Ailey Back at BAM

This week, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is commemorating its 50th anniversary with a season at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, presented by the Joyce Theater. In the Ailey troupe’s early days, it played at BAM frequently, but this weeklong season marks its first appearance here in many years.On Wednesday night, the second of the two programs consisted mostly of recent additions to the company’s repertory. It opened with Twyla Tharp’s “The Golden Section,” which began as the finale of her evening-length “The Catherine Wheel,” in 1981.It’s a celebratory exercise in camaraderie, teamwork, and interdependence. At one point, the dancers call out what sound like football counts; in fact, the piece can be broken down into a series of methodically coordinated plays and maneuvers. A phalanx of men arrives stage left just in time to catch another man as he flies into the wings.David Byrne’s multiple tracks layer tom-tom, synthesizer, and electric guitar and, in turn, Ms. Tharp casts a typically wide net in her search for vocabulary, but the connections between steps never seem random. There are brief solos, duets, trios, and quartets by the 13-member cast. The sexes are segregated and combined, and easily exchange roles in the partnering. A man lifts two women in rapid succession; then it’s their turn: They flank him and carry him aloft. At Wednesday’s performance, it was clear that the Ailey dancers have gotten into the work more loosely and comfortably than when they first did it two years ago.The title of Robert Battle’s “Unfold” describes what the two dancers do. It’s performed to a recording of Leontyne Price singing “Depuis le jour,” from Gustave Charpentier’s fin de siècle opera “Louise.” The aria is an ecstatic recollection of love awakening by a working-class heroine, but the two dancers, Linda Celeste Sims and Clifton Brown, are largely independent of the aural instigation. That’s one point of the duet. Ms. Price’s voice levitates rapturously while the two dancers are often rooted to the ground. We first see Ms. Sims focusing our senses on the quintessence of concavity as she stands slung over in a backbend. As the duet proceeds, it often seems as if Mr. Brown is toting her around, arranging and posing a mannequin, which makes it startling when she suddenly does things such as crawl over him. Juxtapositions of the two dancers arrested in outrageous poses, then suddenly shifting into a rapid skittering, make it seem like a giant put-on. But it’s striking, however we’re meant to see it.“The Groove to Nobody’s Business” was created for the company last year by Camille A. Brown, to a soundtrack of two Ray Charles classics and a jazz piece by Brandon McCune. A cross section of urban dwellers become intimates of a sort when fortuity links them on a subway platform, impatiently waiting for a train that seems as though it won’t ever come. Ms. Brown moves her cast as a concerted ensemble, then atomizes them into a controlled bedlam of individual incidents, as they become prey to a host of potentially explosive conflicts. Squeezed on a bench together, personal space is at a premium. But even when they get up and move around, they keep getting in each other’s way. The Ailey performers were masterly in their meticulous timing and in their thumbnail characterizations.It was no surprise to find Wednesday’s program closing with Ailey’s “Revelations.” The company performs its signature frequently, but the dancers not only maintain their roles but enhance them. Partnered by Jamar Roberts in the “Fix Me, Jesus” duet, Alicia Graf has developed considerably since I first saw her perform a couple of seasons ago. Her legs have become less facile, demonstrating more presence and more meaning as they move through the adagio’s tilts, plunges, and promenades.

Ailey Back at BAM

Ailey Back at BAM

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