Ailey has been a near-annual Boston fixture over the past half-century, and it’s hard to imagine another contemporary dance ensemble popular enough to fill the capacious Wang over a long weekend.
One could soundly advise any choreographer to avoid music so transcendentally great in itself that dance can add nothing except banal images. Only a handful of exceptions sneak past the rule: MacMillan’s setting of Song of the Earth, perhaps, and also Hans van Manen’s Adagio Hammerklavier, his audacious attempt to visualise the infinitely slow movement
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Sadler's Wells review - exhilarating display of a full deck of dance styles theartsdesk.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theartsdesk.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
It’s a little hard to get your head around the various programmes being offered by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in its two-week London season. That’s because there are four of them and some works pop up in more than one. Never mind which you choose, though, because they all showcase a wealth of choreography and the consistently high standard of dancing from this popular New York-based troupe.
Sadler's Wells hasn't seen the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater company since 2019 and, from the audience reaction, you could tell straightaway that everyone is pretty glad they're back. It's a feeling that builds throughout the evening culminating in the joy that is Ailey's own masterpiece Revelations, created astonishingly in 1960 just two years after he formed the company (still the foremost African-American dance company in the US) and still as fresh a daisy today. It is the very definition of a classic but more of that later. This season there are four programmes over 12 nights: Modern Masters, Ailey Classics, 21st Century Creations and, first up, Contemporary Voices. This in itself is an indication of the breadth and versatility of this company. Their range is exceptional – from ballet to jazz, Martha Graham to hip hop – there's nothing you can throw at them they can't handle. The first programme began with Are You in Your Feelings? choreographed b