Alvin Ailey’s groundbreaking dance company is celebrating its 60th anniversary with a season at New York City Center. We’ve selected the best photos to take a step back through their sensational past productions, so don’t miss them – they will blow your mind!

Check them out for more information and start to see our world through photos!

Alvin Ailey, front, with other company dancers in his production Blues Suite (c.1962). Ailey formed the company of young black modern dancers in 1958: he led the company and was also a choreographer and principal dancer.

Photograph: courtesy of Ailey Archives

Ailey, James Truitte, Don Martin, Myrna White, Ella Thompson and Minnie Marshall performing the company’s signature work, Revelations, which premiered in 1960.

Photograph: Jack Mitchell

Ailey with Judith Jamison – who joined as a dancer in 1965 and succeeded him as artistic director in 1989, the year he died.

Photograph: Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, Inc. and Smithsonian Institution

Judith Jamison dances Ailey’s Revelations.

Photograph: Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, Inc. and Smithsonian Institution

Renee Robinson and Andre Tyson in Blues Suite.

Photograph: Jack Mitchell/Library of Congress

Night Creature, set to Duke Ellington’s music, performed in 2016.

Photograph: Rosalie O’Connor

Jacqueline Green in a 2015 staging of Revelations, which is performed to a soundtrack of African-American spirituals, gospel and blues.

Photograph: Paul Kolnik

A scene from Reminiscin’ performed by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at Sadler’s Wells, London, in 2005.

Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian

Four Corners by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at Sadler’s Wells in 2016

Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian