Ailey’s Audience Participation

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

After the curtain came down on “Revelations” at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s season opening Wednesday night, the City Center audience cheered so long that the performers finally returned the applause. At Ailey, the audience and performers are on the most cozy and comfortable of terms — never more so than on its gala opening nights in New York, and never more so than during and after “Revelations.” It’s easy to imagine the whole thing turning into a love-in. But the performers understand just how far to take the conspiratorial intimacy between themselves and their public while preserving the respectful boundaries of formal theatricality.

The first work on the program was the Ailey company premiere of Maurice Béjart’s 1970 “Firebird,” choreographed to Stravinsky’s 1945 reduction of his original score. Ailey’s artistic director, Judith Jamison, also has a history with Béjart’s company and her welcoming remarks paid tribute to the choreographer, who died November 22. Béjart believed that “ballet is man,” as intently as Balanchine insisted, “Ballet is woman.” So it’s not surprising that here the Firebird — incarnated by a ballerina in Fokine’s 1910 original and Balanchine’s 1949 production for New York City Ballet — is now portrayed by a man, or rather two men, since this Firebird, a close relation of the Phoenix, sires a second coming before himself being resurrected. Béjart’s “Firebird” displays his communitarian leanings as well as his penchant for chic; here they are neither too glib nor too portentous. The Firebird suddenly emerges out of the midst of the 10 dancers onstage and remains one of them even as he inspires the ranks of the ensemble. The lullaby Stravinsky composed for the Firebird to mesmerize an army of goblins into disarmed sleep is here a fleet and complicated solo for the Firebird. His subsequent collapse also suggests the sacrificial rite of Stravinsky’s “Sacre du Printemps.” All present hail the arrival of a successor before the Firebird rises again and bonds with his revenant. As the Firebird, Clifton Brown impressively piloted his tall frame through the flurries of steps in his solo.

Unlike “Firebird,” both pieces performed after the intermission — Ailey’s “Reflections in D” and “Revelations” — featured live music, which put them in another class of performance experience altogether. For “Reflections in D,” Eric Scott Reed played Ellington’s piano composition onstage while Matthew Rushing danced. Originally performed by Ailey himself, the solo will be performed by both men and women this season. In “Reflections in D,” the dancer samples the weights and measures of Ailey’s adagio vocabulary before concluding with a Graham-type bow on the floor. There are slow arabesques followed by drops onto the knees; long arabesqe penchés are roiled by contractions. “Reflections in D” is short and mellow, and has a semi-improvisational feel, as does the music. Mr. Rushing and Mr. Reed together turned this into a kinetic and musical parley that embodied collaboration at its best.

All the company must do to put over “Revelations” is appear; the audience exists like the child who must hear the story’s final paragraph read no matter how many times he or she has heard it before. Yet the dancers do much more than go through the motions: rarely, if ever, signaling to the audience. The spontaneous and sometimes unexpected phrasing and timbres of singers and musicians in the pit allow, encourage, and demand that the dancers re-assess the material the company knows like the back of its hand. On Wednesday night the Ailey troupe showed that it is more than capable of thinking on its feet, as it delivered a stirring, elegant, and beautiful “Revelations.”


The New York Sun

© 2025 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

The New York Sun

Sign in or  Create a free account

or
By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use