Opening Night Promises a Golden Season

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The New York Sun

“Ailey Troupe Opens Season Without ‘Revelations.’ “

We aren’t likely to see that headline any day soon, and with good reason. The work is Alvin Ailey’s best-known, and the company’s annual New York season openings inevitably include it. This was proved again Wednesday night, when the company began its monthlong City Center run. It performed “Revelations” — rousingly, of course — and in general treated itself to a festive first night.

Before “Revelations,” though, other works held stage. Artistic director Judith Jamison introduced the first work performed, Ailey’s “Pas de Duke,” which he made for her and Mikhail Baryshnikov — two years after his defection — for a gala back in 1976. “Pas de Duke” is a delightful swagger through a scene of smoky nightclub darkness. It follows the classical pas de deux structure of entrée — in this case saunter — adagio, individual variations for each dancer, and then another duet for a coda. The lighting by Chenault Spence — bubbles blown on a cyclorama — and the Rouben Ter-Arutunian stretch satin slacks, tank tops, and Eisenhower jackets all wonderfully typify a jubilant moment in the Ailey company’s history — the high point of Ailey’s professional career in the 1970s.

The choreographic signature of “Pas de Duke” is a reciprocal crossover between Mr. Baryshnikov’s classical props and Ms. Jamison’s modern-dance ones. The two dancers’ introductory stroll onstage is punctuated with balletic jumps. He drops to the floor to appraise her. His arabesques are more classical, while hers give her a chance to look over her own shoulder flirtatiously. Throughout the pas de deux, performed to Ellington selections, the two dancers turn on the ground and in the air, and dive to the floor in vertiginous pitches. He references a jump form the warhorse “Don Quixote,” which Mr. Baryshnikov had performed many times in Russia and with which he was continuing to wow audiences in the West. The two show the flag, or engage in friendly competition; the piece resonates with the knockabout bonhomie of Broadway, revue, and Cotton Club.

At Wednesday night’s gala three different couples split up “Pas de Duke” as an opening night party favor. Dwana Adiaha Smallwood and Antonio Douthit danced the opening duet, Linda Celeste Sims and Matthew Rushing took on the individual variations, and Asha Thomas and Clifton Brown danced the conclusion. All three couples performed expertly. But “Pas de Duke” was turned on its head in a sense: Mr. Baryshnikov is short and his height enabled his ability to perform incredibly fast and intricate steps. Messrs. Douthit and Brown are tall, and, despite the fact that “Pas de Duke” has been tweaked over the years since Mr. Baryshnikov first danced it, the steps were a bit of a stretch for them.

After “Pas de Duke” came the company premiere of Twyla Tharp’s “The Golden Section.” The company’s use of Ms. Tharp’s work is a positive step because it has been apparent for some time that the Ailey troupe needs to venture beyond its usual haunts to find worthy new additions to its repertory.

“The Golden Section” is the concluding movement of “The Catherine Wheel,” a convoluted evening-length piece Ms. Tharp made for her Broadway season in 1981. “The Golden Section” is all dance, a self-contained cosmos. Ms. Tharp imagines her own idyllic playground, where an elite group, costumed by Santo Loquasto to look like the performers of ancient Crete or Myceneas, perform her synthesis of ballet, acrobatics, fisticuffs, tap dance, and insinuating slouch to the tom-tom tinged rock score of David Byrne.

At this particular moment in Ms. Tharp’s career, an element of self-consciousness was creeping into her work, and I’m not sure that “Golden Section” is really Ms. Tharp at her very best. But, as always, her work offers challenges; the Ailey dancers performed with panache and assurance, but they’re not yet completely acclimated to her rhetoric, her syntax, or her physical coordination. It will be interesting to see their performances develop.

After the intermission came “Revelations,”which I’ve watched the company dance for the last 30 years. Wednesday’s performance at least matched and at times surpassed the quality of past years’ productions, since it was performed to live music — unfortunately, a rare occurrence in recent Ailey seasons. Let’s hope Wednesday night’s performance is an indication of things to come.

Season runs through December 31 (West 55th Street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, 212-581-1212).


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