COMPANY PERMIERE
July 10, 2010
Summer Stage Festival,
Bronx, NY
Choreography
Music
LIGHTING DESIGN
COSTUME DESIGN
ORIGINAL CAST
About The Choreographer:
Two-time Bessie Award winner Hope Boykin was an original member of Complexions, danced with PHILADANCO!, and performed for 20 years (2000-2020) with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. She has choreographed for numerous dance companies including PHILADANCO!, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Minnesota Dance Theater, BalletX, Eisenhower Dance Detroit, Ballet Black of London, American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, The Philadelphia Ballet, and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and has created three works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: Acceptance In Surrender (2005), in collaboration with fellow Ailey company members Abdur-Rahim Jackson and Matthew Rushing; Go in Grace (2008), for the Company’s 50th anniversary season with music by the award-winning singing group Sweet Honey in the Rock; and r-Evolution, Dream. (2016), inspired by the speeches and sermons of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with original music by Ali Jackson.
In the fall of 2021, Boykin premiered a full evening of her choreography, An Evening of Hope, at 92NY to great acclaim. In 2022, she choreographed and directed The Other Side, bringing Jacqueline Woodson’s children’s book of the same name to life for The Kennedy Center’s Family Theater, and choreographed The Kennedy Center’s 50th Anniversary Celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s MASS. States Of Hope, her fully scripted, evening length dance theater work was presented at the Joyce Theater in October 2023.
Boykin serves as Artistic Advisor for Dance Education for The Kennedy Center and Artistic Lead for The Kennedy Center Dance Lab. She is Artist-In-Residence at USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance and was an advisor for the Howard University Department of Dance in the 2021 spring semester. She was a 2022-23 Fellow of The Center for Ballet and the Arts.
Boykin continues to build on her work as a writer and filmmaker, blending her words and cadence as the foundation of her developing movement language. She released “Beauty Size & Color,” a short film commenting on what has changed in the first 20 years of the 21st century on PBS.org. As an educator, creator, mover, and motivator, Boykin firmly believes there are no limits.
Matthew Rushing was born in Los Angeles, California. He began his dance training with Kashmir Blake in Inglewood, California, and continued his training at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. He is the recipient of a Spotlight Award and a Dance Magazine Award and was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. He was a scholarship student at The Ailey School and later became a member of Ailey II. During his career, Mr. Rushing has performed as a guest artist for galas in Vail, Colorado, as well as in Austria, Canada, France, Italy, and Russia. He has performed for Presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, as well as at the 2010 White House Dance Series. During his time with the Company, he has choreographed five ballets: Acceptance In Surrender (2005), a collaboration with Hope Boykin and Abdur-Rahim Jackson; Uptown(2009), a tribute to the Harlem Renaissance; ODETTA (2014), a celebration of “the queen of American folk music”; Testament (2020), a tribute to Alvin Ailey’s Revelations created in collaboration with Clifton Brown and Yusha-Marie Sorzano; and Sacred Songs (2024). In 2012 he created Moan, which was set on PHILADANCO! and premiered at the Joyce Theater. Mr. Rushing joined the Company in 1992. He became Rehearsal Director in 2010, Associate Artistic Director in 2020, and Interim Artistic Director in 2023.