The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s capital campaign was a well-choreographed project that breathed new life into the organization’s fundraising plan

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

The project started in 1998, when the burgeoning dance group was living out of a two-floor space in a multi-purpose building at 61st Street between 10th and 11th avenues, squeezing rehearsal and performance space, offices and everything else in to 36,000 square feet. A strategic plan determined it needed a little more room — like, oh, twice the space — to give dancers and the organization in general the space to be the best it could be and to grow to expand and refine its mission.