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,

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

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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.