Ronald K. Brown’s Grace, featuring a tall, narrow portal of light through which superhuman beings enter and exit, invariably makes me think of a spaceship piloted by forces of good that has just touched down in the city. New to the Ailey company rep in 1999, Grace has been revived this season – right on cue, considering the bleak times we live in. Coral Dolphin, majestic in flowing white, her arms hovering like wings, was the spaceship captain or an archangel, possibly both, charged with rescuing an earthbound community who seemed not to comprehend the perils they faced. In the end, she wrangled them all through the portal.
Fueled by a soundtrack of Ellington neo-spirituals, soulful downtempo house, and Fela Kuti’s punchy Afrobeat, Brown engineered a spellbinding mix of the loose, floor-skimming elegance of house dance, the driving invocations of African dance, and effusive whirling leaps of modern dance. Omotayo Wunmi Olaiya designed the chic, timeless costumes. Striking gestures with palms open and uplifted conveyed a generosity of spirit; flattened palms warded off evil or communicated unease (“hands up”). Striking transitions abounded, too, as when a detachment of men suddenly quit wrestling with invisible enemies to tread warily along a narrow path; with heads bowed and hands clasped behind their backs, they could have been acknowledging the presence of a higher being, or a tyrannical overlord.
In its imaginative hybridity of movement and idea of a spiritual journey, Grace paid homage to Ailey’s signature Revelations. 25 years ago it also renewed a sense of forward momentum – as it may again at this inflection point in the company’s trajectory.
The company has been in a holding pattern since the sudden departure last year of Robert Battle. It was only recently announced that Alicia Graf Mack will be the next artistic director. The sense that an era has ended was further cemented by the death last month of Judith Jamison, Battle’s predecessor. If this seems like a good time to reflect on the remarkable journey of Ailey and his company, the Whitney Museum of American Art has you covered with its extraordinary Edges of Ailey exhibition.
A more personal homage opened the December 5th program: Amy Hall Garner’s high-wattage Century from 2023, a big-hearted tribute to her 100-year-old grandfather. Garner’s jazz confection nods to the high-kicking Rockettes’ Christmas extravaganza, which is playing at nearby Radio City Music Hall, and takes it to frenzied extremes.
The unfortunate costumes in garish candy-cane stripes had what looked like bits of shag carpeting tacked on to shoulders and hips. A coruscating metallic curtain backdrop gave off cruise ship entertainment vibes, and recordings of big band era tracks were broadcast on a sound system that boosted the brass to ear-splitting levels. Blistering performances made up for production value failures – notably by the spirited Hannah Alissa Richardson, who deftly juggled four beaux; the glamorous Kali Marie Oliver who radiated an old-Hollywood screwball charm; and live wire Deidre Rogan who kicked off her high heels and stormed impressively through Why Your Feet Hurt by the Rebirth Brass Band (“you ain’t got the footwork” went the lyrics, ironically). The throttle unjammed only once, for a pensive solo by the stalwart Michael Jackson, Jr.
Between Century and Grace, Alonzo King took us on a mysterious journey, Following the Subtle Current Upstream, a revival from 2000. To the sounds of the tabla and an approaching storm (music by Zakir Hussain and Miguel Frasconi), interrupted at one point by the anguished vocals of Miriam Makeba, dancers rippled their torsos, spun off-kilter, stretched their limbs at perilous angles then folded them in with magnificent control.
Cross-lighting effects proposed a stream in which a trio of tightly knit male dancers in short velvet shorts and mesh muscle tees seemed to form an eddy, Chalvar Monteiro in particular standing out for the sharpness of his whirling. A fourth dancer, the commanding Isaiah Day, came along – a paddler perhaps, heading upstream, on the lookout for eddies, in which the current moves more slowly. He ‘fell’ into the eddy and was ferried off dramatically by the trio. The women darted in and out with impressive power.
Though – apart from Jacquelin Harris, who was stunning in a minimalist interpretation of a tutu, sunshine yellow, that jutted out stiffly from the hips – their perfunctory practice skirts seemed overly casual for the enigmatic, elegant vibe of the choreography. A splinter group moving fast and percussively contrasted with counterparts working lightly and serenely, suggesting the ever-shifting landscape of the surface of running water. Intensity escalated with an assemblage of space-chomping moves and explosive balletic scissor jumps before a sudden cathartic finish.
For the first time, I witnessed an evening at Ailey without a dance by Ailey. He wanted his dancers to be able to tackle anything, and they do, sensationally.
