Conan O'Brien Shows Off His Dance "Skills" at The Ailey School

November 2, 2016

Late night goofball Conan O’Brien has brought his “Conan” hijinks to NYC this week, to the delight of all New Yawk peeps. Though he’s in town a tad too early to enjoy Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater‘s fall season (it kicks off November 30 at New York City Center), O’Brien decided to get his Ailey on anyway. And we mean that rather literally: He donned a dance belt (props for that, Coco) and took class with a bunch of advanced students at The Ailey School.

We’re not going to say O’Brien has ZERO dance skills—we’ll admit to being fans of his weirdly mesmerizing “string dance”—but it’s close. Which makes his attempts to execute a lateral T alongside Ailey’s best and brightest pretty, pretty, pretty funny. Ailey School co-director Tracy Inman serves as Coco’s ever-patient guide to the world of modern dance, and the perpetually good-natured AAADT artistic director Robert Battle even stops by to, um, evaluate O’Brien’s skills.

It’s all very cute and endearing—and it shows a mainstream audience just how fiercely talented Ailey dancers are. Also, can we talk about the fact that O’Brien seems to have a bit of a Fosse fetish? You go, Coco!

After all that silliness, O’Brien invited AAADT dancers Solomon Dumas, Sean Aaron Carmon and Kanji Segawa to show the world how Ailey is really done: The trio performed the showstopping “Sinner Man” from Revelations onstage at the Apollo Theater. Take a look at Conan’s class capers, and the Ailey dancers’ performance, below.


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