Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returned to Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall last week with their signature breadth of choreography and a sophisticated sense of musicality. Program A, which premiered April 7, features a gorgeous display of artistry and technical mastery that evokes the beauty of diversity in American history.
Berkeley is Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s most visited city outside of New York. This seems fitting given the city's history of civil rights activism, and founder Alvin Ailey’s own role in the movement, for which he posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The world-acclaimed dance company originated in 1958 with a cast of seven Black dancers and has since become the largest modern dance company in the United States and a magnificent example of multiracial artistry and continuous innovation.
The show is inspiring, especially in light of this country’s current era of civil rights rollbacks — but it would be a wonder to see at any time. The musicality of the choreography brings to life the expressiveness of the soundtrack in an evening of endless intrigue.
Program A, the first of four programs, features three Bay Area premieres by three different choreographers, followed by the company’s classic, Revelations. The opening piece starts strong: Blink of an Eye, choreographed by Medhi Walerski, captures the lively orchestrations of Bach's Violin Partitas Nos. 1 and 2 in a seamlessly connected string of vignettes. Tight-fit costuming by Walerski lends focus to the contours of the dancers’ bodies as they play artfully with the music, at times reflecting its sharper rhythms and at other moments challenging its punctuation through longer, languid movements.
Next up is a softer, introspective solo, Song of the Anchorite, with choreography by Jamar Roberts. The piece was inspired by a 1961 solo that Alvin Ailey created for himself, and dancer Yannick Lebrun carries the tribute with steady elegance. The only wanting here is for a more pronounced, embodied response to the dramatic mood shifts in Ravel's accompanying Piano Concerto in G Major.
Difference Between stops the show. In a flash of blue and orange costumes designed by Karen Young, the dancers enter exuberantly and the energy never lets up. Choreographed by Matthew Neenan, this piece assumes the daunting task of interpreting the sweeping, polyphonic music of composer Heather Christian — a MacArthur “Genius” — and it does not disappoint.
Neenan’s choreography is exceptionally sensitive to the composition of Christian’s music. Different groups of dancers inhabit the layered voices in the score through separate, overlapping choreographies that evoke the images in Christian's idiosyncratic lyrics. The "tower of babel" stands out as an impressive feat of ensemble collaboration. A passionate duet between Xavier Mack and Mason Evans enraptures the audience, and the floor-work that concludes the piece leaves us in a breath of awe.
Alvin Ailey’s signature creation, Revelations, closes the show. This series of powerful dances based on African American spirituals is as enthralling and colorful as it is enduring. In a piece that evokes collective memories of the African American experience, the entire ensemble glows. Sarah Daley-Perdomo and Christopher R. Wilson perform an especially entrancing duet in “Fix Me, Jesus.”
As artistic director Alicia Graf Mack noted at the opening of the show, founder Alvin Ailey’s goal was to "hold a mirror to society to show people how beautiful they are." It’s a vision perhaps too poetic to measure, but if the whistles, whoops, and hollers of the standing ovation offer any clue, Ailey has given us quite a generous understanding of our human nature.
There is perhaps no better hope for America than in the lines and leaps of this historic dance company.
