ALICIA GRAF MACK

In November 2024, the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation announced that Alicia Graf Mack would become the fourth Artistic Director in AILEY's 66-year history, effective July 1, 2025 — succeeding Alvin Ailey, Judith Jamison, and Robert Battle. The announcement came just weeks after Judith Jamison's passing, and it carried the weight of that timing: Jamison had brought Graf Mack into the Ailey company, championed her throughout her career, and now her protégé would carry the institution forward. It is one of the most significant appointments in American dance in a generation.

Graf Mack arrived at this role having already done something historic: from 2018 to 2025, she served as Dean and Director of the Dance Division at The Juilliard School — becoming the first Black person and the youngest individual ever to hold that position. During her tenure she overhauled Juilliard's curriculum to require hip-hop and West African dance alongside classical technique, eliminating gender restrictions on pointe and partnering work, and producing four consecutive graduating classes with 100% job placement in major dance companies worldwide.

The Ailey Appointment — July 2025

As Artistic Director, Graf Mack oversees the entire AILEY organization: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, The Ailey School, Ailey Arts In Education & Community Programs, and Ailey Extension. She becomes the steward of Revelations — the most widely viewed modern dance work in history, seen by over 25 million people in 71 countries. She also inherits the mission Ailey built and Jamison sustained: to bring dance back to the people, to tell the truth about Black American experience through movement, and to build an institution that serves communities rather than just elite audiences.

The Juilliard Years — Remaking Dance Education

Graf Mack's seven years at Juilliard were transformative for American dance education. She added hip-hop and West African dance as required courses for all students, removed the gender-based restrictions that had governed who could take pointe and pas de deux classes, and introduced vocal arts as a component of dancer training. Her vision: dancers who are as fluent in contemporary, ballet, hip-hop, and West African forms as they are in any single discipline — and who understand how all of those traditions connect and inform each other.

Career as a Dancer

Before her institutional leadership, Graf Mack built a distinguished performance career. She trained with Arthur Mitchell at Dance Theatre of Harlem at 17, rose to principal ballerina, then — after a diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis required surgery — pivoted to Columbia University, graduating magna cum laude in history. Mitchell offered her a principal dancer contract upon graduation. She subsequently joined Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2005, where the New York Times wrote that she "was so good she became the news of the night all by herself." She has performed as a guest artist with Alonzo King LINES Ballet and alongside Beyoncé, John Legend, André 3000, Alicia Keys, and Jon Batiste.

Explore more Dance Mogul features including Judith Jamison and Michael Joy. More at ailey.org.