December 14, 2025
Mack’s imaginative and prescient for the long run is lofty, plans to have interaction modern audiences embrace integrating mainstream musicians strikes ahead.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater celebrated its opening season Dec. 3. Main the cost was the newly appointed inventive director, Alicia Graf Mack.
Graf Mack was named inventive director in 2025, turning into solely the fourth particular person to steer the corporate since its founding in 1958 by choreographer Alvin Ailey. Her appointment adopted the tenure of Robert Battle and got here after years of direct involvement with the group as each a dancer and educator. Graf Mack beforehand carried out with the corporate and later served as dean and director of the Juilliard College’s Dance Division earlier than returning to Ailey in a management position. In an interview with Inc, Mack frames her management as each private and mission-driven.
“Working right here is greater than a job. It’s a part of who I’m and what I imagine in. So, I’m not simply right here to meet my hours. I’m all-in,” she stated.
As a frontrunner and former pupil who studied below the final two administrators, Judith Jamison and Battle, she honors the founding philosophy whereas adapting to modern audiences and platforms.
“Dance got here from the folks and will all the time be delivered again to the folks,” Ailey informed the outlet.
Her imaginative and prescient for the long run is lofty, plans to have interaction modern audiences embrace integrating mainstream musicians strikes ahead.
“We’ve to create collaborations throughout industries, like music collaborations, to achieve extra folks too,” she stated, describing how the group plans to have interaction audiences past conventional live performance settings.
Graf Mack’s appointment indicators a brand new part targeted on strategic progress somewhat than reinvention. The corporate plans to emphasise digital outreach, partnerships and storytelling that reinforce the Ailey model whereas remaining devoted to its cultural roots.
Based in New York Metropolis, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has lengthy been acknowledged for centering Black cultural expression inside fashionable dance. The corporate has toured internationally as an envoy of American artwork. Graf Mack’s return to the corporate locations that legacy within the fingers of a frontrunner formed by each its previous and its evolving future.
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