A night of fresh works by contemporary choreographers that ultimately reveals the uniquely affecting power of Ailey’s choreography.
World-renowned dance company Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater brings two entirely different mixed-bill programmes to Sadler’s Wells. Legacy includes mostly Alvin Ailey’s own choreography and excerpts from his classic works. New Works, in comparison, features fresh pieces from respected contemporary choreographers. Performed by the company, both curations culminate in Alvin Ailey’s iconic Revelations.
The night’s highlight is Revelations, Ailey’s best-known work. Ailey’s choreography fills the stage with pulsing rhythms and powerful yet ever-changing symbolic moves. From the beginning of Pilgrim of Sorrow, it becomes clear that Ailey’s work stands in sharp contrast to the pieces performed before it. Although fusing different genres of dance, the piece possesses its own distinctive visual language. Together with the music and lyrics, Ailey tells a powerful story through patterns, repetition and the breaking of them. It is breathtaking to watch. Compared with Pilgrim of Sorrow, Wade in the Water is a delight. The piece feels like an Impressionist painting breathed into life: full of liveliness and vibrancy, bringing the minimalist and highly symbolic set to life.
Although, like many contemporary dance pieces, Revelations communicates through abstraction, repetition and figurative language, Ailey’s choreography has blood and flesh. It makes every body meaningful onstage, and the movements become not merely symbols, but a history of pulsing lives. Black American history, spirituality, social gesture and collective memory come together to tell a story in a matter of minutes.
The other pieces featured in New Works are still a delight to watch. Ballet, contemporary dance and other movement traditions constantly move in and out of one another, while the music ranges equally widely. Several pieces begin with expansive ideas — transformation, nature, spirituality, relationships — but the more universal their subjects become, the harder it can sometimes be to find a way into them.
In Blink of an Eye, bodies seem perpetually on the verge of transformation. There is a feeling of preparing to fly: dancers constantly mould themselves in and out of shapes, moving into a shape only to break from them again. With pristine execution from the dancers, the piece makes a brilliant opening to the night. Yet the lighting does not always serve the movement. At several points, performers seem to move beyond the lit area, leaving parts of the choreography obscured. Song of the Anchor depicts a journey where an individual quests into nature and his own spirituality. Many Angels begins with the proposition that “many questions have no logical answer but may be understood as a matter of faith”, as stated by its choreographer, Lar Lubovitch. The premise is simple yet profound, but the piece itself, exploring the idea of angels dancing on the head of a pin, hardly feels convincing enough to fulfil its philosophical proposition. A Case of You, which is choreographed by Judith Jamison and accompanied by Joni Mitchell’s music, feels closest to Ailey’s heritage. Sensual and emotionally immediate, it blends different dance genres while retaining a strong sense of human relationships. Colour contributes significantly to this storytelling. Rather than functioning simply as decoration, the red of the costumes becomes an integral part of the piece’s emotional language.
Like Ailey’s own works, the new pieces also demonstrate an impressive absorption of different languages — ballet, modern dance, jazz, and more — transforming them according to the demands of each work. Yet in terms of storytelling, those new works ultimately reveal the uniquely affecting power of Ailey’s choreography..
New Works runs at Sadler’s Wells Theatre alongside Legacy until 19 September.