Who

As executive director of the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, Luckman has helped bring the venerable dance troupe back from the verge of bankruptcy.

Backstory

After seeing the Alvin Ailey troupe perform as a student, Luckman wrote to her parents that she'd found what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. Luckman worked as a dance teacher on Long Island before moving to New York to take a job as an instructor at the 92nd Street Y. She later headed up the Y's dance program, leaving in 1986 for a brief stint with the Twyla Tharp Dance Foundation and then serving as executive director of Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. In 1992, she joined Alvin Ailey as development director. She was named executive director in 1995.

Of note

When Luckman took over in the mid-1990s, the company was on a precarious financial footing, but she's since managed to turn things around: Alvin Ailey now operates at a profit and rakes in donations hand-over-fist, even as other arts organizations struggle to win philanthropic support. She scored a huge coup when she convinced Citigroup founder Sandy Weill and his wife Joan to make the $18.4 million gift that enabled Ailey to build itself a new studio—the Joan Weill Center for Dance—which opened on 55th Street in 2005. The year 2005 also saw the debut of the Ailey Extension, which offers dance and fitness classes to the general public.

Namedrop

Board members include John Wren, Nicolas Rohatyn (Felix Rohatyn's son), Kathryn Chenault (Ken Chenault's wife), Judith Jamison, Katherine Farley, and Simin Allison (Herb Allison's wife).

Personal

Luckman is married to dentist Paul Shapiro, her second husband. They live on East 82nd Street. She and her first husband, Peter Luckman, have two grown children.

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