Premieres, Revivals, and a Tribute

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The New York Sun

It seems to be an unusually balletic season for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, as evidenced by the three performances I saw over the past week. And that comports with artistic director Judith Jamison’s apparent decision to pile up as many challenges for her dancers as she could. Made for American Ballet Theatre in 1970, Ailey’s “The River” on Wednesday afternoon found the Ailey dancers struggling at times with balletic attack and precision.

Perhaps they were wrestling with some fatigue, but their occasional rockiness may also have been the inevitable result of their decision not to shrink from exposing themselves in choreography that takes them slightly out of their comfort zone. But by the time “The River” had flowed to its destination, the work had coalesced beautifully.

“Pas De Duke” was danced Tuesday night by Linda Celeste Sims and Matthew Rushing and Wednesday during a matinee performance by Asha Thomas and Clifton Brown. This duet was originally made for Mikhail Baryshnikov and Ms. Jamison, and both roles are extremely taxing. The woman high-steps on relevé à la Josephine Baker at the Folies Bergère one moment, and attempts a double tour the next. The man’s role is even more balletic, and it requires him to immerse himself into a jazz ambiance. Both Messrs. Brown and Rushing are naturally more at home in the Ellington mood than was Mr. Baryshnikov. As balletic technicians, though, neither is on his level, but each almost made you think he was by the expert and uncompromising way he performed.

Over the years, it has become increasingly clear that part of the point of “Pas De Duke” was to show two fish slightly out of water, and this gives it wit and bite. Originally a party piece made for the two stars to dance at a one-night-only gala occasion, it has since become part of the Ailey repertory. Revived this year after five years, it now looks like one of Ailey’s best works.

Tuesday night’s program was devoted to this season’s premieres and revivals. The dancers negotiated the rippling, flowing, dissolving phalanxes of Karole Armitage’s “Gamelan Gardens,” and they scampered and skylarked though Uri Sands’s “Existence Without Form.” Tuesday night concluded with the zany acrobatics of Twyla Tharp’s “The Golden Section,” which her company first performed in 1981 and was taken into the Ailey repertory this season.

The coolness of Ms. Tharp’s dancers manifested itself in a rag doll looseness and limpness to their attack. The Ailey dancers by temperament, though, are generally more tensile and wired at all times. So if the Ailey troupe’s take on Ms. Tharp’s work doesn’t make for a perfect fit, it does make for a provocative one.

My only complaint about Ailey’s tribute to Renee Robinson last Sunday night was that we didn’t see enough of Ms. Robinson herself. In the opening “Night Creature,” her role was danced by Ms. Sims, who was marvelous, but Ms. Robinson was missed. After 25 years in the company, however, Ms. Robinson knows how to pace herself and knows exactly what she wants to do. She was fresh as a daisy onstage for the remainder of the evening, and performed a solo from Carmen de Lavallade’s “Sweet Bitter Love,” as well as danced in their entirety Ronald K. Brown’s “Grace,” and Ailey’s “Revelations.”

Time hasn’t slowed Ms. Robinson down to a walk; it’s slowed her down enough to know that a walk is as important as a run, and she brings fine shadings and rare wisdom to both. Nothing is wasted, nothing is scanted in her dancing. When movements in “Sweet Bitter Love” are repeated, she states them differently. At the end of the solo, Ms. Robinson wipes away a tear; she was able to finesse this moment of lachrymosal literalness with elegance.

Ms. Robinson’s role is of a shamanness of sorts in “Grace,” in which she swayed with sidereal rhythm, and lashed and thrashed. She drubbed the floor imperiously in Mr. Brown’s characteristic marriage of hip-hop and African tribal dance. The stage beneath her feet turned into putty in her hands, transforming obediently into hallowed procession ground and scorching inner-city pavement.

Ms. Robinson apparently decided that in her tribute she would just let her dancing speak for itself. The one nod toward sentiment, however, occurred in the end of “Revelations,” when former Ailey star, Dudley Williams, who danced with the company for 40 years, appeared in the final movement to kind of escort Ms. Robinson through “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham.” Ms. Robinson was incandescent, and the entire company danced fabulously all evening.


The New York Sun

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