World Premiere of Sea Change
Roberts / Adams
Former Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater artist and choreographer, Miami-native Jamar Roberts returns home for a highly anticipated powerful new work.
Lopez’s original plan was to show new works commissioned by three rising choreographers together in the Spring 2020 program “Ablaze.” Juggling all parties’ schedules, she’s kept her promise piecemeal in presenting choreographer Durante Verzola’s “Sentimiento” last spring, and choreographer Claudia Schreier’s “The Source” in 2022.
Miami native and former Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater member and Ailey’s first-ever resident choreographer Jamar Roberts, the final component of the trio, scratched his initial creation for an entirely new piece titled “Sea Change,” which is also set to different music.
“Jamar was the only one left,” says Lopez, who has seen his choreography through the Guggenheim New York’s “Works & Progress” performance series and its commissioned short video “Cooped,” which he made during the pandemic.
“I thought his film was extraordinary, and he’s a very gentle individual on stage,” says Lopez.
Roberts, a graduate of the New World School of the Arts in Miami, moved to New York in 2001 and first joined the Ailey company in 2002. Taking a break from rehearsal at MCB’s studios, he spoke about his homecoming and how he never got used to Miami’s heat, even as a kid growing up in the Goulds neighborhood.
Now, he says, he’ll put up with a little perspiration to lead master classes at Dance Empire of Miami, where, as a teenager, he discovered his talent, and mentor and chosen family in its artistic director Angel Fraser-Logan. He also drops by whenever he can to teach at her spinoff, eponymous dance company.
Roberts comes to MCB with a stacked résumé. He created “Gêmeos” for Ailey II and “Members Don’t Get Weary” for Alvin Ailey prior to his residency there from 2019-2022, which resulted in four