Spirituals

Spirituals was originally choreographed in 1949 by famed African American ballerina of the Metropolitan Opera, Janet Collins. In 1974, Ms. Collins recreated the piece on Donna Wood for a season in which Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater celebrated the legacies of Ms. Collins and Pearl Primus. “I was always an enigma,” Ms. Collins said. “People never heard of someone doing pointe work and then Negro spirituals.”