Founder
Alvin Ailey
Artistic Director
Judith Jamison
'Shining Star'
(2004)
Choreography by
David Parsons
Music by
Earth, Wind
and Fire
Costumes by
Ann Hould-Ward
Lighting by
Howard Binkley
'Caught'
(1982)
Choreography by
David Parsons
Solo by
Clifton Brown
Staged by
Elizabeth Koeppen
Music by
Robert Fripp
Lighting by
Howard Binkley
'Reminiscin'
(2005)
Choroegraphy by
Judith Jamison
Music by
various artists
Costumes by
Ann Hould-Ward
Lighting by
Tim Hunter
'Revelations' (1960)
Choreography by
Alvin Ailey
Music
Traditional gospel and soul
Décor and
costumes by
Ves Harper
Lighting by
Nicola Cernovitch
Company Members
Guillermo Asca
Olivia Bowman
Kirven J. Boyd
Hope Boykin
Clifton Brown
Courtney Brene
Corbin
Rosalyn
Deshauteurs
Khilea Douglass
Antonio Douthit
Vernard J. Gilmore
Alicia J. Graf
Zach Law Ingram, Kristen Irby
Abdur-Rahim Jackson
Chris Jackson
Gwynenn Taylor Jones
Willy Laury
Roxanne Lyst
Amos J.
Machanic, Jr.
Briana Reed
Jamar Roberts
Renee Robinson
Matthew Rushing
Wendy White
Sassar
Glenn Allen Sims
Linda Celeste Sims
Dwana Adiaha
Smallwood
Asha Thomas
Tina Monica
Williams
Dion Wilson
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Alvin Ailey's
Dance Theatre
Programme 2
Programme 2
Sadler's Wells
5 - 10 September 2005
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's raison d'être is as important today as it was in 1958 when the young choreographer fronted a group of African-American modern dancers in a now legendary performance at the 92nd Street Young Men Hebrew's Association in New York. Indeed, the commitment of this multi-racial company to a repertoire which celebrates African-American cultural heritage of the Deep South - rousing call-and-response sermons, gospel music, shared emotional experience - feels particularly impassioned at a time when the outpourings of grief from the largely black inhabitants of a devastated New Orleans are broadcast daily around the world.
But the AADAT is much more than simply a cultural ambassador for a historically subjugated race. Currently enjoying new, state-of-the-art studios in central Manhattan, it is a thriving company with a strong non-white repertoire and a director (Judith Jamison) with an impressive breadth of vision. The AADAT's real strength, however, is its dancers. They are fantastically versatile - skilfully navigating often heterogeneous choreography which can segue from classical ballet into jazz or modern in a single movement - and are justly acclaimed for their explosive vitality and vim. For many people, the pleasure of watching dance derives in large part from observing the dancers' evident enjoyment in their own physicality, and in this respect, AADAT must be almost unparalleled. It is a delight to see dancers who so patently enjoy expressing themselves through a variety of different dance idioms.
That said, it was hard to feel that the dancers weren't in part let down by the frequently unchallenging choreography in Programme Two of the AADAT's UK tour. Like the first, the second programme of AADAT's UK tour features four very different works which are clearly intended to showcase not only the versatility of the dancers but the diversity of the company's repertoire with an emphasis on recently commissioned works. Sadly, in the second programme it was these newer works that were the most disappointing and, in the case of the opening piece 'Shining Star', the choreography seriously discredited the talent of the dancers.
'Shining Star' (2004) was so truly awful as to be beyond the redemptive qualities of Alvin Ailey's oft-performed 'Revelations', which closed the evening. Set to a medley of dated Earth, Wind and Fire tracks, David Parsons' choreography was, at best, derivative, and, at worst, a lazy mess of formless jiving that often literally translated the lousy lyrics. There was nothing knowing or postmodern about this cheese fest and its reliance on outmoded cultural stereotypes - the smooth, blingy men, the sexy, hip-happy women - was embarrassing. In their open shirts and lacy white crop tops, the dancers did what they could with the unimaginative grooving but couldn't rescue this amateurish exercise in 1970s disco nostalgia.
But when placed side by side, exceptionally bad choreography can serve to throw exceptionally good choreography into high relief and so it was with the second work, 'Caught' (1982), also conceived by David Parsons. This exhilarating solo was choreographed 22 years before 'Shining Star' and is so infinitely more accomplished as to be an unfortunate comment on Parsons' career. Performed with panache by the company's rising star Clifton Brown, the work plays with light and dark, movement and stasis, in a series of strobed sequences which always catch Brown seemingly suspended in the air. It is a breathtaking and masterful work which requires split-second timing and the athletic stamina to execute a continual series of leaps synchronised perfectly to the flashes of the strobe light. This Brown does to stunning effect in mercurial passages of impossibly sustained flight which explore sequential motion in the manner of an Eadweard Muybridge photographic series. At points, these sequences are interrupted by moments of stillness which catch Brown in a spotlight - solid, grounded, unmoving. Parsons' final flourish is to have Brown hold his last leap a second too long so that the audience sees him land in the spotlight; the magician thus reveals his trick and the spell is broken.
For the audience (which, it must be said, was a welcome departure from the demographically predictable sea of white, upper-middle-class faces at Covent Garden), one of the biggest crowd-pleasers of the evening was the world première of Judith Jamison's new work 'Reminiscin' (2005). Set in an Edward Hopperesque 'Nighthawks' bar, it's a beguiling piece which sees young men and women flirt, argue, tease and console each other in groupings of differing dynamics to a soulful soundtrack of female jazz and blues greats (Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Roberta Flack).
Jamison's choreographic referents here are obvious - her mentor Alvin Ailey and American modern dance pioneers such as Twyla Tharp immediately come to mind - but her artistic voice is not as strong or individual as her antecedents, having been diluted by lindy hop, swing and latino dance influences which are given, at times, an ill-fitting contemporary inflection. Still, there is some interesting partner work involving inventive lifts and dives, and the individual couplings move comfortably between the emotional registers of playfulness, love and melancholy to suggest, when combined, the exuberance of human interaction.
Alvin Ailey's enduring signature piece 'Revelations' (1960) was a stunning close to the programme, rousing the audience to a standing ovation. The classic status that this work enjoys within the company's repertoire shows - it has been meticulously rehearsed over the years and is finely tuned as a result - but none of the height or depth of feeling has been lost. Exploring religious ecstasy and human sorrow in a suite of religiously-themed vignettes, 'Revelations' sets the physical patois of the Deep South - burnished men toiling in the golden fields, church-going women in their frilly finery fanning themselves and clucking like chickens in the unbearable heat - to a series of stirring gospel songs. It is an evocative and soulful piece which, through the transformative experience of a Southern Baptist congregation, manages to successfully appeal to a common humanity. In this way, 'Revelations' processes from the dramatic opening scene of a ceremonious call-and-response sermon, all open palms and upstretched arms, through to fervent Baptist redemption, whipping both the dancers and the audience into a frenzy of collective jubilation.
The dancing in this piece was certainly the most heartfelt and vital of the evening, as well as the most technically assured. In a manner fitting to the all-encompassing and very physical nature of religious practice in the Deep South, the dancers immersed themselves in Ailey's steps, almost baptising themselves in his choreography. They threw their heads back with ecstatic fervour, they waved their arms around deliriously as though conjuring an unseen God, and their entire bodies undulated mesmerically with religious and artistic rapture. It was truly a sight to behold.
Nina Miall
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