Alvin Ailey and Celebrity Series expand free dance workshops

Celina Colby

Celina Colby is an arts and travel reporter with a fondness for Russian novels.... VIEW BIO

May isn’t just the season of swan boats and blooming flowers in Boston, it’s the season of Alvin Ailey. For almost six decades, the Black American dance group has been performing almost annually in the Hub in partnership with Celebrity Series. This year, with the help of local community leaders, Celebrity Series is ramping up the educational aspect of the group’s visits, tripling the number of workshops and educational events.

Renee Robinson, a dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for three decades and a current faculty member at The Ailey School in New York City, says education has always been at the core of the Ailey mission. Robinson will be one of the teaching artists visiting Boston later this month.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater artist Yannick LeBrun leads a crowd in dancing selections from Ailey’s masterpiece “Revelations.” PHOTO: ROBERT TORRES

“Mr. Ailey believed that dance came from the people and that it should always be delivered back to the people,” said Robinson. “He was always a big believer in giving back to the community and engaging the community through educational programs like master classes, lecture demonstrations and workshops.”

Spearheading the expanded educational programming on the Celebrity Series end is Shaumba-Yandje Dibinga, the founding artistic director of OrigiNation Cultural Arts Center in Jamaica and a longtime Ailey education participant. A self-dubbed “Ailey baby,” she attended the Ailey School in Boston for summer intensive and longer-term programs and later worked with the Boston edition of AileyCamp, a free, summer day camp for dancers ages 11 to 14.

Local children get caught up in the fun at a previous year’s “AILEY Revelations Celebration” from Ailey’s masterpiece “Revelations.” PHOTO: ROBERT TORRES

“It’s been beautiful to be able to come back into Celebrity Series in this manner, because I am helping bring back Ailey joy to our communities in Boston,” said Dibinga.

Ailey teaching artists always bring at least one workshop into Boston communities, but this year the program is significantly expanded and renamed an “Ailey ‘Revelations’ Celebration.” As many as 1,000 Bostonians are expected to participate, dancing joyfully together.

Teaching artists Robinson and Amos Machanic Jr. and percussionist Roderick Jackson will host four workshops of the classic Ailey performance “Revelations” while sharing history and information about the dance and the company.

Local children get caught up in the fun at a previous year’s “AILEY Revelations Celebration” from Ailey’s masterpiece “Revelations.” PHOTO: ROBERT TORRES

Each workshop will be paired with at least one performance by a local group, including the Voices of Renaissance Choir from the Boston Renaissance Charter School, The Soarin’ Steppaz from Brooke Charter High School, Boston Rhythm Riders, the Boston chapter of the 40+ Double Dutch Crew and OrigiNation Junior Dance Teams.

These workshops will run March 22-23 at the Boston Renaissance Charter School, 250 Stuart St. in Park Square; Brooke Charter High School, 200 American Legion Highway, Mattapan; the Roxbury YMCA at 285 Martin Luther King Blvd.; and Chez-Vous Roller Rink, 11 Rhodes St., on the Dorchester/Mattapan line. All events are free and open to the public.

Dibinga says she’s had young people participate in OrigiNation programs and the Ailey workshops who have gone on to dance with Kendrick Lamar and Beyonce as well as dancers who have trained to become members of the Ailey company.

“People need to see that everything is possible,” said Dibinga. “It’s an opportunity for our community to see that just because you’re starting off right here in a community center doesn’t mean that you can’t achieve great things.”