We were lukewarm about seeing Revelations again. We most looked forward to seeing Ronald K. Brown’s choreography for the first time; we’d been forced to miss his company’s Cleveland concert despite all we’d heard about his success putting African movement in a modern or postmodern setting. As it turned out, however, each part of the program won us over on its own terms and we left wishing we could attend all three of Ailey’s Cleveland programs.
Ife/My Heart, Brown’s piece, was first on the program and it started off with a winding procession of dancers in white costumes dancing fast, high-energy movements. The movement was not unlike the Ailey Company’s usual blend of African-American and modern dance; this was business as usual only more so with the emphasis on African dance. Lots of very rhythmic African movements with flung arms and bodies hinged forward at the hips. How smoothly Brown’s choreography and the 9 Ailey dancers integrated the Africanist movement with the modern dance extensions of the leg and tilts of the trunk. “Slick!” we said with admiration.
If you think of Brown’s piece as the Ailey company’s foray into the very latest and hippest, then Judith Jamison’s Reminiscin’ looks back to a crowd-pleasing type of dance that they’ve been doing for a while. Set in a NYC diner reportedly inspired by Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks and danced to 8 songs by jazz divas, Reminiscin’ revisits the well-trod territory first explored by Jerome Robbins’ three sailors in Fancy Free: theatricalized contemporary social dancing as courtship. The couples meet cute, they dance together in mutual happiness or they part, sadly.
We watched 2 of the 8 dances with a wait-and-see attitude before we got fully on board with Reminiscin’s 11 dancers. The duet to Ella Fitzgerald’s Tisket A Tasket seemed especially like a missed opportunity to us because it devoted itself to what we saw as cutesy character development rather than giving itself up to the song’s rhythmic drive. Admittedly, Dwana Adiaha Smallwood and her partner danced wonderfully well together to tell their story. You see, she’s lost something and in the end she finds it, a little (Not giving anything away here, are we?) yellow basket.
We were finally won over by dance number 3, a sexy duet performed by two standout dancers. Alicia J. Graf had supple second position extensions ending in feet that didn’t so much point as hook. Tall, strong Jamar Roberts seemed supremely capable of anything required of him. Their chemistry sold us on what followed, an up tempo women’s ensemble dance to Lady Be Good, a men’s ensemble in which the dancers joined hands in an interesting cat’s cradle centered on Roberts, a women’s adagio in blue light, and an up tempo ensemble finale. If Reminiscin’ surprised us by successfully revisiting a formulaic premise, Revelations was, well, a revelation.
To say that Revelations is familiar can scarcely do justice to the fact that a significant percentage of the dancers in any audience have not only seen this classic in performance or on video. More than likely they’ve danced at least some of the choreography, much of which is only middling hard for intermediate modern dancers. But familiar movement that’s only middling difficult can move an audience, as the Ailey dancers demonstrated Friday night. Oh, rocka my soul.
From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas artswriterATadelphia.net
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