Ailey II in Bradford

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Ailey 2 (Enemy in the Figure, Freedom Series, The Hunt and Revelations) Alhambra Theatre, Bradford 18 Oct2023 19:30

Aikey II is to Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre what NDT2 is to the Nederlands Dans Theater.  According to its website, Ailey 2 is "universally renowned for merging the spirit and energy of the country’s best early-career dance talent with the passion and creative vision of today’s most outstanding and emerging choreographers."  By inference, it consists of some of the best early-career dance talent in the United States.

The company has just completed a tour of England and Inverness.   I caught it at the Bradford Alhambra on 18 Oct 2023 where it performed four of its works:

• an excerpt from William Forsyth's Enemy in the Figure; 
• an excerpt from Francesca Harper's  Freedom Series; 
• The Hunt by Robert Battle; and 
• Alvin Ailey's Revelations.

The choice of works and the order in which they were presented were a reverse retrospective of the development of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and Ailey II.  Although William Forsyth is an American he made his reputation in Germany.  His works have been performed by companies all over the world including the Royal Ballet but it was through performances by Continental companies that I learned about his work.  Ailey II's artistic director Francesca Harper danced with the Frankfurt Ballet while Forsyth was the Director.  Robert Battle is the current Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and Alvin Ailey was, of course, the companies' founder.

Another way of looking at the programme was that it started with a work or at least a style that is familiar to European audiences as it is in the repertoire of many of the world's leading companies, continued with a work in the same tradition but by an American choreographer, followed with one that was quintessentially American and finished with pure African-American music and dance.  Visually my abiding memory of Freedom Series is of the illuminated white globes carried by the audience.  Aurally it is of the juxtaposition of voice against the electronic score.   Excitement mounted with the beat of Les Tambours de Bronx.  The show climaxed with Revelations bringing African-American spirituals that were familiar but sung and danced with a rawness and energy that was anything but.

Revelations was my favourite piece of the evening.   There were remarkable performances by everyone in the cast but I was particularly impressed by Spencer Everett in I Wanna Be Ready and Corinth Moultrie, Patrick Gamble and Alfred L Jordan II.  Interestingly, I heard some of the same music two weeks later in Mthuthuzeli November's Nina By Whatever Means where it was interpreted subtly differently by a South African choreographer and a Brazilian lead dancer.  

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and Ailey II are more than just performance companies. There is a vocational school in New York and classes for the general public,   I was pleased to read in the programme notes that there is a scheme for the school and companies to train promising British students known as Ailey Project UK.  Apparently, the first batch of British students is already in the USA.   The programme also states that the project has been promoted by Marcus Willis who danced with Alvin Ailey and is now the Artistic Director of Phoenix.   I met Marcus several times when he was with Ballet Cymru and was very impressed.

The last tour of the UK by Ailey II was in 2011 though we have seen the main company several times since them.   I hope that we do not have to wait another decade to see those super-talented young artists again,

McGregor Triple Bill

Wayne McGegor

Author Deborah Hustic
Source Wikipedia/Random Dance Company
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Royal Ballet Chroma, Multiverse and Carbon Life Royal Opera House 17 Nov 2016. 19:30


To celebrate the 10th anniversary of his appointment as resident choreographer at Covent Garden, the Royal Ballet has staged a short season of Wayne McGegor's works. These include two of his most popular creations, Chroma and Carbon Life, and a new work, Multiverse, which was performed for the first time just over a week ago. McGregor is remarkable for the volume of work that he has created, for the awards and distinctions that he has achieved for such work and for being the first contemporary choreographer to become a resident choreographer at Covent Garden.

Chroma is a work that I already know quite well having seen it several times, most recently by the Dutch National Ballet as part of their Cool Britannia programme (see Going Dutch 29 June 2015). The Dutch National Ballet is not the only company to perform that work. According to McGregor's website it has been danced by many other leading companies including the Australian Ballet, the San Francisco Ballet and the Bolshoi. One company that dances it particularly well is Alvin Ailey's American Dance Theatre as can be seen from the YouTube video below.

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No doubt that was why Luca Acri, Federico Bonelli, Lauren Cuthbertson, Sarah Lamb and Calvin Richardson of the Royal Ballet were joined on stage by Jeroboam Bozeman, Jacqueline Green, Yannick Lebrun, Rachael McLaren and Jamar Roberts of Alvin Ailey. The latter company has just completed a tour of the UK visiting the Bradford Alhambra and the Lowry where I caught them (see Alvin Ailey in Bradford  29 Sept 2016 and Alvin Ailey in Salford 8 Oct 2016).  It was good to see them again, particularly Roberts who earned an especially loud applause at the end. He is tall, strong and commands the stage in the way few other dancers can.

In all three works that we saw last night, McGregor offered not just choreography (thrilling though it was) but total theatre particularly in the set designs and lighting. In Chroma, for instance, John Pawson's simple geometric shapes were bathed in subtly changing lights beautifully engineered by Lucy Carter. The importance of lighting - another principal in the show - is obvious from the title. The programme notes began with the dictionary definition:

1. "The purity of a colour or its freedom from white or grey
2. Intensity of distinctive hue, saturation of a colour"

When combined with Moritz Junge's costumes and Joby Talbot and Jack White III's score, this work excites all the senses. Clearly, that explains why the work is loved so much by audiences as well as admired.

Multiverse was more challenging, at least for me, even though similar techniques were used and Junge and Carter contributed the costume designs and lighting. The performance began quite unexpectedly with the curtain rising on a set with two figures against a plain geometric set of two high walls while the house lights were still on. The hubbub from the audience continued for a few seconds after the curtain rose until the realization that the show had started sank in. The house lights dimmed gradually and the words of a street preacher in San Francisco from over 50 years ago began to fill the auditorium:

"After a while - it's gonna rain after a while! For forty days and for forty nights! And the people didn't believe him. And they began to laugh at him! And they began to mock him! And the began to say 'It aint gonna rain.'"

In his famous work from 1965, It's Gonna Rain, which was written at the height of the cold war when the risk of thermonuclear war threatened to wipe out life on earth in the way that environmental catastrophe had threatened the world at the time of Noah, Steve Reich chops up that recording until it becomes percussive and repetitive. Not easy listening as anyone who plays the YouTube Steve Reich - It's gonna rain  will probably agree. But although the movements against the stark towering walls seem angular in the beginning the piece begins to soften. The walls break down into slabs of colour like the sides of a Rubik cube and eventually elements of a painting. It's Gonna Rain ends and the more soothing Runner takes its place. Reich is said to be America's greatest living composer. I have not heard enough of his work to judge but I have heard his Drumming several times which was used by Arthur Pita in Ballet Black's Cristaux (see Ballet Black in Doncaster 3 Nov 2016) and that work has definitely grown on me.

My favourite work of the evening was Carbon Life which began almost magically with the artists behind a gauze screen lit only by what appeared to be fairy lights. Music was provided by a live band on stage including a rapper called Dave who earned an enormous titter from the audience with his dig at President-elect Trump. Each scene presented something exciting and something new. The dancing was vigorous and exuberant. Carter provided the lighting once again and Gareth Pugh's costumes bordered on the fantastic. I particularly liked the colour combination such as the green stripes against the black.  Sadly, it came to an end all too soon. I felt compelled to rise to my feet as first the dancers and then the musicians appeared on stage to take their bow. Standing ovations do not happen every day at Covent Garden but these folks deserved it and I am glad to say one or two people in the stalls and more in the slips and circles seemed to follow my example.

I floated out of the Opera House on a cloud which carried me off to Holborn tube, followed me down the escalator onto the Piccadilly line and even on to the 23:30 train back to Doncaster.  Not even the exorbitant £20.90 parking charge (£5 more than my train fare from London) which the Frenchgate Centre extracted because all the spaces in the section reserved for rail passengers had bee full spoilt my evening. On the train back I read in the programme that McGregor came from Stockport which is just across the Mersey from Didsbury where I was born. Yet another reason to like him, I'd say.

Alvin Ailey in Salford

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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Mixed Bill, The Lowry, 7 Oct 2016


I went to the Lowry last night to see Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre for a second time. It was a slightly longer programme than the one in Bradford before a considerably larger and even more enthusiastic crowd. I took advantage of the opportunity to get to know the company a little better by attending a rehearsal before the show and a question and answer session afterwards. I enjoyed the evening more than last time.

The programme in Salford consisted of Aszure Barton's Lift, Ronald K. Brown's Four Corners and Cry and Revelations by Alvin Ailey. The piece we saw in the rehearsal was Brown's Four Corners. I entered the auditorium after the Q & A had begun so missed the introductions but I believe I recognized Sarah Daley on the panel from her After the Rain Pas de Deux which had been my personal highlight of the Bradford show.

Lift began and ended with the dancers jumping in unison in the spotlight. It included solos and a very interesting duet as well as group dances, The music by Curtis Macdonald  was percussive and even slightly mesmeric. The lighting by Burke Brown was understated which made it difficult to appreciate Fritz Masten's costumes, This was the first time I had seen work by Barton who is described on the company's website as an "in-demand choreographer" and "a much sought-after dance maker whose choreography ranges from Baryshnikov to Broadway." It was energetic and in some respects exuberant which was a good way to start the show. I would like to see it again, particularly the duet where the female's face seemed to be attached to the male dancer's chest to some very curious music. I thought of asking a question about it in the Q & A but could not think of an appropriate way to frame such a question without sounding like a chump.

Four Corners is described as 11 dancers depicting spiritual seekers amid 4 angels standing on the corners of the earth, holding the 4 winds.  The work was set to music by Carl Hancock Rux, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Yacoub and is said to have been inspired by the following words from Rux's Lamentations:

"Away they fall
All who stand
At the four corners of the earth
With blades and sheaths
These
Yours is simply this
Command and stand up
Stand
You are beautiful
And lovely
Beautiful and lovely"

I have searched in vein for information about Yacob who is described as a "North African vocalist". His song changed the mood of the ballet quite suddenly. I also seemed to recognize some bars of Hey Jude in the score and there seemed to be some West African influences in the costumes. An eclectic but nonetheless coherent piece.

My favourite work of the evening was Alvin Ailey's Cry which was a solo danced enchantingly by Rachael McLaren. Ailey dedicated this work to "all black women everywhere--especially our mothers."  Having lost in August my own mother in law (who was Sierra Leonean) a few months before her 97th birthday this piece spoke to me in a way that no other work possibly can. A lot of other very dear people came to mind including my late spouse Iyamide and our daughter manquee Dunni who is herself a mother. Set to Alice Coltrane's "Something about John Coltrane," Laura Nyro's "Been on a Train," The Voices of East Harlem "Right on. Be Free" with McLaren in a "long white robe" I was close to tears when the curtain fell.

I was grateful of a few minutes of silence to compose myself before the whole company belted out Ailey's Revelations. The long white robe to which I referred just now were a quotation from the song "I want to be Ready" which was danced by Jamar Roberts. Readers may remember that it was he who danced the After The Rain Pas de Deux so beautifully will Sarah Daley in Bradford. The solo requires enormous strength and control which Roberts possesses in abundance. I want to be Ready is danced immediately before Sinner Man which was danced by Colin Hayward, Jermaine Terry and Solomon Dumas and presumably the juxtaposition between vice and virtue is not coincidental. The piece ending with the audience standing and clapping in time to Rocks My Soul to the Bosom of Abraham.

Someone told us that Alvin Ailey is on the syllabus of this year's "A" level dance course for one of the examination boards. That explains the presence of so many school students. They were a high spirited, giggly screeching bunch who leavened the atmosphere. Some of those students came from Huddersfield and it was good to see two of their teachers, Fiona Noonan and Sean Selby, in the audience.

Alvin Ailey in Bradford

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre

Author Knight Foundation

Source Wikipedia

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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Mixed Bill, Bradford Alhambra, 28 Sept 2016

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre visited Bradford on 27 and 28 Sept 2016 on the latest stage of its international tour which will take it to major cities in the UK as well as Lausanne and Copenhagen on the continent. The company performed four pieces of their repertoire in Bradford: Exodus, Night Creature, After the Rain Pas de Deux and Revelations. I saw the company last night. It was a magnificent performance which was received enthusiastically by the crowd.

Alvin Ailey founded Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre in 1958.  He contributed nearly 80 works to that company before he died in 1989. I was introduced to his work by American Ballet Theatre which danced The River when when ABT visited London in the early 1970s. I have been an admirer ever since. In creating his work Ailey drew on all sorts of dance and musical traditions that flourished in the United States in his time including ballet and modern dance. "What I like" he is reported as saying "is the line and technical range that classical ballet gives to the body. But I still want to project to the audience the expressiveness that only modern dance offers, especially for the inner kinds of things." The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre continues that approach which was reflected in yesterday's programme that included a classical pas de deux by Christopher Wheeldon and hip hop by Rennie Harris as well as two of Ailey's best known works.

The evening began with Exodus which was an explosion of sound and movement. It continued after a short interval with Ailey's Night Creature which he created to the music of Duke Ellington in 1974 for television and launched on stage the following year. A graceful work with swirling couples, jazz rhythms, balletic steps, gorgeous costumes - classic Ailey. The lights dimmed for a few minutes before Sarah Daley and Jamar Roberts performed After the Rain pas de Deux which was my favourite work of the evening. A classical piece with soaring lifts by two beautiful and well matched dancers to Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel. Wheeldon created the work in 2005 for an evening to honour Balanchine but had I been asked to guess the choreographer I would have attributed it to Balanchine himself. The show finished with Revelations  which like the first work is inspired by African-American spirituals. It consists of 10 separate works each created on a different spiritual. I liked them all but Sinner Man danced by Jeroboam Bozeman, Sean Aaaron Carmon and Renaldo Maurice impressed me particularly. Even though the Alhambra was less than full the applause was deafening. The dancers were cheered back for an encore which they delivered exuberantly.

As there is so much dance in the North this Autumn I had planned to see the company only once but I can't possibly leave it at that. They will be at the Lowry very soon where they will perform a different programme. As soon as this review is published I will be on the blower for tickets. The company's next stops will be Nottingham, Cardiff, Salford, Southampton, Canterbury and Edinburgh. Whatever else you see this year you must not miss Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.

A Ballet School for Freetown?

The Cotton Tree where the Sierra Leonean nation was founded

Source Wikipedia

Although ballet belongs to the world there are places where the muse makes its home. In the early 19th century that home was in Denmark. Later in the century the muse moved to Russia, Diaghilev brought it to Western Europe and in particular England and France. In the last century it made its way to the New World. Arguably it has now found a home in East Asia and in Latin America. I believe its next abode will be Sub-Saharan Africa.

There are already signs that that is happening. Arguably the most exciting company in the British Isles is Ballet Black. In America there is the magnificent Dance Theatre of Harlem and Alvin Ailey. In just over a week London audiences will be thrilled by the Sierra Leonean born dancer Michaela DePrince as I was when I saw her last November (see "The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013"  25 Nov 2913), Finally there are initiatives like Anno's Africa's remarkable class in the back streets of Nairobi (see "What can be achieved by a good teacher" 3 March 2014),

According to The Guardian's Africa correspondent, Michaela DePrince "plans to return to Sierra Leone one day to open a school" (see "Sierra Leone war orphan returns to Africa en pointe for ballet debut" 16 July 2912).  DePrince has achieved so much in her short life that I have every confidence that she will realize that plan. We in this country are particularly well placed to help her to do so.

Sierra Leone is an English speaking country which was administered by our government until 1961. It is a member of the Commonwealth and many of its political, educational, commercial and cultural institutions are modelled on ours. There is a large Sierra Leonean community in this country two members of which will be accompanying me to the Linbury to see De Prince dance when the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company visits London on the 28 and 29 of the month.  I have a personal link with Sierra Leone in that I was married to a Sierra Leonean for nearly 28 years.

If children from DePrince's school wish to complete their training we have great ballet schools in London, Leeds, Glasgow and elsewhere where they can do so. The Royal Academy of Dance which accredits teachers and examines students is here.  Above all we have a massive and sophisticated audience for dance and out great companies have always been open to, and attracted, the best dancers in the world.

There must be a massive reservoir of talent in Africa and the prospect of watching it develop is exciting.

David Lister's Post on Ballet Black

I had intended to leave ballet alone this week. After all I have seen quite a lot of it lately - Ballet West's Swan Lake on 1 March, Matthew Bourne's on the 4th and Northern Ballet's Cleopatra on the 6th - and I have also written about Peter Darrell today. But I really must respond to David Lister's article "Ballet Black is a wonderful company. But it's a shame on the arts that it still exists"  7 March 2014 Independent Voices.

In that article Mr Lister wrote:

"Ballet Black has been delighting crowds and critics at the Royal Opera House this week. The company, founded in 2001 to create opportunities for dancers of black and Asian descent, has, according to our critic’s review, “never looked better”. They are good, so good that I want to pay them the ultimate and richly deserved accolade – they should be abolished."

He continued that Ballet Black's website states 

“Our ultimate goal is to see a fundamental change in the number of black and Asian dancers in mainstream ballet companies, making Ballet Black wonderfully unnecessary.”

And concluded

"Well, I’d say that after the reviews that this week’s performances achieved, it already is wonderfully unnecessary. If there is evidence that the big companies really are not recruiting talented black and Asian dancers, then it is imperative that we are given the evidence, and that the heads of these mainstream, and indeed national, companies are forced to explain themselves in public. The danger is that Ballet Black, understandably delighted with public and critical reaction, will strive less to make themselves unnecessary."

It is clear that Mr Lister abhors racism like all right thinking people. His article is no doubt written with the best of intentions but he is wrong. Ballet Black has never been more necessary than now. Not because black or South Asian dancers cannot get into other ballet companies as, clearly, they can and do. But because Ballet Black is claiming an art form that began in the courts of renaissance Italy and developed in imperial Russia for all cultures including (but by no means exclusively) kids from Bradford, Brixton and Moss Side.

The company is doing that in two ways. First, by bringing new audiences to the ballet.  I have seen Ballet Black three times at the Linbury, Leeds and Tottenham.  At the Linbury and Leeds there were perhaps a few more folk of African or South Asian heritage in the audience than one might see for a performance by the Royal Ballet or Northern Ballet but it was very much the same ballet going crowd. At the Bernie Grant Arts Centre there were very many more folk of African and South Asian heritage and from some of the conversations that I overheard in the queue for the loo and in the Blooming Scent Café it seems that it was for many their first experience of ballet. I might add that Ballet Black brings ballet not just to districts like Tottenham where there are many people of African and South Asian heritage but to places like Exeter, Southport and Guildford where there and relatively few.

The second way in which Ballet Black is claiming ballet for all cultures is through its school. That school like every other good ballet school in the UK is open to kids of all races, cultures and nationalities but it is clear from the photo on the website that a high proportion of its children are of African and Afro-Caribbean heritage. Why do such kids not audition for White Lodge, Elmhurst, the Northern Ballet Academy or some of the other fine schools of the country? Well some of them do but without dancers like Cira Robinson and Isabela Coracy to show those children and their parents that it is possible for folk who look like them to achieve excellence in ballet not to mention the inspiration of the wonderful Cassa Pancho they would do so in far fewer numbers.

I can testify from my own experience how important that is. Although I am white I was married to a Sierra Leonean for 28 years. During the vicious civil war we looked after a young Sierra Leonean girl who was fortunate enough to be born in London and could therefore take refuge in this country. That young girl is the nearest I have to a daughter and her 3 year old child is the nearest I have to a grandson. I love both of them to bits. The boy has a beautifully expressive face and in his play he has shown signs that suggest that he may have a talent for ballet. I suggested to his mum that we ought to take him to a ballet teacher. She replied by asking me whether ballet was really for Africans. I might add that she had already seen quite a lot of ballet by companies like the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet and loves the art. I answered her by taking her to the performance of Ballet Black that I reviewed on the 26 Feb. Having seen Ballet Black she has agreed to let me take the little boy to the Peacock on 13 April to see My First Ballet: Coppélia. If he likes the show she will let me take her boy to a mini-mover or baby ballet class and we shall see how he gets on from there.

For most of this article I have justified Ballet Black for their role in generating new audiences and education but there is an artistic reason why the company will never be wonderfully unnecessary. There are some ballets that people of African heritage can do particularly well either because the are based on African or Afro-Caribbean music or legend or simply because of features of their physique or countenance. That is why companies like Alvin Ailey and the Dance Theatre of Harlem continue to thrive in the USA. That is why there will always be a need for a company like Ballet Black in this country.

Related Articles

6 Oct 2013  "Ballet Black: 'we don't talk about stuff, we just do it.'"
12 Mar 2013  "Ballet Black's Appeal"