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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (New York City, New York)

USA / New Jersey / West New York / New York City, New York / West 55th Street, 405
 movie / film / TV location, dance school / dance academy

6-story modernist theater completed in 2004. Designed by Iu + Bibliowicz Architects, it is the largest building dedicated to dance in New York City. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) is a modern dance company that was founded in 1958 by choreographer and dancer Alvin Ailey. Ailey established a school in 1969, the same year that the company moved to the Brooklyn Academy of Music from the 92nd Street Y. Both company and school relocated to a renovated church building on 59th Street a year later. They moved to 61st Street on the Upper West Side in 1989. Following tours in Russia, France and Cuba in the 1990s, as well as a residency in South Africa in 1997, the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation announced in 2001 that a new dance complex was to be developed. Ground was broken on the building site in Manhattan the following year. The company and school moved into the building, named the Joan Weill Center for Dance, in 2004. Joan Weill Center for Dance includes state-of-the-art dance studios, a flexible performance space with seating for up to 275 people, a library, costume shop, physical therapy facilities, lounges, and administrative offices.

On October 18, 2017, the Ailey organization officially opened the Elaine Wynn & Family Education Wing, a 10,000-square-foot expansion of Ailey’s permanent home. It expanded to originally 2-story west wing of the center to five floors, slightly taller than the 6-story east wing due to the very tall floor-to-floor heights of the studio spaces. The expansion was also designed by Iu + Bibliowicz Architects, with matching materials.

The center's facade is clad in reddish-orange brick, silver-and-grey metal, and glass. Brick columns frame the Education Wing, with a dark-green marble wall at the base. Above the base and between the brick piers is a glass-and-metal curtain wall, projecting out from the east pier. To the east, the main building has a wide set of grey stone steps leading up to the main entrance, with glass doors. The ground floor is slightly recessed, with four round, white columns supporting the upper floors. A white, organic, undulating canopy cover the ground floor, with metal lettering topping it at the east end, spelling out "ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER". To the right of the steps is another dark-green marble wall fronting a small plaza area. Metal lettering at the east end of the wall (where it is shorter due to the slope of the site) spells out "THE JOAN WELL CENTER FOR DANCE". The curtain wall above the ground floor is slightly set back from the brick pier at the west that separates the Education Wing. The top two floors are taller than the bottom four. The curtain wall has horizontal and vertical metal mullions, and opaque pale-green tinted glass in the spandrels.

The recessed ground floor continues on the east facade along the avenue, with two more white, round columns next to the corner column. At the north end there is a narrow brick section with horizontal banding. At the ground floor the brick cladding extends south just a bit, under the north end of the curtain wall, where there is a metal service door. The clear glass of the windows ends at the north end of the curtain wall, replaced by metal paneling. It is named after Joan Weill who made a principal donation for its funding.

In 2016, the interior was used as a remote filming location for "Conan" on TBS.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR29Mlby5o4
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Coordinates:   40°46'1"N   73°59'12"W
This article was last modified 10 months ago