Review: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Programmes 3 & 4

An all-Ailey programme is like a box of delights.The founder of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (1931–1989) was a prolific choreographer, whose work portrays the African-American experience in all its complexity through the medium of dance that seamlessly blends many influences, from Martha Graham’s innovative modern movement, through jazz, Broadway and African cultures.

More than any others, two pieces in this programme encapsulate all that: Revelations, the company’s signature work which has been performed at the end of every show since its creation in 1960; and the poignant, rousing, deeply moving Cry, which Ailey created in 1971 as a birthday present for his mother, and dedicated to ‘all Black women everywhere – especially our mothers.’

Every woman who dances Cry follows in the footsteps of greatest exponent of Ailey dance, Judith Jamison, now the company’s artistic director emerita.

On opening night Constance Stamatiou gave a powerful, heartfelt performance that Jamison could be proud of.

AAADTs Constance Stamatiou in Alvin Ailey's Cry from Timeless Ailey 60th Anniversary program. Photo: Paul Kolnik
The work is divided into three parts set to Alice Coltrane’s Something About John Coltrane, Laura Nyor’s Been on a Train and Voices of Harlem singing Right On, Be Free.

Stamatiou stood in a pool of light presenting a long strip of cotton, that symbolised the work and servitude of Black women through the ages. Her dancing was powerful, her body appearing to fold under the weight of her toils, but never entirely submitting, until the final joyous, defiant, triumphant dance.

I reviewed Revelations elsewhere, so I’ll just say here that every time I see it (and I’ve been lucky to have seen it many times now), I'm gripped by something new, such as the richness and depth of this extraordinary work.

The remaining two pieces, The River and Pas de Duke were danced to scores by Duke Ellington. Pas De Duke (pictured top) is a delightful little vignette, originally created for Jamison and Mikhail Baryshnikov, which follows the format of the classic pas de deux: opening duo followed by individual variations ending in a coda for both dancers. On opening night Jacquelin Harris and Patrick Coker effortlessly provided the required fireworks.

The River is a more complex piece in which the dancers portray water as the cycle of life, from birth to rebirth. A dozen dancers clad in soft blue followed Duke Ellington’s especially commissioned soaring cinematic score, which forcefully translated the many moods of water from slow currents to tumbling rapids and swirling eddies, with Deirdre Rogan mesmerising in the fast-moving, eddying solo Vortex.

Programme Four offered only one new piece: Jamar Roberts’s In a Sentimental Mood.

AAADT's Khalia Campbell and James Gilmer in Jamar Roberts In A Sentimental Mood. Photo: Paul Kolnik
A quote from James Baldwin frames this work: ‘Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.’

A duet bathed in Brandon Stirling Baker’s unsettling, blood-red light, it’s told in flashback, as the memory of a woman who paces the stage restlessly, as if harbouring pain and rage.

As we move to a domestic setting where her man is, we see a duet of emotional mismatch.The choreography is pained, jerky, rare moments of softness soon dispelled.

As she leaves, he proffers a flower, and as the curtain comes down you’re left with the feeling that won’t be enough.