by Leigh Witchel
The big-name acquisition this season for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was another work by Twyla Tharp. “Roy’s Joys” was made a quarter century ago for Tharp! (one of her project incarnations), but it loops farther back to her work to early jazz; pieces such as “Sue’s Leg,” or “Baker’s Dozen.” It’s a dance for five men and four women to tinny recordings of nine songs by jazz trumpeter Roy Eldridge.
The dancers were costumed in patterned sleeveless shirts and high-waisted pants designed by Santo Loquasto. The dancing started with the cast in a circle, doing Tharp’s easy, insinuating movement. The cast coalesced into a diagonal and back to a circle as the music got bluesy, then died out.
James Gilmer butted Solomon Dumas with his forehead; later they bumped chests. Patrick Coker joined Gilmer and Dumas for a trio that had a gee-whiz Broadway quality that recalled the three sailors in “Fancy Free.” It worked, because the dancers kept a light touch and didn’t overplay Tharp’s jokes.
When we arrived at what seemed like a flashy finale that started two-by-two and morphed to three-by-three, we were actually barely at the middle of the piece. But in Tharp’s jukebox, she saved most of her quarters for finales.
But that also worked. Even with Tharp’s tendency to overdo, she kept surprising us by how she followed, or didn’t follow, the music. A dance that started out as a panorama crossing the stage morphed into a quintet. That melted into a solo for Chalvar Monteiro jiving at the center as Dumas watched at the side snapping his fingers.
The next finale placed Coker at the center and the others at the side. It looked as if it was going to be a dance for Gilmer and Jacquelin Harris, but it turned out to feature Deirdre Rogan and Dumas in an acrobatic ballroom number.
Gilmer and Harris regained the floor, changing the mood to something more flowing. Tharp seems to like, here and elsewhere, the partnering possibilities from the height difference between these two. Gilmer tossed Harris and she happily pitched herself into and over him. Their lifts continued into the silence, seguing to a fake-out transition. It was ingenious and unpredictable, but Tharp didn’t build to a bona fide finale, she just lifted the needle.
The Ailey dancers have no trouble with Tharp’s movement. It’s the second of her works in the company’s repertory, after The Golden Section from “The Catherine Wheel.” Gilmer and Harris have already worked on her shows at New York City Center, and danced a duet from “Nine Sinatra Songs” as part of the Ailey gala. But, as at a ballet company, when her work is set by a stager (here, Shelley Washington) rather than Tharp, it looks more buffed, polished and standardized.
The evening opened with “Memoria,” a large-scale 1979 work that Ailey dedicated “In Memory – In Celebration” to close friend, choreographer Joyce Trisler after her sudden early death of a heart attack.
Sarah Perdomo-Daley anchored the work, beginning at the back, with Jermaine Terry and Yannick Lebrun as her lieutenants. Keith Jarrett’s music was pensive as they slowly moved together. More women came soaring in held overhead by their partners.
Four decades after its creation with the sad events at a distance, the sincerity of the work felt very 70’s-meaningful. The cast reached and contracted, swirling and extending around the stage. Ghrai DeVore-Stokes arrived as a spirit or memory, wearing a ghostly shift over her dress. Both her solo and Perdomo-Daley’s were less about fidelity to details that we might think of as adding up to a text, the way Balanchine might be staged. Rather, the text requires the performance quality of each dancer. DeVore-Stokes’ solo was about what she could do that shaded the steps; the strength with which she could move her extension from back to the side.
The group returned and Perdomo-Daley spun and extended at the center. Everyone faced to the back and large squadron of dancers arrived (the company was augmented here by dancers both from the second company and the school): a group of six in gray at the center, then two groups of five and two of six. The more people Ailey put on the stage, the more he thought about design. Jarrett’s music sounded a bit like Arvo Pärt’s as the dancers on the perimeter raced to the front two by two and leaped. The gray group took over the slow movement, which led to a “Les Noces” totem of heads at the center.
Perdomo-Daley had changed into a red dress and entered down a corridor of dancers diving into penché. She seemed to revel in being the first dancer, with an extra helping of exaltation in the last movement and lots of noblesse oblige in her bows. Her two lieutenants were joined by Monteiro; they all danced as a quartet. Everyone was grooving and selling as they shimmied. The full cast returned, mostly changed into bright colors for a danse générale that ended with the Perdomo-Daley tossed skyward. This was the celebration part of the memorial, and it made about as much sense in the development of its ideas as the mood changes in “Scotch Symphony”: very little. Compared to “Memoria,” it was interesting that Tharp’s chaos seemed more thoughtful.
As it often does, “Revelations” capped the show, and as in any lengthy season, there were some last-minute casting switches. Ashley Mayeux and Gilmer went into “Fix Me, Jesus” for Corrin Rachelle Mitchell and Michael Jackson Jr. Mayeux and Gilmer did the duet with a far gaze and a sense of the infinite. She was secure with him, and both sculpted their lines. Gilmer danced with Cincinnati Ballet, and you can see it by how he presented his arm to Mayeux, like a cavalier.
In “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel,” Christopher Taylor, Alisha Rena Peek and Hannah Alissa Richardson pushed hard to make the desperate contractions and reaches underscore a plea for justice. Lebrun danced the slow balances of “I Wanna Be Ready” deep in his solar plexus.
Solomon Dumas went in for Gilmer in the part Gilmer was originally to do: the first solo in “Sinner Man.” In the second variation (which Gilmer also does) Christopher R. Wilson did the turning jetés with a slight tilt, an off-kilter effect that became a character detail.
As complete as “Revelations” seems and as basic to the Ailey repertory as it is, it’s another jukebox ballet, and that’s why logistically it can be done so often. The sections are independent, and rather than a Cast X and a Cast Y, the roles get swapped in and out. As Christopher Zunner, the Director of Public Relations explained, the changes a dancer needs to know to do a different part are more specific to the position than the steps.
Because it’s made and danced in discreet segments, a jukebox dance is easy to rehearse, perform and excerpt if needed. What makes the piece seem fragmented or complete is the arc of it as a whole. “Revelations” has strong continuity, going a from contemplative mass work, to smaller sections, back to a massed whole. But you don’t need to succeed by adhering to someone else’s rules of a well-made dance. Tharp kept feeding quarters into her jukebox, punching her choices, and sooner or later, we danced to her tune as well.
copyright ©2022 by Leigh Witchel
“Memoria,” “Roy’s Joys,” “Revelations” – Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
New York City Center, New York, NY
December 9, 2022
Cover: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in “Revelations.” Photo credit © Paul Kolnik.
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