby,” Mack said in a phone interview. “I am feeling incredibly blessed and grateful for the opportunity.”
Anthony A. Lewis, a board member who led the selection committee, said that during an extensive global search, Mack stood out for her emotional intelligence, humility and sense of purpose. “In Alicia, we saw a strength of character like Mr. Ailey’s, along with a vision for the future,” he said. “It became a clear choice.”
Founded by Alvin Ailey in 1958, the company is one of the most popular and successful institutions in American dance, touring internationally and filling New York City Center for a month each winter. The organization also includes a junior company, Ailey II, and a thriving school. An exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, “Edges of Ailey,” focuses on the impact of the company and its founder.
Mack will be the organization’s fourth artistic director, following Robert Battle, who stepped down suddenly last November, and Judith Jamison, who inherited the position from Ailey after his death in 1989 and who died this month. (Matthew Rushing has been filling in as interim artistic director.)
