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Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre
Beneath the lovely, ornate facade of the beautiful Midland Theater, Kansas City dance audiences were treated this week to a varied set of concerts highlighting one of the biggest influences in contemporary concert dance choreography, the late Alvin Ailey.
Beneath the lovely, ornate facade of the beautiful Midland Theater, Kansas City dance audiences were treated this week to a varied set of concerts highlighting one of the biggest influences in contemporary concert dance choreography, the late Alvin Ailey.
The Alvin Ailey Dance Theater celebrates its 50th anniversary this year with a tour featuring a wide selection of pieces from their repertory in an historical retrospective of the company's work. Sponsored in a collaboration by the Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey, Harriman-Jewell Series and others, a number of different performances were presented.
The Thursday night and Sunday matinee programs featured Alvin Ailey's earlier works, mostly choreographed by Ailey himself. In the last few years of his life, before his untimely death in 1989, the company began to use more pieces from other choreographers that fit the Ailey style of dance.
This review will cover the special school performances given by the Ailey company for KC area school children, as well as the Saturday matinee.
Each show opened with a short video, titled Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 50 -- A Golden Anniversary Celebration , which gave a narrative account of the history of the Alvin Ailey dance company. This video served to give a context to audiences for the part of the repertory they would be viewing for that day's program.
The first number on the Thursday matinee's program was Night Creature (1958/1963), a 17-minute suite of Ailey's sensuous choreography interpreting the smoky jazz sounds of Duke Ellington. Performed in white and blue outfits, under patterned light designs, the mood of the piece was nocturnal and the moves were sinewy and fluid, articulating every part of the body to the bluesy rhythms.
The second piece on the program was the 1986 piece, Vespers choreographed by Ulysses Dove to the music, Quorum , by Mikel Rouse. Also running 17 minutes, the music for this piece is composed basically of complex combinations of electronic rhythms, and it is used as the vehicle to express in movement the internal emotional dialogues of women in a religious setting. Performed in simple, plain black dresses by an all-female cast in identical bun hairdos, the movements in this piece seemed to contrast the reaching for enlightenment with the earthy, raw (and often conflicted) feelings of female physical power. Dove, a former Ailey dancer, has had his choreography as part of the Ailey repertory since 1980. Dove successfully articulates the Ailey style within his own work, making an appropriate addition to company's repertoire.
The last work was a new addition to the Ailey repertory, Festa Barocca , choreographed by acclaimed Italian choreographer, Mauro Bigonzetti. This long piece (44 minutes), had several movements set to operatic music in contemporary Baroque style. The dance integrated classical moves, inspired by court dances, with athletic modern moves to present an almost satirical (and sometimes humorous) caricature of performance dance. This piece was almost reflective in its self-referencing pastiche, as the dance called on many styles and juxtaposed them in opposition with each other. Performed in colorful satin skirts on both male and female dancers, the complex choreography was often as challenging to watch as it was to perform, because of the concentration of complicated moves in a small amount of space and time, creating a flurry of activity. An unusual piece, it not only displayed a great deal of the dancers' technical ability, but also seemed to present a commentary on the evolution of dance into a very technical art form.
Comments:
The original Ailey works still have a great deal of power, and we tend to forget today how innovative his style was for its time. When Ailey began, the choreography was unique and new to audiences, as well as very political, since there were not mnay black companies at the time, especially those highlighting black culture in their themes. These early works still pack a wallop.
One wonders, however, where the Ailey company will go from here. So much of the Ailey movement and style has become an integral part of regular modern dance vocabulary, it is likely to either change its style (which it has over the years), or risk being frozen in time as codified masterpieces, not unlike the Balanchine ballets (which seems to have also occurred). It is always a difficult balancing act to try to capture the ephemeral art of dance, and inscribe it in some way, as a legacy work of art, and yet keep the creative work fresh and timely and relevant. Both approaches are very important and needed, but the approaches are often in conflicting tension with each other.
REVIEW:
Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey
Harriman-Jewell Series
Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre
November 13-16, 2008
Midland Theatre, Downtown Kansas City, MO
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