Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre'Artistic Director Emerita Judith Jamison once said, “Through dance, we get as close to God as we'll ever get—until he calls us home.” Jamison was 'called home' on November 9, 2024, leaving the Company—and the dance community at large—in deep grief. He was an incomparable dancer and Ailey's muse. He chose him to be the next artistic director, a role he held for 21 years. The Company's New York City Center 2024 season (ending January 5) is dedicated to Jamison's life and legacy and evokes the sentiment he was referring to: dance brings us as close as we can get to the ultimate unknown.
The New York City Center 2024 Season includes Ailey classics and acclaimed works as well as several world premieres and new productions. Another game last week featured two firsts—Hope Boykin's Getting Free and Lar Lubovitch Many Angels-and Ronald K. Brown's 25th anniversary stage Kindness.
Getting Free
Boykin, a former member of the Ailey Company and an in-demand composer, collaborated with composer and pianist Matthew Whitaker to create a new work about “life's peaks and valleys” and personal freedom.
The episode begins with Whitaker's original score filling the auditorium before the lights go down, setting the scene with otherworldly sounds. Then the curtain rises to reveal eleven actors standing tall in the dim light. They wear long sleeveless tan coats with high collars and striped belts, designed by Boykin and Jon Taylor, that look somehow both noir and futuristic. One dancer begins to spin, slowly, and the others slowly join in. They move in the middle, hit their elbows, push their palms to the side and pump their chests. The dancers are cool and detached, not completely in sync until they meet and stare at the audience. They don't look at us though. They look above us, beyond us.
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It is here, in these moments of encounter, that Boykin's painting is most impressive, where the ensemble dances his modern staccato movements in tight harmony, moving together like a single serpentine cyborg. And it's in Ashley Kaylynn Green's solo that the work's message resonates most. Green stands in the center, ropes tied to his limbs, reaching the four corners of the stage. He struggles, pulls and kicks, then falls and tangles. Finally, he breaks the ropes, collects them and takes them off the stage. The move doesn't work, but it's an experience I'll never forget.
Whitaker's jazzy, gospel-inspired score never ceased to amaze me, and the costumes (diaphanous shifts under tight coats) were stunning in Al Crawford's stunning lighting. However, some parts felt disjointed, and I often wondered what the people on stage wanted, where they were going and what they were really looking at. I couldn't quite grasp the narrative arc. Getting Free it's not completely abstract, not just a space exercise. Boykin is also a writer and filmmaker—there's always a story there, but I wasn't sure what that story was. I look forward to seeing it again in the future when the work has found its place and settled into it.
Many Angels
Many Angels is the debut work of world-renowned songwriter Lar Lubovitch Company. It is set to Gustav Mahler's soaring “Adagietto” from Symphony No. 5 in C-Sharp Minor and prompted by the impossible question posed by the 13th century theologian St. Thomas Aquinas: “How many angels can dance on a pin's head?”
The curtain rises behind clouds painted in heavenly light (designed by Lubovitch), which elicited real 'oohs' and 'ahhs' from the audience. A mass of carefully arranged bodies in the center begins to sway slowly, arms up and out, and is separated by five dancers in scantily clad costumes (designed by Harriet Jung and Reid Bartelme) ready to absorb Clifton Taylor's soft light. They spin around with curved arms and pointed feet. They support each other, lift each other up, and be lifted up. It's full of Michelangelo-esque moments.
Everything is lovely—the music, the movement, the shapes—but beauty can be fragile, and just when it threatens to be, Yannick Lebrun lifts Jacquelin Harris over his shoulder, her face lifted and her chest open to the sky, and everything stops. . The other dancers are also surprised and now we all see at the same time—he angel! We have the answer to Aquinas' question, and that's it one. But then the dance continues, and all becomes ethereal again, almost floating. So maybe the answer is not just one but many.
Kindness
The show closed with Brown's 25th anniversary production Kindnesswhich was created by the Company in 1999. The work is about the journey to the promised land and the grace that surrounds us.
When the Company had the chance to show their impressive range through Boykin's modern language and Lubovitch's modern balletic techniques, they seemed at ease. Brown's mix of Modern dance and West African idioms felt like a home for the musicians, and upbeat music (a variety of songs including Duke Ellington's “Come Sunday,” Roy Davis' “Gabriel” and Fela Kuti's Afropop beats) was in high demand.
From the moment Constance Stamatiou steps onto the blue stage and begins her solo, an endless blessing, we know we're about to experience a spiritual experience. And when ten other dancers join her in their flowing red and white costumes (designed by Omotayo Wunmi Olaiya), the party begins.
Kindness it approaches what Jamison calls “God,” and the audience felt it. Dancers dance their hearts out and end up drenched in sweat. Here is dance as an offering, as a celebration of life and death and everything in between.
In the midst of a well-deserved applause, I thought, “What I won't what are they doing?” But after I left, it was the women I kept thinking about: the angels Ailey had gathered together that night—Green, Harris and Stamatiou—and Jamison beaming at them.
