Ailey: Everyday Superhumans

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
through March 5, 2006
Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley

Program A (Mar 5): “Night Creature,” “Solo,” “Ife/My Heart” (Bay Area premiere), “Revelations”
Program B (Mar 4 mat): “Shining Star,” “Caught,” “Reminiscin,” “Revelations”
Program C (Mar 4 eve): “Love Stories,” “Urban Folk Dance” (Bay Area premiere), “Acceptance In Surrender” (Bay Area premiere), “The Winter in Lisbon”

If you're seeking the perfect antidote to a cold, damp winter evening there is no need to look any further than the heat of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's annual Cal Performances season at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall.

With three different programs, the company has brought along a little bit of everything, from hip hop to ballet, classic to modern, but it almost doesn't matter which progam you choose to see -- with Ailey, you're pretty much guaranteed a night of rip-roaring, terrific dancing.

One of the Ailey company’s most compelling qualities is the conviction they bring to their performances. There’s a core of integrity that each dancer shares on the stage and an argument could be made that it is this sincerity that has won them such a loyal following wherever they tour. Sure, the strength of their unparalleled athleticism is evident everywhere – the men mix flexibility with speed, the women are sharp-minded and unbelievably sleek. They could dance the hokey-pokey and it would be the most exciting and enthralling thing you ever saw in your life, but most importantly it would be deeply felt. Ailey never does anything halfway.

The company has been accused of becoming too acrobatic in the years since founder Alvin Ailey’s passing. Certainly, it’s easy to believe that this group has more tricks, bigger split jumps, higher legs than ever before, but the current company still boasts dancers like Dwana Adiaha Smallwood, Matthew Rushing, Linda Celeste Sims and Renee Robinson, who bring elevation of a different sort. Ailey is now a company of the new century, and they are cannily planning how to make relevant the works of the past for new audiences who have grown accustomed to extreme performances.

Has too much of the emotional core of the company been lost along the way? Without having seen them dance in the 1960s and 70s, it’s hard to say, but surely there is no company in the world that dances with more heart.

Given that, it’s no surprise that “Solo” a work for three men by Hans van Manen to the music of J.S. Bach that was most recently performed here at the San Francisco Ballet Gala is a terrific acquisition for the company. The three men -- Clifton Brown, Glenn Allen Sims and Rushing – put a stamp of humor and quickfooted sureness on this piece that is 100% Ailey. On this trio, van Manen’s choreography looks less like Ballet with a capital “B.” But if the look is more like speedy wrestlers rather than sleek racehorses, the men locate the mixture of humor and hubris that draws a reaction from the audience instantly.

It’s a boon for anyone who choreographs to be able to develop his or her work on these dancers, as was evidenced in the local premiere of “Ife/My Heart,” by hip hop phenom Rennie Harris. “Ife” refers to the location of the spiritual center for the Yoruba people of Nigeria and the nine dancers have clearly embraced the concept of a metaphorical as well as geographical heart to this work. The recent performances of his works by Harris’ own company, EVIDENCE, were intriguing, but not nearly as effective as this.

In white loose-fitting clothes that range from African dashikis to slim modern dresses, the dancers enter in a procession of small groups – a more African inspired quartet led by an earthy Renee Robinson, an Afro-Caribbean pair and three dancers who seem more generically modern. There’s a hodge-podge of a recorded soundscape that ranges from Art Blakey to the recited poetry of Nikki Giovanni, which almost, but not quite detracts from the pleasure of watching Brown’s hip hop phrases –the quick switches of weight from foot to foot, the scooping sweep of the hands— that Linda Celeste Sims and Asha Thomas perform with razor sharp focus. Among the men, Rushing, Jamar Roberts and Amos J. Machanic stood out whether solo or in a group for that same intensity of focus.

Brown typically structures his work around certain anchors – the opening processional, unison sections punctuated by ecstatic tribal dances, a communal circle, etc. His ballets often finish up in a free-wheeling house-music finale and “Ife/My Heart” is no exceptional, although in the case of Ailey’s performance the beat seeped palpably into the entire Zellerbach audience in a sort of low- throbbing pulse that was visible in bobbing heads and shoulders. It was the kind of dance that somewhere deep in your cells, you felt you already knew.

The program also included the sinuous “Night Creature,” a slinky, caterwauling Ailey standard to the music of Duke Ellington. Smallwood leads the pack of distinctly feline night creatures with hepcat, high-stepping style. If hers are not the most perfectly balletic jetes, there is no one in this troupe to match her for deep sweeping back arches and hip swivels. She’s having such fun that you can’t help but have fun yourself just by watching her stray cat strut as she pulls faces at every dancer on stage.

As usual, the company closed with the rousing Alvin Ailey classic “Revelations.” Every year Ailey brings it back but if you think that you’re “Revelation”-ed out, trust me, you only think you are. See it one more time, and you’ll be amazed at how easily you can be swept into a Baptist fervor. After 46-years, the dancers still pour inordinate amounts of energy into this gospel inspired crowd-pleaser, and they are rewarded at nearly every performance with hoots, hollers and standing ovations.

Tuesday night’s cast delivered all the usual pleasures: Dion Wilson hitting an edgy tone in “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel,” the husband and wife Simses adding perfectly tuned empathy and humanity to “Fix Me Jesus” and Amos J. Machanic, Jr. making classroom contractions of the abdominals look stunning in “I Wanna Be Ready.”

It was a performance made remarkable by the very fact that this is how Ailey dances every day.

This review originally appeared in the Contra Costa Times.

Smuin Ballet: Bluegrass/Slyde

Smuin Ballet
“Bluegrass/Slyde,” “Romanze,” “The Eyes That Gently Touch,” “To the Beatles”
Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts
February 11, 2006

It’s possible that on hearing that Michael Smuin’s latest work, “Bluegrass/Slyde” involves dancing with poles, your eyebrows went up at the thought -- but rest assured, it’s a better concept than you might think.

Set to the Appalachian-inspired compositions of bassist Edgar Meyer – as well pieces by the uncredited virtuoso banjo-player Bela Fleck, fiddler Mark O’Connor, and James Taylor -- “Bluegrass/Slyde” saw Smuin Ballet taking a pleasantly athletic turn on the stage at the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts.

The fire-engine red set, built by James Beaumont, has the look of a rock band rig, with three poles arranged across the middle of the contraption. The poles themselves revolve smoothly, and with a small step attached to the bottom, the dancers can jump on and spin like kids in a playground or fly through the air and grab onto the poles, swinging around à la Spiderman, or at least Gene Kelly.

The effect is compelling and gives the dancers a kind of ice skater speed along with an unusual flow of movement. The laconic swizzling perfectly fits the bass and slide-banjo twang and the dancers look like they’re enjoying the sailing through the air, particularly Ethan White who brings a genuine energy and zest to the task.

“Bluegrass/Slyde” isn’t a perfect piece. Once the novelty of the convention wears off, it’s hard not to notice that there’s an awful lot of running onstage. A tap number to “Limerock” doesn’t have quite the clarity it enjoyed when the piece premiered in San Francisco last September. And the sections choreographed for pointe work -- which look overly classical – make it apparent that, for this piece, the women are far more comfortable and rangy when they’re in soft jazz shoes and grounded.

Still, Smuin is at his best in a lazy diversion for three couples to O’Connor’s “Misty Moonlight Waltz.” Amy Seiwert and White deftly set up the mood within a few minutes, with White floating compellingly over her head as they spin lazily around the center pole, a picture of mellow romance.

“Romanze,” which followed on the program, remains one of Smuin’s loveliest small vignettes, and one of his most imaginative creations. Inspired by a Victorian diary that detailed a real and a fantasy day in the life of a young couple, it’s a clever blend of dance with film. The “real life” portion, supplied by Francis Ford Coppola’s film of Catherine Batcheller and Alexander Topciy (the original dancers at San Francisco Ballet) is shown on a scrim, through which we watch their inner passions unfold as danced by Easton Smith and Celia Fushille-Burke. As the screen image zooms in on a grassy meadow or ocean shore or a flower, the dancers appear through the projection seemingly floating through the visual space.

Though some of the choreography looked spatially compressed, as if the dancers themselves felt a bit limited despite the sweep of Antonin Dvorak’s music, it was a pleasure to see Smith, who returns to the company this season from Sacramento Ballet, and who has found a lengthened line, refinement and more confidence.

That kind of fully realized concept was missing from “The Eyes That Gently Touch,” a work choreographed by Kirk Peterson for three couples to the music of Philip Glass, which was pretty, but less left impact. Despite a flowing style with striking abstract sculptural qualities, on the whole, the ballet looked safe, both in its conception and execution.

Also on the program, which seemed a bit lengthy, was Smuin’s 2001 “To the Beatles, Revisited,” in a revised form that included only 11 sections. To judge by the costumes – by Sandra Woodall -- and steps, which included moonwalks and breaking moves to Fab Four favorites like “Help!” and “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” the ballet seems set in the era of 80s nostalgia for the 60s. Still, there was a sense of fun that cut through some cheesiness, and the stellar Benjamin Stewart, who joined the company this year from Atlanta Ballet, dove into numbers like “Day Tripper” and “Come Together” with intelligence to match his good-natured energy.

This review originally appeared in the Contra Costa Times.