VIEWPOINTS – ALVIN AILEY returns for its holiday time City Center engagement with eclectic premieres and the saving grace of iconic classics

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performs Matthew Neenan’s “Difference Between” at New York City Center (photo by Paul Kolnik).

In the world of dance, one of the holiday traditions that New Yorkers have embraced is paying a visit (or two) to New York City Center to take in Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s invigorating and rejuvenating performances. This season — which is amply spread out across five weeks — I was able to catch two programs which gave me the opportunity to bask in iconic classic works — like Ailey’s evergreen masterpiece Revelations — as well as exciting and highly anticipated new dances by some of today’s more fascinating choreographic voices.

In terms of the latter, Maija García’s Jazz Island set the stage. In essence, the piece is a story ballet — set to an original score by Etienne Charle (alas, pre-recorded) — that animates a Caribbean folktale about the interventions of gods in the foibles of human interactions, namely surrounding instances of jealousy, greed, death, and above all, love. Although the new production looks striking with its magic realism visual aesthetic, the somewhat clichéd and skeletal one act ballet unfortunately falls short of creating a fully compelling narrative, only scratching the surface of the human drama at play and the spiritual forces churning their invisible power in the background.

Also premiering was Difference Between, which is notable for being dance maker Matthew Neenan’s first work for Ailey. Featuring evocative yet enigmatic music by Heather Christian — a contemporary musical artist of the first order and a deserved recent MacArthur Foundation fellow — the nimble yet nuanced piece has been sensitively choreographed to reflect the tangled emotions of the singer-songwriter’s singular musical vocabulary, in the process revealing the complexities of human connection while remaining sufficiently abstract to suggest the depths of its mysteries. The same can be said of the slight but eloquent solo Song of the Anchorite, Jamar Roberts’ pungent world premiere homage to Ailey’s 1961 solo Hermit Songs danced to jazz trumpeter Avishai Cohen’s interpretation of a Ravel adagio.

Of the premieres that I caught, the most rousing of the bunch was Fredrick Earl Mosley’s Embrace, which features a collage of songs from the likes of Stevie Wonder, Kate Bush, Ed Sheeran, Des’ree, and P!nk. The piece continues on the theme of human connection initiated by Neenan’s Difference Between, but this time in a more accessible form. The work is populated by a cast of clearly delineated characters, which the audience follows through scenes of feuding, tenderness, forgiveness, and ultimately healing — all of which which unfold on, against, and around a set of mobile, ingeniously-manipulated wooden platforms. Even if the piece only occasionally delved beyond the second dimension, its open-heartedness clearly spoke to many in the audience.

Best of all, however, were a couple of established showstoppers from the company’s rich repertoire, starting with Revelations, which I experienced this time around luxuriously accompanied by live music. The added task of having the dancers calibrate to the live music-making brought about an organic dynamism to the classic that sometimes eludes performances of the piece when danced to recorded music (spirituals were meant to be heard live and sung with abandon, after all). But perhaps best of all was the chance to revisit Alonzo King’s 2000 Following the Subtle Current Upstream, a thrilling and timeless centerpiece for a large ensemble that only seems to reveal its disparate layers of genius with age.

RECOMMENDED

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER
Dance
New York City Center
Each program is approximately 2 hours (including two intermissions)
Winter season concludes on January 4

Categories: Dance

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