Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Lincoln Center season (6/8-19) What’s going on here? I exit onto the Lincoln Center Plaza after watching “21st Century Voices” one of the five programs that make up the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s season at the former New York State Theater. Although I’ve seen plenty of spiritual aspiration and yearning toward the light, I haven’t noticed many … [Read more...]
Keep Dancing!
Parsons Dance performs at the Joyce Theater through January. Last year, the dance company founded by choreographer David Parsons and lighting designer Howell Binkley turned thirty, but it seems eternally young and optimistic. Its eight terrific dancers are as exuberant and tireless as teenagers. No perils appear to await them as they cavort in their vividly colored world. On a Thursday … [Read more...]
The Ailey Dancers Welcome In the Holidays
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater opens its City Center run, December 2 through January 3. During the curtain call at City Center that followed the world premiere of Robert Battle’s Awakening, the twelve members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater joined the audience in clapping enthusiastically for him. Sweaty, their faces alight, their hands slamming together, they showed their … [Read more...]
Fire and Ice: Both Burn
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performs at New York's City Center. The members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater have always been able to do practically anything a choreographer might ask of them: thrust their legs astonishingly high, spin like tops, act sassy or sexy, and dance with an ardor that burns across the footlights. But it’s always exciting to see how they … [Read more...]
Getting Down With Ailey
Imagine a night at City Center watching the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater when the spectators cheer at the curtain calls and applaud certain stunning dancers or sections of a dance, but don’t whoop and holler in the middle of a serious (even reverent) passage. Imagine an evening in which electric high jumps, long balances, and legs kicking the sky are worked into the choreographic fabric and … [Read more...]