Alvin Ailey

Thirty city school children will get a broad introduction to dance as well as a chance to develop their social skills during a two-week Alvin Ailey Mini-Camp that begins today at Morgan State University.The kids, ages 11-13, were selected from 10 city middle schools and Project Raise -- a mentoring program for disadvantaged youth -- and represent a cross-section of backgrounds, according to the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre Foundation of Maryland. The foundation is sponsoring the camp as part of the Maryland residency by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.

The Columbia Festival of the Arts returns for a third summer with an11-day program of music, art and dance opening with a performance bythe Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and closing with renowned flutist James Galway playing with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.The festival will run June 27 through July 7 in a dozen county locations. It will showcase 65 events by 32 performing groups and more than 50 artisans, seven visual arts exhibits and several classes and workshops.Last year's event brought 30,000 people, with a third from the Baltimore and Washington areas.

TONIGHT, when the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performs at a sold-out gala fund-raiser at the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre, supporters will toast the evening as a prelude to the company's residency in Maryland. They will also cross their fingers that they can pull it off.Assembling a successful residency will depend on the generosity of public and private sources of money during precarious economic times. The prospect of losing grants and dancing dates to the internationally famous dance troupe also leaves some Baltimore dancers nervous about the residency's effect on the local, struggling dance scene.

Maryland Public Television has two hours of impressive Alvin Ailey material starting at 9 tonight on Channels 22 and 67.The centerpiece of the programming, which will be hosted by Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-7, is a "Great Performances" production, "The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: Steps Ahead."The production showcases Ailey's salute to saxophonist Charlie Parker, "For Bird -- With Love." As impressive as the music and movement is, it is the narrative structure, which treats Parker as a hero on the classic hero-quest of mythology, that makes the work seem so large and shimmering.

On The Weekend Watch:A DANCING PREVIEW -- A week in advance of the company's much anticipated performances in Baltimore, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is featured in a two-hour PBS package on Friday. At 9 p.m. (channels 22, 67 and 26), "Great Performances Dance in America" features two works by the company, "For Bird -- With Love" and "Episodes." And at 10 p.m., "Going Home: Alvin Ailey Remembered" is an hour-long tribute to the late dancer/choreographer who founded the nation's premiere black dance troupe.

Arts organizations get $61,784 from state unitThe Maryland Humanities Council has awarded $61,784 in grants to two dozen state organizations for public humanities programs.The largest grant of $8,743, including $1,200 in matching funds, went to the Dance Department of Goucher College for a lecture/performance series that will examine the cultural, economic and social significance of music and dance in the state from the 17th through the early 20th century. The series is scheduled to be held next spring and fall at four historic locations.

JUDITH JAMISON teaches dance the way she danced herself, with an almost blinding intensity, her power rolling like thunder over her students as it once rolled over her audiences.She's a cross between a drill sergeant and a snake charmer in jjTC dance class at Morgan State University, commanding the bodies of young dancers through the rigors of modern dance in a patter of orders that could challenge and intimidate even a professional dancer.And through their nervous sweat, the dance students seem hell bent on pleasing Jamison and a little fearful of the towering woman standing over them, dressed in black.

If it's Wednesday, it must be Baltimore.And even compared to the more exotic locales that preceded it in the past month -- the Soviet Union, France and England -- Baltimore looked awfully good to the tired eyes of Judith Jamison, artistic director of the globe-trotting Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater."

DANCER TURNED director Judith Jamison stood on a podium at Morgan State University with Gov. William Donald Schaefer and Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke to announce the state's most ambitious effort ever to bring professional dance into Maryland schools and theaters.Yesterday's announcement by Jamison, artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, will bring her company to Maryland for a three-year residency of teaching and performing."Every time we go on stage, every time we touch a child's heart, we celebrate life, and I'm so glad we're doing it in the state of Maryland," Jamison told an audience of educators, politicians and business people.