Technically
Speaking, Alvin Ailey is “Sheer Dance Pleasure”
By Rosie Gaynor
Posted April 6,
2008
Alvin Ailey Poster
©
Andrew Eccles
In a review of the
Kirov Ballet this week, New York Times critic Alastair
Macaulay lamented (or lambasted?) that company’s absence of
“sheer dance pleasure.” Too bad he wasn’t here in Seattle with
us watching Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Opening night
was sheer (completely, utterly, unqualified) dance
(grace, rhythm) pleasure onstage and off. What a night!
You can see the
power and exuberance of this company in their marketing
materials: these dancers jump off the page. In the theater,
though, you also see their emotions, their passion, their
ability to portray the sensuous, the sad, the spiritual.
Athletic fireworks excite an audience, but I’ve a hunch that’s
not what makes such fervent believers out of the Alvin Ailey
audience. They are not all of them exceptional dancers, but by
and large they are masters of emotion and belief on a stage too
small to contain them. There’s this sense that this company is
something really special—like Parsifal, or Dancing on
the Front Porch of Heaven, or Shakespeare, or Martin Luther
King, Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech.
It was apparent
even before the show began. Folks began clapping as the lights
went down.
A 50th
anniversary video started the evening. It was long enough to
have content and it shared some beautiful photos of the past.
They took a risk by starting with a puff piece, talking about a
great man and showing best-of-history pictures; how can anybody
today live up to the memory of great people at their best?
Next up: Two of the
non-Ailey pieces the company pulls into its repertory to stay
live and relevant. Maurice Béjart’s Firebird led the way.
I was excited to see his choreography to Stravinsky’s suite, as
months ago a good, fun review in the New York Times
whetted my appetite for it. (Alastair again:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/arts/dance/30aile.html.)
This Firebird
is about ¾ of the way down on my long Good Ballets List, but I’d
watch it again in a heartbeat. Very abstract and not so pretty,
there are nonetheless many moments of transcendent beauty. The
Firebird is a man in red—or, possibly, sometimes also this man
plus his gray-garbed groupies. They often moved together, en
masse…with varying abilities…but all stretching arms, backs, and
legs to feel and fill the music. Clifton Brown (Friday’s
Firebird) blew me away with his incredible technique and his
nuanced performance.
Was the ending
cheesy? A bird resurrecting…a new red bird dancing with the old
red bird? Sure. But it worked. They carried it off on an
emotional level as well as on a technical level. To see the old
bird bear the new bird on his back—lifting him… This new bird
was no 110-pound ballerina, but a tall and muscled man.
Twyla Tharp’s
Golden Section followed. It’s golden, all right.* Golden
swimsuits (tight, tiny trunks for the men)…with golden trim…and
little boots…and wrist cuffs to match. My friend commented that
it was energy at the expense of emotion, sometimes deteriorating
into acrobatics. I’d agree with him. He went on: “Look! We can
fly, but we’re not saying anything.” That being said, and agreed
to, it was still fun to watch them dance to David Byrne. Just
once, though.
The next piece I
could have watched over and over all night. Reflections in D.
Finally, after two
intermissions, Alvin Ailey’s own choreography. This is something
I can’t get enough of—a free ballet that uses body and mind and
rhythm and soul, a style that that borrows beauty from other
cultures and creates something new with it. This piece is from
1962. How is it still so fresh and intriguing?
Antonio Douthit
danced this Duke Ellington reverie with amazing grace—in both
senses of the word. So strong, so fluid. He draws music on the
stage with his feet and in the air with his arms. (What I
wouldn’t give to seem him dance with PNB’s Carla Korbes, who has
such beautiful carriage and glorious arms…not to mention grace.)
A short pause, and
then the company’s signature piece: Revelations. Put
together gospel music and good dancers and you’ve got me hooked.
(If only it had been live music, as it apparently was for the
company’s gala in
New York
last year. Even so, it was compelling.) A few of the ten
“scenes” were charmingly dated, and
the crowd-pleasing, toe-tapping, hand-clapping “Rocka My Soul in
the Bosom of Abraham” verged on high school musical. (It was not
without nuance, though. I will never forget the attitude in one
woman’s elbow. I don’t know who she was (a slight woman in the
center) but she gripped her back in just the right place and
that elbow of hers flew out in a way that expressed what every
hard-working, no-nonsense, bossy woman of ages past has ever
said to a misbehaving man or child.)
Three scenes,
however, really pulled me in. One was the obvious choice: the
“Sinner Man” trio—with its runaway energy, astounding jumps, and
raw fear. (Hello, Mr. Douthit again.)
Another, “I Wanna
Be Ready,” featured Firebird Clifton Brown in what could be the
longest, most beautiful Pilates exercise in history. As he
danced it Friday, it is a study in abs…and longing. (Again with
the pairing of technique and emotion.)
I also loved “Fix
Me Jesus.” This duet was a little more about the woman. (In the
four pieces we saw Friday night, the women got the short straw,
I think. They were working hard and with passion, and some had
steps of power that they executed well, but the costumes often
hid their movement or their line. In “Fix Me Jesus,” the woman
was an equal. We saw the dancer on the poster above, Linda
Celeste Sims. Given the nature of the role, she was not as bold
as portrayed on the poster here, but there was the same passion
and extraordinary technique.
I wondered, as I
watched a tired, flat, mechanical
oh-yeah-we’re-on-the-road-but-let’s-be-generous encore of “Rocka
My Soul,” how will the dancers perform the huge number of
Revelations they have in front of them on this 50th
Anniversary Tour. Is it a never-ending Nutcracker for
them? How can it continue to be so remarkable? How can they live
up to people’s memories of this beloved piece? How can they
possibly sustain this level of passion?
But in thinking
back to Friday’s performance, I realize that for this group, it
is not a matter of sheer dance pleasure vs. technique. Or
even sdp plus technique. The passion and belief and
emotion and joy that make up sdp—all of that is a part
of the technique for this group. And lucky are those of us who
get to bear witness to it.
* What is it with
Tywla Tharp’s hideous costumes from the 1980s? (Unfair comment!
I’ve only seen two. But still…) Tharp creates two pieces on
Pacific Northwest Ballet next season. No costume designers are
listed yet, but let us hope it’s someone like Mark Zappone or
Marty Pakledinaz, both of whom have turned out gorgeous costumes
for the company in the past.
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