Repertory

Kairos

COMPANIES

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

CHOREOGRAPHER

Wayne Mcgregor

COMPANY PREMIERE

New York City Center, 2018

WORLD PREMIERE

Ballett Zürich, Opernhaus Zürich, Switzerland, 2014

MUSIC

Max Richter “Vivaldi – The Four Seasons Recomposed”

SET

Idris Khan

COSTUME

Moritz Junge

LIGHTING

Lucy Carter

RESTAGING

Antoine Vereecken

RUN TIME

34 minutes

The title for this contemporary ballet by British powerhouse Wayne McGregor takes its name from the ancient Greek word "kairos," which denotes the most opportune time to take action (its other meaning is “weather”). The ballet plays out against an imaginative set by Idris Khan to Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, re-imagined by experimental composer Max Richter.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was the first American company to perform this work. Like McGregor’s wildly popular Chroma, performed by the Company three years earlier, Kairos uses walls to create a starkly dramatic onstage world—the perfect setting for his sinuous, angular movement.

Kairos by Wayne McGregor

Ballet in a Modern World: The Ailey company in Kairos

Origins, Sets, & Music in Wayne McGregor's Kairos

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Jacqueline Green and Jamar Roberts in Wayne McGregor's Kairos Photo by Paul Kolnik

News & Press

"A visually rapturous work. In its climatic U.S. premiere, the dancers of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater stay true to Wayne McGregor’s intellectual brilliance without sacrificing the trademark spirituality of Ailey." –Serena S.Y. Hsu, The Dance Enthusiast, 12/19/18

"Mr. McGregor is one of the world’s most in-demand choreographers. His vocabulary combines ballet, modern and various aspects of modern social dance in a clever fusion." –Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times, 12/13/18

"Robert Battle has a keen eye for contemporary choreographers who suit the company, however outside the Ailey mould they may seem, such as the cerebral, spiky Briton Wayne McGregor. His Kairos enters a pastoral and elegiac realm. If splayed ribs count as risqué for ballet dancers, for these troupers the soul rides up and down the spine, flexed or not. They treat the movement as tenderly as they do each other. It gains in depth and complication." –Apollinaire Scherr, Financial Times, 12/11/18

Funders

_{The Company premiere of}_Kairos_{was supported by commissioning funds from New York City Center. Leadership support for the creation of}_Kairos_{was provided by Simin N. Allison and The Pamela D. Zilly and John H. Schaefer New Works Endowment Fund.}

Two dancers in front of a screen that looks like a lowering orange sun. They are wearing big hats and have church fans.

Support Ailey

Every donation to AILEY, a non-profit organization, furthers the pioneering vision of our founder, Alvin Ailey, to deliver dance back to the people.

Donate Today

Hero Credit: Photo by Paul Kolnik