Hot on the heels of four programmes in the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s autumn season at Sadler’s Wells comes a tour of Ailey 2, the second company of young dancers originally created by Alvin Ailey as his Repertory Company, in 1974. It might now be named Ailey 2 but as was once written in America’s Dance magazine, it is ‘second to none’.
This Dance Consortium tour began in Canterbury on 19 September and, after twelve venues, will conclude in Inverness at the end of October. I caught it in Norwich at the midway point of the eleventh show in the sixth venue and the young ensemble of a dozen dancers was in excellent form.
Their programme began with eleven of them performing the central section of William Forsythe’s Enemy in the Figure, made by the modern maestro of dance for his Ballett Frankfurt company in 1989. It opens with a mighty blast of Thom Willem’s brooding and percussive electronic score and surrounded by several groups of enthusiastic, laughing and chattering young people in the Theatre Royal, it did – at first – seem like a gig!
Enemy in the Figure is a non-narrative exploration of light and shade and isolation versus connection. The dancers were costumed in black, fringed clothing and the movement in and out of light and shadow brought an added dimension to Forsythe’s inventive choreography, which unsurprisingly challenged the dancers to extend their bodies out to all points of the kinesphere. The performance was wholly absorbing and the knowledge and experience of the Ailey 2 artistic director, Francesca Harper as a dancer at Ballet Frankfurt for several years in the 1990s has obviously filtered through to her young dancers, who performed the complex movement sequences with great assurance. Harper’s prior experience extended to helping Ethan Salewitz to recreate the original lighting design to great effect.
Harper’s own choreography provided the second work of the evening, in a chunky excerpt from Freedom Series, a work she made in 2021, the year she became the company’s artistic director. It was a homecoming of sorts since her late mother, Denise Jefferson had been director of the Ailey School. The work involved dancers holding and manipulating illuminated globes (lighting designs by Abby May) which also gave her choreography an added dimension as well as extending the contrasts of light and dark that had been introduced by Forsythe’s work. To be honest, I remember very little of the choreography, which flowed over my consciousness, other than a feeling of being absorbed by its gentle elegance (which is certainly no bad thing).
After a pause came The Hunt, a 2001 work by the main company’s director Robert Battle, which was a complete contrast to the tranquillity of Freedom Series. It was the only work of the programme not to feature more or less the full company, being a coruscating male quartet, which ranks high among Battle’s prolific output. This performance was cut down from the more usual sextet, as often performed by the main company and Andrew Bryant, Spencer Everett, Patrick Gamble and Corinth Moulterie gave their all in Battle’s combative action-packed choreography, suggestive of gladiatorial contests, tribal wars or simply the thrill of the chase. The dancers appeared to be driven along by another thunderous and percussive score (by the French band, Les Tambours du Bronx); and the long black skirts, designed by Mia McSwain, accentuated the concept of martial arts or ritual conflict.
The Hunt must have seriously challenged the physical capacity of the dancers but to their credit all four returned to perform several key roles in Revelations: Bryant, Moulterie and Everett were outstanding as the Sinner Man trio, spinning furiously and leaping high in those memorable bent leg jumps.
Ailey’s masterpiece did not appear in the final programme by the main company at Sadler’s Wells and I missed it! So, it was a pleasure to catch it again, danced by this next generation, and performed as if it is soaked in their DNA. Inevitably, the finale was reduced – 12 dancers instead of 18 – and the last sequences of Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham were not repeated after the curtain call as is ubiquitous in the main company’s performances. But the dozen dancers performed their hearts out for the cause and a special commendation is due to Jaryd Farcon for his sensitive performance of I Wanna Be Ready. Nothing can ever match up to the main company’s command of a work that they perform at the end of virtually every show, but this was an excellent alternative, beautifully delivered. Most importantly, the young people all around me clearly loved the whole show and their excitement augurs well for the future of dance (especially in Norfolk) and for this we must commend Dance Consortium for reaching the parts of the country, and the hearts of dance lovers, that are otherwise often overlooked.
