Dancing to her Own Tune

For Alicia Graf Mack ’03GS, bouncing back after adversity is simply a part of life. When a devastating diagnosis at age 20 took her burgeoning dance career off course, Columbia’s School of General Studies became a pivotal part of her comeback story.

Born in California and raised in Maryland, Graf Mack moved to New York City in 1996 to pursue her dancing dreams, beginning under the direction of Arthur Mitchell, the renowned dancer, choreographer, and founder of Dance Theatre of Harlem.

“I had been with Dance Theatre of Harlem since my senior year of high school and had a quick trajectory to success in the dance world,” said Graf Mack. “In 1999, I started feeling pain in my knee with increasing inflammation—it was all unexplained. I pushed through for six months or more until finally I couldn’t push anymore and had to stop dancing.”

Forced to give up a dream that she’d had since she was a toddler, Graf Mack didn’t know what to do next.

“At the time, I lived in Manhattan on La Salle Street and Amsterdam, just a few blocks north of the main campus,” Graf Mack said. “On my hardest days, when I felt like I had hit rock bottom—in terms of my physical health, my mental health, in all the ways someone feels like they have nowhere to go—I would go for walks on campus if I was able. Just being in that environment felt so freeing.”

In time, Graf Mack realized that while her path was not turning out the way she had thought, she was still young and could figure out something else to do in life. She attended an orientation for GS and met then-Dean Peter Awn, who told her that her creative dance background was a great fit for the School.

“The thought of becoming an undergrad was overwhelming because it had been a while since I had been in school, and I hadn’t really planned on going to college in the first place,” Graf Mack said. “But when I applied to GS and got admitted, it was the first positive thing that had happened to me in a year and a half of pushing against a brick wall. It gave me permission to think of myself as something other than a dancer for the very first time.”

A New Chapter at GS

Graf Mack began with the Core Curriculum at GS and decided to major in history. An avid writer and the daughter of two social scientists, Graf Mack excelled in this path.

“The GS liberal arts education is so strong in the humanities and social sciences, which suited Alicia perfectly,” said Dean Lisa Rosen-Metsch ’90. “At her core, she is a humanist: She’s intellectually curious, and she’ll enhance any conversation that she’s a part of.”

Around this time, Graf Mack also finally got a diagnosis for her ailments: undifferentiated spondyloarthropathy, a kind of rheumatoid arthritis that involves widespread pain, stiffness, and swelling. When she wasn’t in the library, she was in the gym strengthening her body after several major surgeries and, she said, “trying to feel like myself again.”

During her first year, Graf Mack became part of a student-led praise dance ministry on campus called A Time to Dance. At first, she only attended rehearsals, but as time went on and her arthritis began to subside, she joined in on the movements.

“I am so grateful to A Time to Dance because it was in my life from the very beginning at GS,” Graf Mack said. “Movement has been a through line in my life, and the dance ministry carried my spirit in a way that I deeply needed.”

By her senior year, she had begun taking dance classes again, both at Barnard College and at New York’s Steps on Broadway dance studio.

“I first saw Alicia before I met her, performing with several other dancers in the dance department,” said Lynn Garafola, professor emerita of dance at Barnard and author of an upcoming biography of Arthur Mitchell, for which she interviewed Graf Mack. “But one could never really say Alicia was ‘one of several dancers’ because she was quite a remarkable person. Her physicality stood out among everyone—amazing extensions that you could stretch forever and never achieve. I was also astonished because she had serious injuries at the time—I remember her knee was taped, and I know now she was facing other issues as well.”

When Graf Mack graduated from GS in 2003 (magna cum laude, honors in history), she was preparing for a full-time position with J.P. Morgan.

“The dance bug had bitten me pretty hard again,” said Graf Mack. “I reached out to Complexions Contemporary Ballet to ask if they needed marketing help for the summer before I was to begin my work at J.P. Morgan in the fall. They had seen me dance and asked if I could fill in for an injured dancer. I went on a trip to Italy with them and performed, and my body snapped back into dance mode.”

Graf Mack pivoted again: She returned her signing bonus to J.P. Morgan, and after the summer tour with Complexions, returned to Dance Theater of Harlem. “It was something I didn’t expect to happen, and it was a magical time,” said Graf Mack.

Back to the Stage 

In 2005, Graf Mack became a principal dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for three years until her arthritis flared up for a second time. She took another break from dance, earning her master’s degree in nonprofit business management from Washington University in St. Louis. During this time, she married Kirby Mack, a Columbia College graduate, former pro football player, and current private wealth manager at Creative Planning.

Graf Mack began teaching dance at Webster University in St. Louis and started to perform again as her body recovered. She went back to Ailey from 2011 to 2014, dancing with the company for a total of six years under Judith Jamison and then Robert Battle. In 2018, she became the youngest and first Black dean and director of the dance division at the Juilliard School. She received her honorary doctorate from Juilliard in 2025.

“Alicia is the definition of grace under fire,” said Jacqueline P. Blackett, deputy athletics director at Columbia University, who knew Graf Mack and her husband when they were attending college. “She is a visionary and so determined and driven. Alicia demonstrates a strong commitment to community, so working with students and young dancers is a perfect fit. She is brilliant at imparting her knowledge and experience to the next generation.” 

This past summer, Graf Mack experienced a full-circle moment when she was chosen to become the fourth-ever artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

“I am so happy to be back at Alvin Ailey; it feels like home,” said Graf Mack. “It’s an environment that I have loved and has been a part of my North Star since I first found out about the company as a child. Seeing Black bodies in motion was eye-opening for me as a young person, and being part of that legacy is so meaningful.”

“GS was a remarkable place for Alicia to acquire a varied background in music, hone her writing skills, and learn how to speak to a wide variety of people,” said Garafola. “It’s so important for dancers—especially those who want to go into management and administration—to know more than just the dance aspect, see a broader picture of the field, and understand how companies are shaping themselves. Dancers can be training themselves for something else, taking a few classes at a time, and places like GS make preparing for post-dance life possible.”

Leading the Next Generation Throughout her career, Graf Mack has maintained a strong connection to her alma mater. In 2008, she was awarded the Columbia Medal for Excellence and was the keynote speaker at GS Class Day; she delivered the Class Day keynote again in 2025. 

In 2018, Graf Mack was invited by Rosen-Metsch to join the GS Board of Visitors, which helps support the School’s mission, longrange planning, financial development, and standing within the academic community.

“Alicia has been a light on the board,” said Rosen-Metsch. “Not only does she give thoughtful feedback, but she is also a doer. She is one of the key people who has helped bring our School to new heights by working to address everything from alumni engagement and fundraising to food insecurity among students and career development initiatives.”

When Graf Mack thinks back on her time at GS, many of the lessons she learned have extended far beyond the classroom.

“When I started at GS, even though I was a performer, I was extremely shy,” she said. “I learned how important it is to build relationships with people who can support you. I’ve discovered that I thrive in places of learning—they are labs of ideas, and you see how different things can come together in creative ways, whether that’s in a collaborative essay or in choreography.”

“One of the things GS does very well is that it allows students to develop into who they want to be,” Blackett said. “GS was perfect for Alicia because it met her where she was—the students here tend to be a little more focused on what they want and are coming back to college to pursue an education after some life experience. She wears a multitude of hats and makes it look easy—a rare quality in a leader.”

 Graf Mack hosted three seasons of Moving Moments, a podcast in which she interviewed colleagues and friends to discuss the creative process and living a purposeful life in dance. She is now working on a new podcast with colleagues at Ailey and has written a children’s book that will be published this year.

“Throughout my life, I have been proud that I’ve endured,” Graf Mack said. “There could have been so many other outcomes for me that were not so positive, but I had a lot of support along the way. During my time at GS, I was also open to opportunities—I just said ‘yes,’ and I discovered that maintaining a student’s or beginner’s mindset on all things is so valuable to making the most of life.”