"Mixed Program"
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Zellerbach Hall, Cal Performances
Berkeley, CA
April 23, 2013
by Rita Felciano
Copyright © Rita Felciano, 2013
For years I have wondered how well the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater would have fared without "Revelations," the superb and by now iconic work that instantly put the company on the map in 1960. There is an Ailey style of dancing -- fast, athletic, precise, infectious -- that has arisen from Alvin Ailey's choreography but would that have been enough to make his troupe the worldwide phenomenon that it is without "Revelations?" Audiences -- I count myself among them -- couldn't get enough of it. It was the highpoint of every Ailey concert, no matter how often you had seen -- and let's not forget -- heard it. But the question may finally be answered.
"Revelations" may no longer be the only game on stage. Still it worked its magic. Linda Celeste Sims and Glenn Allen Sims' 'Fix me, Jesus' had such poignancy, particularly, in the way he supported her over and over. 'Sinner Man's' darting desperation (Jamar Roberts, Yannick Lebrun and Kirven James Boyd) treated the floor as if on fire. The final 'Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham,' however, lacked the fervor and sense of community it has shown so often before.
Battle, only in his second year as AD, deserves credit for the intelligently balanced program that, besides "Revelations," included Kyle Abraham's 2012 "Another Night" and Jirí Kylián "Petite Mort." Intriguingly, Battle who before assuming Ailey's artistic leadership had directed an all-male ensemble Battleworks, also presented two small pieces from his own rep. "Strange Humors", a duet (Renaldo Gardner and Michael Francis McBride) had a tactile elasticity about it as the men stalked and challenged each much the way boxers might. Yet playfulness and aggression seemed to be intertwined. In the highly dramatic "In/Side," soloist Samuel Lee Roberts repeatedly fell and curled up as if broken into pieces; he evoked a man tortured by internal demons or a victim on a battlefield. Yet he fiercely kept resurrecting himself. Both works served as palate cleansers between meatier, but also emotionally more easily digestible pieces.
Neither Abraham's "Another Night" nor Kylián's "Petite Mort" is choreographically complex but they are solidly constructed with a nice presentational sheen about them. "Another" opened with Jacqueline Green -- long legged and fluid -- checking out a space. Soon other dancers streamed in, and the party to Dizzy Gillespie's "A Night in Tunisia" as performed by Art Blakey and his Jazz Messengers, got going. The tempo was upbeat, kicks were fast, strides wide and leaps high. The ensemble worked together in a loosely knitted fit. When a male quartet dove onto the floor in unison, they got up having split into contrasting duets. Couples formed and dissolved with great ease. Tiny Hope Boykin and Aisha Mitchell engaged in a pulling/pushing encounter but strode off in harmony. Renaldo Gardner's whipping solo sent him downstage as if announcing something. Green and Roberts' sculptural duet had a sense of privacy about it, even though in the end she was left alone on stage. Naoko Nagata's strong color palette for the costumes, however, seemed oddly chosen.
To see the opening of "Petite Mort", mainly performed by ballet companies, on Ailey's muscular men came as a surprise. Their physicality seemed out of scale with those skinny fencing foils; swords seemed more appropriate. Yet the men handled those sexual teases with great panache. The company gave "Petite Mort" an appealing performance despite the fact that the skirts almost got away from some the women. In Joop Caboot's superb lighting design, these golden dancers--stretching, intertwining and offering themselves--responded to each other with the utmost courtesy and yet with such intimacy. I wondered whether at its 1960 world premiere, "Petite's" overt sensuality had shocked audiences. Today we can only admire the brilliance with which Kylián offered a contemporary perspective, or perhaps a behind a curtain look, of an 18th century measured formality embedded in eroticism. Green and Lebrun, and Akua Noni and Antonio Douthit -- also gut-wrenchingly desperate in 'I Wanna Be Ready'--stood out for the ember that glowed in their dancing.
Kylián's choreography followed Mozart's lead with great sensitivity, sometimes almost delineating musical lines in space. If only he had not used excerpts from two of the composer's most sublime concertos. Some music just needs to be left alone.