by Leigh Witchel
Is everything old new again at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater? Somehow, the company managed to program a premiere night with no premieres. It could be cranky hair-splitting, but a new production, which the company has long billed as a premiere, isn’t a premiere. It’s a revival.
Opening the evening, Ronald K. Brown’s “Dancing Spirit,” from 2009, felt doubly removed from a premiere. The new staging didn’t even bow this season, but earlier this year at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Dressed in white, Yannick Lebrun postured slowly on a diagonal, walking, tilting, balancing, raising his arms, then Constance Stamatiou came out and shadowed him. Another man joined on the diagonal. Stamatiou broke away to do her own phrase, then returned. Another woman joined in at the beginning of the diagonal; Lebrun walked off at the other. The pace was deliberate, taking its time. A couple entered, joining the phrase, then another couple added on before the music ended. By now, it was clear what the diagonal was, but not why we kept seeing it. The saccharine recorded music didn’t help.
Like a jukebox shuffle, the music switched from Duke Ellington to Wynton Marsalis. Lebrun and then Stamatiou did a more vibrant Afro-tinged phrase across the back and around the perimeter. They led off the new section as well, more unison phrases to melancholy woodwinds that broke the group into smaller units, but none of it with much impact. “Dancing Spirit” had an almost modular, didactic structure, but it only held together phrase by phrase. Take a combination. Repeat it. Have another group do it. It felt like choreography by Lego set.
When Brown gave the dancers another Afro-jazz phrase, the dancers could help him sell the piece. Lebrun and Stamatiou led with the rest of the cast circling round them. The group coalesced into unison, as the music went into a diminuendo. Another record on the jukebox, this time Radiohead. Lebrun and Stamatiou gave it their all, acting concerned, looking up and out, but at what?
The music picked up with lively percussion by War and we were at the finale. If there’s one thing Brown can do it’s make a ripping phrase. Lebrun and Stamatiou cut loose with the rest of the cast, and the Ailey dancers can sell anything. They don’t need a beautiful structure.
If the work in isolation seemed sparse, it did make more sense with context. “Dancing Spirit” is the title of Judith Jamison’s autobiography; the work is a tribute to her and her dancing, brought back for her 80th birthday. Brown remounted it after rehabilitating from a stroke two years ago that left him temporarily unable to walk.
There were moments in the piece where Brown dipped into a collective consciousness in the Ailey repertory: a wagging finger in the middle of a phrase, or the huge moon that appeared on the backdrop at the end. We saw echoes of both in the finale of “Revelations,” though the huge sphere is a setting sun there. Even the final pose, the cast in a line making an acknowledgment to the audience, felt like “Revelations” echoed or deconstructed.
Both Brown’s and Jamar Roberts’s “Ode,” showed the complicated connection between what the choreographer intended and what we saw. Roberts described “Ode” as “a meditation on the fragility of life in a time of increased gun violence.” If you knew the title of the music, Don Pullen’s “Suite (Sweet) Malcolm (Part 1 Memories and Gunshots),” you’d have a strong clue what Roberts was aiming at. If you just sat and watched the dance, the meaning would have been less certain.
The visuals were the most striking aspect of “Ode.” A brightly flowered trapezoid drop designed by Libby Stadstad made the stage look as if it had an awning made from a Russian lacquer box. Corrin Rachelle Mitchell lay underneath, as if resting under a bower. To the solo piano score’s high notes, another woman joined her, then another until there were six.
The women were troubled, and in unison, did a whipping phrase, coming forward and to the ground, pleading, then back up, spasming and slumping, The music gradually sped up and became more dissonant; Jacquelin Harris contracted and jerked while the other five reached on the floor, disoriented.
The piano started to pound and slowly became a headache. Roberts was working with more complex choreographic devices than Brown, so “Ode” looked more like a dance than dancing. The women linked arms, then Ashley Kaylynn Green broke out for a big, free phrase that everyone took up. That sped up to a frenzy and cacophony. The women linked arms for a quiet moment and an embrace before Mitchell laid down and the rest left.
Dance is painted in watercolors, not oils, and shows emotions more than specifics. Sometimes it’s enough to know that dancers are upset, or angry, or transfixed. Sometimes it’s not. Does it matter whether you know a dance is about Judith Jamison, does it matter whether it’s clear that a work is about gun violence? As long as you can make sense out of why those dancers are onstage, probably not. But if the point was anti-gun violence, you would want that to be clear, and not just to people who would pick up on it.
To state the obvious, everyone knows why the dancers in “Revelations” are onstage. The work is also more than six decades old. Time and familiarity has helped, but it likely was never anything less than clear.
In an ironic contrast, “Revelations” had live music, yet it’s the score that happens to have an excellent recording. “Dancing Spirit” was choreographed to a variety of selections that required recorded music, but it’s sad that the solo piano score for “Ode” couldn’t be played live, especially as the recording sounded dreadful. Frustratingly, the live singing in “Revelations” was great, but so over-miked it sounded recorded.
In “Fix Me, Jesus” Stamatiou showed her total trust in Jeroboam Bozeman by dropping side to side without looking, but then slowly revolved with her leg sky high, to applause. A seeming contradiction: “Revelations” is a tribute and expression of spirituality and a showpiece meant to impress. But that’s no contradiction, look at any cathedral.
Lebrun slowly extended his leg then twisted to another extension in “I Wanna Be Ready,” another applause machine. The slowness is just another version of Alexandra Danilova’s advice about making an adagio look difficult to make the audience think it’s hard. And along with the adagio showpieces came an allegro one, “Sinner Man.” Christopher R. Wilson split past 180 degrees in his jetés en tournant to pop straight up.
But the high point of intensity in “Revelations” this time came during the baptism of “Wade in the Water,” with Samantha Figgins and Renaldo Maurice in transport, but Maurice even showing a touch of spiritual apprehension as it began, not knowing what or how he would feel.
There’s something off about packaging revivals as new. After all, there’s nothing wrong with a night of revivals, especially as the company could use a revival right now. Ailey looks like it always does, an incredibly well-oiled machine, as establishment in its own way as New York City Ballet. Including, unfortunately, all the attendant institutional problems. With the unanticipated resignation of its artistic director, Robert Battle, right before the company’s main season, the only thing that is certain is that there are uncertain times ahead.
copyright ©2023 by Leigh Witchel
“Dancing Spirit,” “Ode,” “Revelations” – Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
New York City Center, New York, NY
December 1, 2023
Cover: Constance Stamatiou in “Dancing Spirit.” Photo © Paul Kolnik.
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