Alvin Ailey Tries Choreography By Committee

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The New York Sun

For the next five weeks, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is on stage at City Center. This annual engagement is a good time for New Yorkers to see how this truly American modern dance company is maintaining its repertory and moving forward with new works.


The programming is nicely balanced between evenings of Ailey classics, which of course include “Revelations,” and evenings devoted to new works. There are three world premieres this season: “Ife” (“My Heart”) by Ronald Brown, “Reminiscin'” by artistic director Judith Jamison, and “Acceptance in Surrender” by three current dancers – Hope Boykin, Abdur-Rahim Jackson, and Matthew Rushing.


Yes, indeed, that last piece has three choreographers. (And almost as many dancers.) Which is a fairly unusual arrangement. Usually, choreographers function like executives that make decisions on their own and shoulder the praise or blame as an individual.


Ms. Boykin, Mr. Jackson, and Mr. Rushing decided to work together when Ms. Jamison announced that anyone in the company who wished to create a new work could apply for the chance. The hope was to continue Ailey’s encouragement of dancers who wished to try out their choreographic talents.


“They had to submit a proposal, just like they would if they were applying to the NEA,” Ms. Jamison said. “The process went on for about a year.”


The parameters were that the piece had to be about 15 minutes, and it would be a small work in scale and cast. It also had to stay within a budget. After picking the team of choreographers, Ms. Jamison let them get to work: “I stay as far away from the process as possible,” she said.


The three friends have lived and worked together in one way or another for more than 12 years, but they had never choreographed together before. The good news is, after creating a work of art together, they’re still speaking to each other.


The resulting piece, set to an original score by Philip Hamilton, is a four-person work in which three angels lead a troubled woman to peace.As with most aspects of this ballet, the concept was generated by committee. “We met and talked about all of our ideas,” Mr. Rushing said. The ideas for what the work could be flowed seamlessly together into a whole.


In the studio, the three worked with each other’s energy and ideas, too. If one had a hard time communicating something, another would step in. “Its hard. How do you articulate a feeling?” Ms. Boykin said. It helps to have people who understand your feelings and feel similarly.


Was it difficult to pick dancers for the ballet, given that the choreographers were choosing between their colleagues? Not really, they said. That’s show biz, after all.


“We chose dancers who had a history with us,” Ms. Boykin said.


Mr. Jackson added: “They had to be able to go ugly, or vulnerable.”


Also, they were helped in that three different casts were needed. Many dancers will be assigned roles of different nights. “It’s really a castless ballet. You don’t know what cast you’ll be seeing,” Ms. Boykin said.


“Acceptance in Surrender”is not the only work created in-house this season. Ms. Jamison will premiere her own “Reminscin’, ” which is an ensemble piece in tribute to female jazz artists including Sara Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Roberta Flack, Regina Carter, and Diana Krall. She also found inspiration from the dark moods in Edward Hopper’s painting “Nighthawks.”


“It’s about love lost, love confused, and loved gained – all with a 4 o’clockin-the-morning feel,” she said. “Ms. Flack and I go back a long way. A couple of days after Alvin passed, she sang ‘Always’ at a performance.”


Though she recalled this with a glint of nostalgia, Ms. Jamison is not slowed by anything. She’s as dramatic in an interview as she was on stage: always moving, expressing, and vibrant. And, as audiences will see in the coming weeks, this company is following her lead.


For tickets call 212-581-1212, visit www.alvinailey.org, or go to the City Center box office at 130 55th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.


***


Want a quick but dramatic lesson in the history of Afghanistan? I recommend tickets to “Beyond the Mirror.” This is a work of theater told not in dance, but in mime, theatrical movement, and shadow puppetry.


The work is a collaboration between Bond Street Theater and a drama group from Kabul called Exile Theatre, considered to be the first U.S.-Afghan theater effort. The work is a series of vignettes that illustrate the challenges that regular Afghan people faced from one takeover to the next.


“We created this to let Americans know more about the situation of the Afghan people,” the director of Bond Street Theater, Johanna Sherman, said. “I wanted to bring home these stories. They’re trying so hard to lead a normal life. And over the last 25 years, each series of demands has been more difficult than the next.”


The two groups met while members of Bond Street Theater traveled to refugee areas of northern Pakistan in March 2002. After performing theater for children, Bond Street found the Afghani actors – who had been trodding the boards in secret at home and while in exile in Pakistan.


“They found places and ways to perform. Sometimes they were stopped by the police,” Ms. Sherman said. “Their performances were interesting and ironic.”


Against the odds, these two companies put together a work that is political, but also artistic and emotional. Were the work to be presented with greater production values and a slicker package, it would have a wider audience. But it would be just as affecting as it is tucked in a small theater on the Lower East Side.



Theater for the New City (155 First Avenue) until December 4. For tickets, call 212-254-1109.


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