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Repertory

A Jam Session For Troubling Times

COMPANIES

CHOREOGRAPHER

WORLD PREMIERE

The Joan Weill Center for Dance, 2020

MUSIC

Music by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie

Alvin Ailey famously said that “dance came from the people, and it should always be delivered back to the people.” In this upbeat, quirky, and accessible work, choreographer Jamar Roberts holds fast to that mission.

During the centennial year of the birth of jazz saxophonist and composer Charlie “Bird” Parker, at a time in our world rife with chaos and uncertainty, A Jam Session For Troubling Times used the energy, nuance, and virtuosity of the bebop sound as a vehicle to lift our spirits and demonstrate that we are stronger than our circumstances.  

NOTE: This work was created and filmed for viewing online, not onstage, and premiered during AILEY’s first-ever Virtual Winter Season in December 2020. 

a group of dancers stand in a dimily lit narrow allyway

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Jamar Roberts' A Jama Session for Troubling Times Photo courtesy of Emily Kikta & Peter Walker

a group og people are dancing outside on a patio

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Jamar Roberts' A Jam Session For Troubling Times Photo courtesy of Emily Kikta & Peter Walker

Funders

Generous support for A Jam Session For Troubling Times was provided by the Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey through the generosity of the Muriel McBrien Kauffman Foundation. The world premiere of A Jam Session For Troubling Times was made possible with major support from Simin N. Allison, Michele & Timothy Barakett, Peter S. Croncota, The Jaharis Family Foundation, Judith McDonough Kaminski & Joseph Kaminski, Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey - Sara & Bill Morgan New Works Endowment Fund, Tracy Elise Poole, Denise Littlefield Sobel, Elaine P. Wynn & Family Foundation, and Pamela D. Zilly & John H. Schaefer.