10/28/17 O&A NYC IT’S SATURDAY ANYTHING GOES EXTRA- DANCE: Top 20 Soul Train Dancers of All Time

Soul Train dancers taught the world how to boogie in platform shoes, a huge Afros and bell bottom polyester pants while looking very so cool. The alumni include Shalamar members Jody Watley and Jeffrey Daniel, and let’s not forget the Asian girl.  Continue reading

10/28/17 O&A NYC GOING BACK TO AFRICA WITH WaleStylez: Top 10 Best Traditional African Dances

African traditional Dances refers mainly to the dances performed by the cultural communities found in continent. Communities use these dances to teach, to socialize, ceremonies and for celebrating festivals and moaning funerals while Some dances are exclusively used for spiritual or religious practices. Continue reading

9/16/17 O&A NYC DANCE: Dance Documentary- The Alvin Ailey Company: Beyond The Dance (Paris 2005)

Dance Documentary- The Alvin Ailey Company: Beyond The Dance (Paris 2005) featuring Judith Jamison, Masazumi Chaya, Matthew Rushing, Glenn Allen Sims, Amos Mechanic Jr., Calvin Hunt, Dwana Smallwood, Hope Boykin, Renee Robinson and excepts from the extensive and diverse repertory.  Continue reading

9/4/17 O&A NYC DANCE: Arthur Mitchell- Dance Pioneer

Arthur Mitchell, pioneering ballet dancer, artistic director and choreographer has recently secured his achieves with Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Continue reading

8/31/17 O&A NYC DANCE: An Evening with Misty Copeland

Misty Copeland, the first African American female principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre, has often spoken out about being “different” in the world of ballet. Continue reading

8/18/17 O&A NYC SATURDAY MORNING CONCERT: The Magic of Dance

Reflections by Margot Fonteyn with Mikhail Baryshnikov, London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Dance Theater of Harlem the film includes dance history and fascinating facts. Continue reading

8/19/17 O7A NYC GOSPEL SUNDAY: Mourner’s Bench- Talley Beatty Choreographer

mourn2

Talley Beatty choreographed and performed Mourner’s Bench in 1947. It represents the anguish and loss for former slaves, now free men, killed during the Reconstruction Era at the beginning of the rise of the Klu Klux Klan. Beatty explained to me, “People were murdered by the Klan and at daybreak their relatives would find their bodies in the fields still covered in the morning dew.”

Continue reading

12/28/17 O&A NYC: THROWBACK THURSDAY: I Wanna Be Ready (1986)


dudleywilliams

In a long, brilliant career, Dudley Williams worked with such artists as Martha Graham, Talley Beatty, and Donald McKayle. Most significantly, he was a member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for more than forty years. He will be forever linked to his interpretation of the solo I Wanna Be Ready from Alvin Ailey’s masterwork Revelations.

 “[Dudley Williams is] amazing—an inspiration to everybody, a real poet with movement.” –Alvin Ailey from Revelations: The Autobiography of Alvin Ailey.

Continue reading

6/6/20 O&A NYC TRIBUTE: Loretta Abbott March 1, 19( I ain’t tellin)- May 6, 2016

By Walter Rutledge

0db153d13cb3e017719e7e87ef1164fa

Loretta Abbott, dancer, actress, singer and choreographer passed away on Sunday June 5, 2016. A natural performer Abbott had two passions: her love for dance that spanned over 70 years, and her allegiance to the Harlem community where she lived her entire life. Continue reading