Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater 

City Center, New York, NY

November 30, 2005-January 1, 2006

Reviewed by Susan Yung

Alley's annual City Center run included three premieres--two by seasoned hands and a collaboration by three company members. Taking Edward Hopper's painting Nighthawks as an inspiration, Judith Jamison's Reminiscin', accompanied by love songs by famous female vocalists, proved an upbeat epilogue to an artwork usually invoking anomie and solitude. Eleven dancers on the town paired off and regrouped, making for a spirited, shifting dynamic. As artistic director, Jamison has shown an affinity for pop/standard songs strung together to create a multi-act "soundtrack" (which sets up a dramatic and structural framework) and for adrenalized, competitive feats of athleticism--but sometimes at the loss of nuance.

Each cast member behaved like a familiar type--flirt, scolder, etc. Dwana Adiaha Smallwood danced to "A Tisket, A Tasket," flashing her high-wattage smile as she toyed with the jazzy phrasing. Alicia Graf, a luminous new company member from Dance Theatre of Harlem, joined Jamar Roberts in a fittingly intoxicating duet to "A Case of You." The piece's many developpes accentuated Graf's height and long legs; her arches are so pronounced that her feet seem prehensile. The pair's arms pulsed fluidly, forming elegant shapes linked by multiple turns.

An earthier, grounded sensibility took over as, one by one, the dancers formed a moving train--planted in wide second position, their wiggling feet propelled them forward as they jostled their shoulders. Contrasting piping delineated the dresses' curves, and instead of slippers, the women sported chains of rhinestone on their feet. The men showed off, springing high in bent-leg jumps and hoisting their extended legs skyward with their hands. The group ending thrilled the audience, although its literal musicality and "Everybody hit that pose now!" regimentation strained at the seams.

Ronald K. Brown has found a home on Ailey's roster. Grace (1999) is a perennial repertory highlight. His 2005 premiere, Ife/My Heart, which in Yoruban means "my heart, the way God loves me," sketched a chronology of the search for spiritual meaning in the African diaspora. The costumes ranged from dashikis and church-best whites to modern garb, while the musical selections-again, soundtrack style--varied from a traditional prayer to an infectious Ursula Rucker song. Brown traced the passage of time with a sampling of movement conventions--from processionals, to four in a square taking turns at a solo, to a contemporary line of dancers carving space--with his tantalizing, rhythmic, speedy amalgam of styles.

Three Alley dancers (Hope Boykin, Abdur-Rahim Jackson, and Matthew Rushing) created the final season premiere, Acceptance in Surrender, an earnest telling of the sojourn of a lost soul (Smallwood). Three men--Glenn Allen Sims, Clifton Brown, and Kirven Boyd--in one-shouldered unitards--became a supportive frame to Smallwood, an expressionistic painting in flame-like colors. Anguished, she shook and quivered as the doleful piano score by Philip Hamilton unspooled; she literally pounded her heart as the men curved their arms in a canon. The choreographic team played it safe, though, and this felt like a green effort.

The season also featured some choice revivals and a new company production of Hans van Manen's charming Solo. Named for the solo violin that plays Bach's accompanying music, the work showcases three men in a playful contest of physical daring and wizardry. One cast boasted Sims, Brown, and Rushing, each re-proving why he is a member of this select troupe. Brown, the company's current prodigy, manages to elegantly embody the best of both male and female movement qualities--one minute a strong base for a partner, the next all shaded, gentle liquidity. Sims could not be a more solid, athletic presence, and Rushing, for his relative maturity, remains keenly precise and subtle.

Witness (1986), a woman's solo, displayed Alley's easy mastery of the theater. Both Renee Robinson and Linda Celeste Sims shone as a worshipful woman in a white gown surrounded by lit candles, with Jessye Norman's soaring voice setting an elegiac tone. The final revival was Ulysses Dove's Urban Folk Dance, an intense study of the complexity of relationships as seen in two couples set side by side. The men and women both flaunted whatever physical or emotional tools they could summon, careening from seductive to violent.

It is a difficult balancing act to keep Ailey's own work vivid, not repeat favorites to death, and add new pieces to the repertoire. The populist bent of the company makes the "soundtrack" approach an easy, if well-trod, path. And let's just hope that subtle artistry can survive alongside athleticism. See www.alvinailey.org.