Skip to content
A black and white photo of a performance by Donald McKayle & Co. in Games. Several dancers are on stage, some crouching and others mid-movement. They are barefoot and wearing casual costumes. A streetlamp and a building with broken windows serve as the backdrop.

Repertory

Games

COMPANIES

CHOREOGRAPHER

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER PREMIERE

New York City Center, 1990

AILEY II PREMIERE

Lincoln Center, 1976

WORLD PREMIERE

Hunter Playhouse, 1951

DÉCOR

William Burd

COSTUMES

Remy Charlip 
Ailey II costumes recreated by Deliliah Mosley

LIGHTING

Chenault Spence

ASSISTANT TO CHOREOGRAPHER

Dudley Williams

MUSICAL STYLE

Traditional (a cappella songs and chants associated with childhood games)

RUN TIME

22 Minutes

Donald McKayle's Games finds the dancers prancing, skipping, hopscotching, and singing their way through a touching scene of street-corner friendship, grief, and merriment. However, their play has a nervous edge to it, as if they realize that danger lurks, and Games ends with a sudden and mysterious act of violence. When it premiered in 1951, Games became an instant classic notable for its deep sympathy for the children it portrayed, inhabiting a restricted world not of their making.