The Ailey grind.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

Tyrell Rolle was in young dancer's paradise the other day when we reached him by telephone in Canada. The bus hauling the dozen dancers from Ailey II - the student troupe from the Ailey School in New York - had dropped them off at a spa and resort in Victoria, B.C., where they would get a couple of delicious days of R&R.

No dancing, no bus trips, just a chance to regroup.

``We have a shower and a queen-sized bed and the jacuzzi tub and big TV!'' the 21-year-old dancer said. ``It's great!''

On a regular day, Rolle said, touring with Ailey II was more like dance boot camp: daily shows, bus trips, so-so hotels, and, worst of all, those 8 a.m. performances in front of school groups.

``Why do I want to do this?'' he said. ``My whole thing is, I'm trying to get into the first company.''

That would be the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, one of the premiere institutions of modern dance. Alvin Ailey founded it in 1958.

You can see Rolle and the other 11 up-and-coming dancers from Ailey II when they perform tonight at the Hult Center. Its the first time Ailey II has been in Eugene.

The best known work they are to dance is "Revelations," Ailey's 1960 masterpiece about the black experience. The dance was created years before Rolle was even born.

"It's a great feeling to dance it," he said. "When I first saw `Revelations,' I was in 11th grade, and I had just had one year of training. It's the most-performed dance in the United States of America. Now I think, `I am doing something that was created in the 1960s. This is something else!' '

Rolle said "Revelations" continues to be popular even in the out-of-the-way places that Ailey II performs.

"Sometimes you go through these small cities and you don't think that `Revelations' will touch people like it does," he said. "But it does. It works. It's amazing to do, and it leads to an encore every night."

The troupe will also perform "Takedeme" - in which choreographer Robert Battle abstracts the rhythms of Indian Kathak dance - along with "Splendid Isolation II" and "Axis."

Rolle was a late comer to serious dance.

He was in the 10th grade in a performing arts school in Miami when he decided to move from theater to dance. In one of his first dance classes, a classmate, one of the girls who had been dancing since she was 4 or 5, told him to stick to theater.

``She was like, `You need to quit now. You ain't no dancer.' I am thinking to myself, `Who does she think she is?' '

Rolle worked extra hard, eventually getting accepted at the Ailey School, where he's finishing his third year.

He'd like to make it into the regular Ailey company eventually and hopes to run his own dance company someday.

Meanwhile, he's got more shows to do after holing up at the spa in Victoria.

"We are performing every night," he said. "Bus and performing. Bus and performing. It gets pretty tiring, yeah, it does.

``But you just have to stick through it, and know, `I can't party. I have to save my body, so I can do it all again tomorrow ...' ''

DANCE PREVIEW

Ailey II

What: Young dancers from the Ailey School in New York present a program that includes ``Revelations,'' ``Takedeme,'' ``Splendid Isolation II'' and ``Axis''

Where: Hult Center, Seventh Avenue and Willamette Street

When: 7:30 tonight

Tickets: $15 to $50, through the Hult box office, 682-5000