{"id":2183,"date":"2013-12-15T13:02:18","date_gmt":"2013-12-15T18:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/?p=2183"},"modified":"2013-12-15T13:04:20","modified_gmt":"2013-12-15T18:04:20","slug":"just-what-are-we-celebrating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/2013\/12\/just-what-are-we-celebrating\/","title":{"rendered":"Just What Are We Celebrating?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater premieres Aszure Barton’s <\/em>Lift at City Center.<\/p>\n

\"(L<\/a>

(L to R): Jacqueline Green, Linda Celeste Sims, Kelly Robotham, and Belen Pereyra of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Aszure Barton’s Lift<\/em>. Photo: Paul Kolnik<\/p><\/div>\n

Any choreographer invited to make a piece for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater must come to the first rehearsal with both elation and trepidation. The Ailey dancers are like racehorses\u2014sleek, swift, eager, ablaze with temperament.\u00a0 What can you feed them?\u00a0 How do you groom them?\u00a0 Are you up to the job?<\/p>\n

Robert Battle, who took over as artistic director of AAADC in 2011, is the first \u201coutsider\u201d to lead the company. His predecessor, Judith Jamison, had danced in it for 15 years and headed it for 21. Battle has made some smart decisions\u2014such as acquiring Ohad Naharin\u2019s Opus 16<\/i> and Paul Taylor\u2019s Arden Court<\/i> and commissioning new work from Rennie Harris and Kyle Abraham.<\/p>\n

The current City Center season shows off the dancers in Wayne McGregor\u2019s Chroma<\/i> and Bill T. Jones\u2019s D-Man in the Waters (Part I)<\/i>; the commissioned premieres are Ronald K. Brown\u2019s Four Corners<\/i> and Aszure Barton\u2019s Lift. <\/i>So far, Lift<\/i> is the only one I\u2019ve been able to see.<\/p>\n

Barton puzzles me. I found the first small works of hers that I saw bold, original, and fascinating, wasn\u2019t crazy about her One of Three <\/i>for American Ballet Theatre, but enjoyed how she employed Juilliard students in her wild-west Happy Little Things (Waiting on a Gruff Cloud of Wanting)<\/i>. What surprises me about her Lift <\/i>is a kind of inconsistency\u2014of trails pondered but not taken. There are dramatic lighting effects by Burke Brown (including smoke), a dozen or so men,\u00a0 and six women. The men are bare-chested above their dark gray pants, except for slim gold necklaces. The women wear dresses by Fritz Masten that pair halter tops with feathery layered skirts.<\/p>\n

\"Jamar<\/a>

Jamar Roberts in Aszure Barton’s Lift<\/em>. Photo: Paul Kolnik<\/p><\/div>\n

We seem to have stumbled into a ritual from some undetermined African country. At the outset, tall powerful\u00a0 Jamar Roberts is flanked by Renaldo Gardner and Daniel Harder. Close together, facing front, they hunker down into the emphatic rhythms in Curtis Macdonald\u2019s score. When they turn away from us, they face the other men, ranged along the dark back of the stage. In lines, all retreat and advance, shaking their shoulders, stepping hard, sometimes jumping straight up. At one point, only Roberts and his two companions are lit, but\u2014and this is revealing\u2014the two\u00a0 are now Antonio Douthit-Boyd and Kirven Douthit-Boyd. Revealing because I wouldn\u2019t have noticed the change had I not been told of it. So is Barton making a point about replacement and cycles of life?\u00a0 If so, what with all the great-looking, identically garbed men forming patterns and showing their virility and dedication in unison steps, who focuses on individual faces?<\/p>\n

Most of the steps have a tribal look to them (Roberts is wonderful at all of them\u2014supple, strong, focused, charismatic). The performers move into wide-legged, bent-kneed stances; they bring their hips and shoulders into play. And, over and over, they slap their thighs. They also, however, lift their straight legs high, toes pointed, and turn in balletic attitudes<\/i>\u2014as if steps from some other works in the Ailey repertory have sneaked in. Sometimes, an interesting group pattern will emerge\u2014such as the three men doing their thing amid\u2014 and semi-screened by\u2014lines of others doing different steps. But Barton seems committed to having a lot of people onstage most of the time. The texture of the piece is thick and unchanging, the stage often filled with evenly spaced-out dancers.<\/p>\n

\"Matthew<\/a>

Matthew Rushing advances toward the women in Barton’s Lift<\/em>. Photo: Paul Kolnik<\/p><\/div>\n

Occasionally people open their mouths in silent yells; at least once, the yells are audible. In a moment of prominence, Ghrai deVore and Marcus Jarrell Willis laugh out loud while they dance. The principal variations in tone appear in a solo for Matthew Rushing and a duet for Linda Celeste Sims and Roberts. Both these vignettes come out of the blue and remain enigmatic. Rushing, now a guest artist with the company, as well as a rehearsal director, enters the action like a visiting shaman, first backed by the women. Or maybe he\u2019s our host. Rippling his arms, strutting a bit, he takes over the stage. Who he is and why another man writhes introspectively in the background during his solo are mysteries. Rushing is, of course, marvelous\u2014weaving every step that the choreographer gives him into a fluent, eloquent statement. He, too, turns his back to the audience, and trudges toward the dark rear of the stage, shoulders shuddering.<\/p>\n

\"Linda<\/a>

Linda Celeste Sims devours Jamar Roberts in Lift<\/em>. Photo: Paul Kolnik<\/p><\/div>\n

Since Roberts performs the duet with this beautiful woman who just dropped out of the female ensemble, should we assume that he is entering a new phase in his life, or a new role in this busy society?\u00a0 What\u2019s intriguing and original about the duet is also what\u2019s weird about it. As the two travel together across the front of the stage, Sims pushes her head into Roberts\u2019 midriff; his spine curves as he shrinks away from the impact, then expands again.\u00a0 As she travels toward the wings\u2014he following\u2014 the process repeats and varies. She could be kissing his open, receptive chest or inhaling his manliness or sucking out his soul. Who can be sure in this strangely constructed world?<\/p>\n

Rennie Harris\u2019s Home<\/i>, which opened the December 7th<\/sup> matinee, offers a different vision of community. The lively, beautifully designed piece premiered on December 1, 2011,\u00a0 World AIDs Day and the 22nd<\/sup> anniversary of Ailey\u2019s death, but you might not guess from looking at the work that the solo figure represents a man isolated from the group because of the virus. What you see is a vibrant bunch of people\u201414 counting the wonderfully expressive Harder, who is exiled but, in the end, returns to the fold. He could be anyone who is seen as \u201cdifferent\u201d but then embraced despite that.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the dancers come and go\u2014now in hordes, now in threesomes, in quartets, two at a time. Harris keeps the stage atmosphere as changeable as that of a good party, except that everyone is expert at the steps drawn from hip-hop, and in tune with everyone else. Harris doesn\u2019t present any of the moves as grandstanding and weaves everything into foot-lively, body-shaking, going-somewhere patterns. This choreographed community maintains its identity and reveals the dancers who make it up as the bright, gifted individuals that they are.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The original cast in Rennie Harris’s 2011 Home<\/em> (Alicia Graf Mack center). Photo; Paul Kolnik<\/p><\/div>\n

The program concluded with Ailey\u2019s iconic Revelations<\/i>; I regret that, for once, I couldn\u2019t stay to see unfamiliar dancers in roles I practically know by heart.<\/p>\n

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The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater premieres Aszure Barton’s Lift at City Center. Any choreographer invited to make a piece for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater must come to the first rehearsal with both elation and trepidation. The Ailey dancers are like racehorses\u2014sleek, swift, eager, ablaze with temperament.\u00a0 What can you feed them?\u00a0 How […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[533,1024,1025,540,541,220,221],"class_list":{"0":"post-2183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-contemporary-dance","8":"tag-alvin-ailey-american-dance-theater","9":"tag-aszure-barton","10":"tag-curtis-macdonald","11":"tag-jamar-roberts","12":"tag-linda-celeste-sims","13":"tag-matthew-rushing","14":"tag-rennie-harris","15":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}