Ailey/Fordham BFA in Dance
Monday, 10/20
5:00-7:00pm
Ms. Lakey Evans-Peña
Horton
Tuesday, 10/21
4:15-6:150pm
Kelby Brown
Ballet
Ailey/Fordham
New York, New York
The Best of Both Worlds
The Ailey School and Fordham University are partners in an innovative Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) Program in Dance Performance. The BFA program offers the artistic preeminence of the official school of the world-famous Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, coupled with an exceptional liberal arts education rooted in the Jesuit tradition of academic excellence. Both institutions are located in New York City’s Lincoln Center area, the epicenter of the dance world. About the Ailey/Fordham BFA Program.
The Ailey/Fordham BFA Program is a highly selective, intensive four-year program, designed to prepare students for a global dance world. Its diverse curriculum, based upon rigorous academic and professional standards, develops accomplished dance technicians, performance artists, and critical thinkers. Students have the unique opportunity to experience an artistic education within the context of the humanist traditions and commitment to social justice shared by both organizations. Ailey/Fordham BFA candidates are full-time students at both institutions.
At The Ailey School, BFA students are part of the Professional Division and undertake a broad curriculum of dance techniques. They become equally proficient in modern dance and ballet, as well as strongly grounded in West African, jazz, and other techniques. In addition to developing their choreographic skills, students take several yearlong, dance-related academic courses, including anatomy and kinesiology, music for dancers, and dance history. Throughout their four years, BFA students have many opportunities to learn from and perform varied repertory with renowned faculty and guest artists from The Ailey School. They perform at The Ailey Citigroup Theater, Fordham University’s Pope Auditorium and, in their senior year, other venues in the greater New York City area. At the completion of the bachelor’s degree program, The Ailey School and Fordham University present their students in a fully produced performance.
At Fordham College at Lincoln Center, students receive a strong liberal arts foundation, creating the breadth of knowledge that marks the educated person. Taught by Fordham’s distinguished arts and sciences faculty, the curriculum includes courses in the arts, social sciences, literature, philosophy, theology, history, and modern and classical languages. There are also opportunities to take academic electives and to have an academic minor.
LAKEY EVANS-PEÑA
Lakey Evans-Peña is an educator, director, and creative leader who received her BFA from the University of the Arts and her MFA from Montclair State University. She is the Associate Director and curriculum writer for the Ailey Horton Teacher Certification program. She teaches at The Ailey School and is the advisor for the Ailey/Fordham BFA senior class. Lakey is the award recipient of the 2025 Outstanding Leadership-Higher Education by the National Dance Education Organization. She has performed with Ailey II, Donald Byrd’s The Harlem Nutcracker and the New York City Opera. Lakey founded and served as the Executive and Artistic Director of the Williamsburg Movement & Arts Center from 2009-2021.
She was Ailey II’s Rehearsal Director from 2021-23 restaging and coaching works by Alvin Ailey, William Forsythe, Francesca Harper, Andrea Miller, Robert Battle, Elizabeth Roxas-Dobrish, and Yannick LeBrun. Lakey teaches and lectures nationally and internationally. In 2025, she was a panelist for Detroit’s Wright Museum Women of Ailey: Inspiring Through Dance, Dialogue, and Education, and moderated the Judith Jamison/Cry Tribute panel discussions for the Whitney Museum’s Edges of Ailey exhibition in NYC. Lakey was an adjudicator for the American College Dance Association’s 2025 South Central Conference and served as the contemporary teacher at the Prix de Lausanne in 2023 and 2024. She’s been a guest lecturer for NYU Tisch, Marymount Manhattan College, Montclair State University, and Hollins University, and taught at Canada National Ballet Assemblée Internationale, the Rockette Conservatory, NYU Steinhardt, STEPS, Peridance, and Ballet Hispánico.
KELBY BROWN
Kelby Brown is an ABT Certified Teacher who has successfully completed the ABT Teacher Training in Pre-primary thru Level 6, 7 and Partnering, of the ABT National Training Curriculum. Kelby Brown received his early training at the Pelagie Green Wren Academy of Dance, as well as the Alexandra School of Ballet in St. Louis, Missouri. He went on to study at Walnut Hill School of the Arts, and received a full scholarship to continue his professional training at the School of American Ballet, the official School of the New York City Ballet.
Kelby has taught and partnered with the School of American Ballet, as a National Visiting Fellow, as well as serves on the Alumni Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion. As a performer and classically trained dancer, he has performed with State Ballet of Missouri, Ballet Chicago, Pennsylvania Ballet, Pacific NW Ballet and Los Angeles Ballet. He danced featured roles on some of the most notable stages including, The Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center, as well as the Los Angeles Opera.
As a commercial dancer he has performed with Celine Dion, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Usher and Cirque du Soleil’s, Mystère. As a Choreographer, he has worked with Justin Timberlake, ( for the Kids Choice Awards), as well as, MTV’s Awkward and Warner Brothers Spring Breakdown. Kelby the Dance Educator, has held faculty positions at some of the most respected institutions in America, including Alvin Ailey American Dance, American Ballet Theater, Joffrey Ballet and Pace University. Kelby continues to teach and inspire, and is noted as a memorable influence in the dance community.
(Photography by Christopher Erk)