EIF 2023 Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Programme 2 Festival Theatre 25th August Review
Photo Credit Dario-Calmese
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Programme 2 has two performances today, one in the afternoon and one in this evening. This review is for the afternoon show.
Three works by company Founder Alvin Ailey (b 1931 – d 1989) are on this programme and, although each is very different in its own way, they are all unified by innovative choreography plus effortless grace and style that became not only his legacy to dance, but set the standards for the whole company to this day.
The first work performed in this show was Memoria (1979) and even now, over 40 years since its creation, you can still feel not only how deeply personal this work was to Alvin Ailey, but also his pain at losing a very close friend, fellow choreographer, Joyce Trisler.
There is always something about an emotional work like this one that is difficult to put into words, and dance, being wordless, is perhaps the most appropriate way to do this as all too often we simply do not have words to properly describe the loss that we are feeling at times like this. As usual, the ability of the Alvin Ailey dancers to interpret the choreography into an emotional body language that so many of us can relate to in a very personal way is, to say the least, amazing.
For Memoria, Alvin Ailey originally incorporated young dancers from Ailey II and The Ailey School into this work and, keeping with this ethos, the EIF performances also incorporate young dancers aged 18-25 from all over Scotland into this work too giving them the opportunity to work with and be on stage with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
The second work, The River (1970, Alvin Ailey premiere 1981) features a musical score written for this work by Duke Ellington, and the two worked closely on this work together to create something that is wide ranging in its scope but still open to so many different interpretations.
This is a complex work of very distinctive parts that, although having a firm foundation in classical ballet, with its Duke Ellington score is also of course firmly rooted in jazz influences and contemporary dance, and the ease and fluidity with which the dancers move between dance forms is a pleasure to watch.
Just what is Alvin Ailey’s river though? Is it a physical river that begins its journey somewhere else as meandering streams before finally flowing into the sea, or is every thing a metaphor for the birth, life and rebirth of nature itself? The answer to that probably depends upon what perspective you are viewing this work from.
The final work today, Revelation (1960) is perhaps the most widely seen contemporary dance work in the world, and one which set the standards of its day and still sets those standards as the work is simply timeless. This work also featured on Programme 1 which I reviewed a few days ago and everything that I had to say about it is in that review.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
Three works by company Founder Alvin Ailey (b 1931 – d 1989) are on this programme and, although each is very different in its own way, they are all unified by innovative choreography plus effortless grace and style that became not only his legacy to dance, but set the standards for the whole company to this day.
The first work performed in this show was Memoria (1979) and even now, over 40 years since its creation, you can still feel not only how deeply personal this work was to Alvin Ailey, but also his pain at losing a very close friend, fellow choreographer, Joyce Trisler.
There is always something about an emotional work like this one that is difficult to put into words, and dance, being wordless, is perhaps the most appropriate way to do this as all too often we simply do not have words to properly describe the loss that we are feeling at times like this. As usual, the ability of the Alvin Ailey dancers to interpret the choreography into an emotional body language that so many of us can relate to in a very personal way is, to say the least, amazing.
For Memoria, Alvin Ailey originally incorporated young dancers from Ailey II and The Ailey School into this work and, keeping with this ethos, the EIF performances also incorporate young dancers aged 18-25 from all over Scotland into this work too giving them the opportunity to work with and be on stage with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
The second work, The River (1970, Alvin Ailey premiere 1981) features a musical score written for this work by Duke Ellington, and the two worked closely on this work together to create something that is wide ranging in its scope but still open to so many different interpretations.
This is a complex work of very distinctive parts that, although having a firm foundation in classical ballet, with its Duke Ellington score is also of course firmly rooted in jazz influences and contemporary dance, and the ease and fluidity with which the dancers move between dance forms is a pleasure to watch.
Just what is Alvin Ailey’s river though? Is it a physical river that begins its journey somewhere else as meandering streams before finally flowing into the sea, or is every thing a metaphor for the birth, life and rebirth of nature itself? The answer to that probably depends upon what perspective you are viewing this work from.
The final work today, Revelation (1960) is perhaps the most widely seen contemporary dance work in the world, and one which set the standards of its day and still sets those standards as the work is simply timeless. This work also featured on Programme 1 which I reviewed a few days ago and everything that I had to say about it is in that review.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com