From: Miami, Florida. LA Opera: The First Bluebird in the Morning (2021 Digital Short, debut).
Jamar Roberts is the Resident Choreographer of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, where he also danced as a company member from 2002 to2021. Roberts has made four works on the company, all to critical acclaim: Members Don’t Get Weary (December 2016), Ode (December 2019), A Jam Session for Troubling Times (December 2020) and Holding Space (May 2021). He has also set his work entitled Gemeos on Ailey II.
Mr. Roberts is a graduate of the New World School of the Arts and the Ailey School and has danced for AAADT, Ailey II, and Complexions Contemporary Ballet. Mr. Roberts won the 2016 Bessie Award for Outstanding Performer and has performed as a guest artist with the Royal Ballet in London and made multiple television performance appearances.
He has been commissioned by the Vail Dance Festival, the Juilliard School Dance Division for both live and virtual works, New York City Ballet, the March on Washington Film Festival to create a dance on film tribute to the Honorable John Lewis, New York City Center’s 2020 Virtual Fall for Dance Festival, and as a Works and Process at the Guggenheim Virtual Commissioned artist where he created the acclaimed short work on film entitled Cooped. His latest creation on film at Works and Process at the Guggenheim entitled A Chronicle of a Pivot at a Point in Time premiered on film in the summer of 2021 and will be restaged for a live performance in the near future.
He was most recently featured on the cover of Dance Magazine in June of 2021, having previously been on the cover in June 2013 and being named “25 to Watch” in 2007. His next work will premiere on New York City Ballet in 2022.
