Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will bring four new programs to the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Pkwy., for six shows on March 22-26.
Led by Artistic Director Robert Battle, the company will present Chicago premieres of three new works: Deep, by Mauro Bigonzetti and set to the music of global music stars Ibeyi; r-Evolution, Dream., by longtime company member Hope Boykin, inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. and set to narration by Tony winner Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton) and original music by Ali Jackson (Jazz at Lincoln Center); and Untitled America, a work by MacArthur Fellow Kyle Abraham that examines the impact of incarceration on African-American families.
Also new will be Masekela Language, set to the music of trumpeter and composer Hugh Masekela. Ailey’s theatrical work from 1969, drawing parallels between South African apartheid and the race-induced violence of Chicago in the 1960s.
The company also will perform pieces new to its repertory, including Johan Inger’s Walking Mad and Robert Battle’s Ella, which celebrates the birth centennial of Ella Fitzgerald. Other works in the Chicago programs include Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain Pas de Deux, Billy Wilson’s The Winter in Lisbon (honoring the birth centennial of Dizzy Gillespie) and Battle’s In/Side.
Each performance will close with Ailey’s Revelations, which has been seen by more people around the world than any other modern work.
Tickets start at $33 each, and are available online at AuditoriumTheatre.org, by phone at 312-341-2300 or in person at the Auditorium Theatre’s box office.