Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater opened its September visit to Sadler's Wells with New Works, three UK premieres and a Judith Jamison duet from the company's newest repertoire.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater opened a five-night visit to Sadler’s Wells Theatre in Angel on Tuesday 15 September 2026 with New Works, a bill built largely on UK premieres.
Alvin Ailey founded the company in New York in 1958 with a group of Black dancers, when American ballet companies would not employ them. He had trained under Lester Horton and took over Horton’s company on his death.
Ailey died in 1989. The company he left is among the largest in the world and has its own building on West 55th Street.
The bill set three UK premieres beside a Judith Jamison duet. Medhi Walerski’s Blink of an Eye explores the relationship between dance and music. In Song of the Anchorite, Jamar Roberts revisits Hermit Songs, Ailey’s 1961 solo on medieval religious texts and the Samuel Barber song cycle they inspired.
Lar Lubovitch’s Many Angels is danced to the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. A Case of You, from Jamison’s 2005 Reminiscin’, is a duet to Diana Krall’s recording of the Joni Mitchell song.
From Wednesday the Legacy programme ran on the same four nights, and New Works closed on Revelations, as the company’s evenings do.