Auditorium Theatre 2019-2020 Alvin Ailey

12 | ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER | MARCH 4-8, 2020 FRIDAY, MARCH 6 @ 7:30PM GREENWOOD (2019) Before it was destroyed, the segregated Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma — known as “Black Wall Street” — was one of the most affluent Black communities in the country. That all changed on May 30, 1921, when an incident occurred in the elevator of a local office building; nobody truly knows what happened, but a young Black man was arrested for attempted assault on a White teenaged girl. The next day, a newspaper report about the arrest incited an armed White mob, and things quickly escalated. Over the next day, the mob grew in size and burned much of the neighborhood to the ground, killing as many as 300 Black people, and leaving another 10,000 homeless. Afterwards, the Tulsa Race Massacre was quickly erased from the nation’s memory, but the story has resurfaced with the event’s centennial coming up in 2021. Learn more at AlvinAiley.org/blog Choreography by Donald Byrd Rehearsal Associates: Mikhail Calliste, Derek Crescenti, Stephanie Guiland, Jamal Story Music by various artists Sound by Robertson Witmer Costumes by Doris Black Lighting by Jack Mehler Jacqueline Green, Sarah Daley-Perdomo, Vernard J. Gilmore, Clifton Brown, Ghrai DeVore-Stokes, Solomon Dumas, Jacquelin Harris, Yannick Lebrun, Jeroboam Bozeman, Michael Jackson, Jr., James Gilmer, Samantha Figgins, Patrick Coker, Miranda Quinn The world premiere of Greenwood is made possible with generous support from an Anonymous donor and the Fred Eychaner New Works Endowment Fund. Donald Byrd founded Donald Byrd/The Group in 1978, which toured extensively nationally and internationally before closing in 2002. He was named artistic director of Spectrum Dance Theater in Seattle in December 2002. He studied at Tufts and Yale Universities, The Cambridge School of Ballet, the London School of Contemporary Dance, and The Ailey School. Since 1976, Mr. Byrd has created more than 80 works for The Group, Spectrum, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and many other major modern dance companies in the United States and abroad. Best known for The Harlem Nutcracker , a reworking of the Christmas classic, he also choreographed for numerous stage productions, including for the New York Shakespeare Festival and New York City Opera. He has taught across the country and was a Fellow at the Institute on the Arts & Civic Dialogue at Harvard for three years. Mr. Byrd was appointed to the Seattle Arts Commission in July 2003. Original compositions “Pulsation Voices,” “Ominous,” and “With Pianos” created by Emmanuel Witzthum; Original compositions “In The Last Light” and “Known Things” created by Emmanuel Witzthum and Craig Tattersall; “Move Members Move” by Harold Courlander; “My Soul Is A Witness” by Austin Coleman with Joe Washington Brown & Group. INTERMISSION PROGRAM C