How does a dance artist's legacy live on?
If that artist is Alvin Ailey, the answer lies in the school and companies that bear his name. "Alvin Ailey" is a pair of words synonymous with vibrant, intense emotion.
The Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble demonstrated its namesake's characteristic adroit execution and artistic sophistication in a performance Tuesday night, but the stage of Page Auditorium fitfully displayed thesheer exuberance expected from a company with such a legacy. Instead, the troupe focused on works of a meditative nature that were consummated with finely honed technique and aesthetic maturity.
Such characteristics are astounding considering the company's relationship to the rest of the Ailey juggernaut. Based out of the official school of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, the Ensemble began as a group of outstanding scholarship students from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. Today, the members of the troupe prepare for professional careers during their time with the Ensemble, which "emphasizes a balance of repertoire, technique and performance," the company's program reads.
Powerful technique and beguiling dramatic expression characterized most of the evening's selections, beginning with the stylized tribal evocations and community rituals of "Isba," choreographed by Ailey.
The work glossed a fluid, almost classical restraint over the usually ebullient African dance. Pelvic and chest contractions gently folded instead of snapped, and the dancers' colorful skirts, rather than fluttering in the air with vigorous motion, swept gracefully with controlled kicks and turns. Set to the almost pastoral score of George Winston's "Autumn," the juxtaposition of African dance with this classical grace proved to be a striking showcase of physical technique.
"Meridians" used this same reserve to explore its themes of deceit and desire.
In this sophisticated, abstract ballet, choreographed by Andre Tyson, the dancers' quick, oddly stiff movements punctuated the score's schizophrenic, abrasive disco music. Seemingly disconnected in a twilight zone of fashionable facades and isolating realities, the dancers rarely engaged with one another, often aimlessly walking as one dancer would solo a series of herky-jerky jazz motions and poses. The "posing" was among a series of odd flourishes that revealed the troupe's expressive powers, which veered on the wry, ironically elusive side.
The Ensemble's penchant for slippery dramatic expression capped off the final piece, "Last Montage," an unexpected, surreal treatment of audience and spectacle.
The dance began with an amazingly slow back bend that drew audible gasps from the audience. Despite the astonishing, controlled beginning, more acrobatic falls, turns and leaps gave energy to Shen Wei's dark, ironical choreography, which was punctuated by strangely beautiful, odd images.
A mangled ballerina, tutu and blond wig askew, wobbled onto the stage in a chair and chain-smoked agitatedly as the audience behind her assaulted, threw, caught and scrambled over one another. When the "audience" finally collapsed on stage, a man used his handkerchief to dust them off in silence. The hobbling ballerina reappeared and dragged a platform of men with a single white balloon tied to her back. In the final haunting image, a procession marched across the back of the stage against a background of red, bearing bodies hoisted horizontally on poles covered by a single white sheet.
An audience that expected the traditional Ailey vivacity left with a different side of his evolving tradition-one that eluded easy labeling and challenged language's ability to name adequately the human experiences of introspection and haunting isolation.
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