Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Review
March 21, 2024 | The Music Center – Los Angeles, CA, USA
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is a company whose reputation precedes it.
The New York-based modern dance company was established in 1958 at the height of the American Civil Rights Movement – a period of political liberalism and the redefinition of what it meant to be American.
Dancer, choreographer, and activist Alvin Ailey used his company as a platform to educate and inspire substantive change, over time helping legitimize Black dancers in the American concert dance space and forever changing the perception of American dance.
Today, under the leadership of interim artistic director Matthew Rushing, the Ailey company is lauded as one of the nation’s premier modern dance companies.
Last night marked my first experience with the company. To say I was thrilled was a severe understatement.
Over the coming weekend, the Ailey company launches a first-of-its-kind multi-year residency at Los Angeles’s The Music Center with two carefully curated three-part programs featuring a blend of legacy and more recent repertory; programs A and B will alternate among the seven performances.
I was treated to Program B.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Review
Program B opens with the Los Angeles premiere of Amy Hall Garner’s first work for the Ailey company, CENTURY. This piece, which was specially commissioned for the Ailey company’s 65th Season in 2023, is a heartfelt tribute to Hall Garner’s grandfather, Henry Spooner, who celebrated his 100th birthday on Dec. 30, 2023.
Less about narrative as much as overall mood, CENTURY is a highly charged celebration of life (think Gatsby party times 10). Opening with a bang, the first section features an impressive array of diamond-sharp split-lift carries, head-busting battements, tight chaînes, and a whole lot of shimmies.
The roughly 25-minute piece proceeds as a delightfully fast-paced series of solo, duo, and bigger group sections that draw their energy from an eclectic mixed-score parlaying music by Count Basie, Ray Charles, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and Duke Ellington (some of Spooner’s favorite artists) alongside bits of a recorded conversation with Hall Garner’s grandfather.
“At my age now, I’m still young,” he says.
Garner’s quick, often-quirky choreography demands maximal artistic and technical ability. Unsurprisingly, the dancers tackle it with flying colors. Outfitted in dazzling, magenta- and gold-hued ensembles designed by Susan Roemer, the dancers flit effortlessly through CENTURY’s eccentric vernacular, which features a blend of canonical ballet and ostensibly modern movements.
As CENTURY progresses, the energy crescendos. While emboldened by the music, this is driven at large by the dancers who never come off full throttle. By the final section, it’s more effort to stay in your seat than to stand up, kick off your shoes, and barefoot boogie with them.
Of the 10 dancers featured in last night’s rendition of CENTURY, Ashley Kaylynn Green was particularly life-giving. Equal parts elegance, adroitness, and brio, her performance sent shockwaves through the audience. She’s the type of performer about which aspiring dancers say, “that’s what I want to be like some day.”
Second on the bill is another tribute piece, Ronald K. Brown’s Dancing Spirit. This work, which premiered in 2009, pays homage to Ailey company artistic director emerita and legendary dancer Judith Jamison. Jamison is perhaps best known for creating soul-stirring choreography, heading the Ailey company after Ailey’s death, and debuting Ailey’s evocative 16-minute solo Cry.
I was transfixed from the curtain’s rise. The dancers, uniquely costumed (courtesy of Omotayo Wunmi Olaiya), appear one by one. In what one audience member behind me dubbed a “soothing” manner, the dancers float along a diagonal, doing the same movements as if caught in some sort of loop. At the turn of the music, the pattern breaks, and Dancing Spirit swells into a portrait of evocative flashpoints.
Like Hall Gardner’s, Brown’s choreography is an amalgamation of idioms.
Oscillating between moments of intense energy and slow sensuality, the choreography drew on movement vocabulary from Cuba, Brazil, and the U.S.
Common expressions included rocking body movements, releases of the upper body, erect torsos, isolated hip rotations, and bent knees. The dancers – inexhaustible – nailed Brown’s choreography without missing a beat.
As arresting as all the dancers were, I was especially moved by Constance Stamatiou’s shining, richly elegiac performance. She danced with sparkling clarity and a sureness of strength. At the same time, she was unafraid to explore the ultimate length and depth of every move she made. Stamatiou was in one word hypnotic.
To nobody’s surprise, the Ailey company saves the best for last, concluding the evening with Ailey’s 1960 masterwork Revelations.
Revelations has closed nearly every program put on by the Ailey company since it was created, making it the most widely-experienced modern dance work across the globe. Inspired by Ailey’s “blood memories” of growing up in rural Texas during the American Civil Rights Movement, the 36-minute dance memoir delves into the Black experience in the U.S., touching on spirituality, solidarity, and the struggle for racial justice and equality.
Revelations’ continued relevance, however, is predominantly grounded in its thematic universality. Through depictions of spirituality, solidarity, and struggle, Revelations evokes the intrinsically human themes of transcendence, hope, and resilience.
Revelations is divided into three sections: “Pilgrim of Sorrow,” “Take Me to the Water,” and “Move, Members, Move.”
The first section, “Pilgrim of Sorrow,” is set to the songs “I’ve Been Buked,” “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel,” and “Fix Me Jesus” which are united in their lyrics’ reverent, almost pleading appeal to God for relief from destitution. While ostensibly eschatological, the overall tone of the piece is decidedly upbeat.
The music – starting with “I’ve Been Buked” – begins before the lights in the auditorium have set. Once these lights have dimmed, the curtain rises, and the stage lights lift to reveal an evenly-spaced, sharp-edged triangular mass of dancers. As the section progresses, it proceeds as a series of shifting tessellations; the dancers repeatedly slide out of the mass and come back together like an amoeba.
When they are together, their dancing is synchronized. When they are apart, they move independently yet still appear tethered by some intangible force.
The most striking passage from this section was Caroline T. Dartey and Michael Jackson, Jr.’s duet to “Fix Me Jesus.”
It was supple yet incendiary, evincing both physical strength and emotional vulnerability in such a way as to elicit an audible “wow” from a stranger sitting next to me.
Upon ending on an impressive image created by Dartey standing in an arabesque on Jackson, Jr.’s thigh, “Pilgrims of Sorrow” rolls into the second section, “Take Me to the Water.”
This section, set to “Processional/Honor, Honor,” “Wade in the Water” (known also as “A Man Went Down to the River”), and “I Wanna Be Ready,” represents a baptism – an exciting ritual upon which one is welcomed as a full member of a church.
Digging into the section’s symbolism, the dancers are dressed in all white and move against a bright blue backdrop. Midway through, a river – represented by two long, rippling strips of cloth – duly appears across the center of the stage. The choreography itself demands quick undulations, mimicking the movement of waves.
The first two passages of this section are visually compelling and affecting, but there was a sort of magic to the third.
“I Wanna Be Ready,” danced by Christopher R. Wilson, is a sweeping display of bravura and strength. I literally sat agape as Wilson coolly conquered Ailey’s conspicuously Horton- and Graham-influenced choreography, featuring the hallmarks of lateral stretches, tilt lines, lunges, and contractions.
The final section, “Move, Members, Move,” is the most jubilant of the three. Set to “Sinner Man,” “The Day is Past and Gone,” “You May Run On,” and “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham,” this section depicts a traditional Southern Baptist church service.
Leading with “Sinner Man,” this section sets off like a cannonball. Set for a male trio, “Sinner Man” is an intensely athletic endeavor. The choreography is dynamic and dramatic, combining soaring stag leaps, countless spins, and thrilling plunges, among other elements that challenge the laws of physics. Last night’s rendition of “Sinner Man” was danced by Jua’mair Garland, James Gilmer, and Xavier Mack whose respective performances left me in chills.
The next three passages – “The Day is Past and Gone,” “You May Run On,” and “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham” – sort of blend together in tone and aesthetics. They were on the whole bright, cheery, and mostly reverent with a hint of humor. By the end, rare was the audience member who had not been moved out of their seat to sway and clap along to the music.
While Revelations may have been the piece that put Ailey and his company on the map, this program shows it’s the continued passion and prowess of company leadership and performers that sustain its significance across the modern dance world.
Featured Photo for this Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater review of the company in Alvin Ailey’s Revelations. Photo by Paul Kolnik.
