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Company
director
Judith Jamison
Divining
Choreographed by
Judith Jamison
Bad Blood
Choreographed by
Ulysees Dove
Pas de Duke
and
Revelations
Choreographed by
Alvin Ailey
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Sadler's
Wells
24
- 29 June 2002 |
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For its entire
fifty year history the Alvin
Ailey American Dance Theater
has been one of the greatest dance troupes
in the world, and remains so today.
For energy, athletic beauty, grace,
high emotion, and amazing technique
there is almost nothing to touch it.
"Dance theater" is exactly right as
a label: Alvin Ailey dance is theatrical,
it tells stories and explores eroticism,
spirituality, humour and the human condition
through its extraordinary use of imagination
in motion. And "American" is exactly
right too: for what characterises Alvin
Ailey is the way the classical vocabulary
of dance is interwoven with that of
jazz and American-style musical theatre,
so that – for example – between
phrases of perfect ballet there might
be a moment of perfect Fred Astaire,
or a burst of classic showtime ensemble
dancing characteristic of American stage
extravaganzas.
Divining,
choreographed by the company's director
Judith Jamison, is a dance in three
sets with a central solo. It sets out
the Alvin Ailey stall in the eclectic
fashion described, among other things
showing the almost perfect synchronisation
the company achieves in ensemble dancing.
An intricate interchange of dancers
and insistent drumming set a spell-binding
pattern, and beautifully exploits the
gymnastic technique of the dancers.
Pas
de Duke was choreographed by
Alvin Ailey in 1976 for a Duke Ellington
celebration, and it is exquisitely danced
here by Matthew Rushing and the extraordinary
Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell, whose liquid
limbs of amazing length give the word
"slinky" definitive new meaning, and
who brings such fluidity and delight
to her dancing that one could watch
her forever. It is a jazz pas de deux
and a tuxedo duet punctuated by brilliant
solos, mixing the playful and erotic
in a rapid succession.
Ulysses
Dove's Bad
Blood is a richly conceived narrative
piece set to an intriguing choice of
music Laurie Anderson's Gravity's
Angel and Walking
and Falling, and Peter Gabriel's
Excellent
Birds. Imaginative and exactly
appropriate use of coloured lighting,
designed by Beverly Emmons, contributes
to the powerful and sometimes disturbing
abstract tale being told, through movement
which makes full use of the company's
astonishing technical powers of balance,
control and poise.
As is
customary with the Alvin Ailey company,
the envoi is Revelations,
the exhilarating negro-spiritual sequence
ending in Rocka
My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham,
which an ecstatic audience won as an
encore. The breathtaking athleticism
and miraculous technique of the dancing
has to be seen to be grasped: it suffices
to say that until you have seen Alvin
Ailey, you have not seen all of what
contemporary dance can be.
AC Grayling |
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