Program A March 12:

Heart Song (2003)
Music, composed and performed: Bouchaib Abdelhadi, Yasir Chadi,
Hafida Ghanim
Choreographer: Alonzo King
Costumes, Scenic Design: Robert Rosenwasser
Lighting: Alex Morgenthaler

Treading (1979)
Music: Steve Reich
Choreographer: Elisa Monte
Costumes: Marison
Lighting: Beverly Emmons

Bahiyah Sayyed-Gaines, Glenn A. Sims

Juba (2003)
Music: JackMackey
Choreographer: Robert Battle
Costumes: Mia McSwain
Lighting: Burke J. Wilmore

Revelations (1960)
Music: Traditional
Choreographer: Alvin Ailey
Decor, Costumes: Ves Harper
For "Rocka My Soul" Barbara Forbes
Lighting: Nicola Cernovitch

Program B March 13 matinee:

Memoria (1979)
Music: Keith Jarrett
Choreographer: Alvin Ailey
Costumes: A. Christina Giannini
Lighting: Chenault Spence

Night Creature (1974) Excerpts
Music: Duke Ellington
Choreographer: Alvin Ailey
Costumes: Jane Greenwood Costume Design
Lighting: Chenault Spence

Phases (1980) Excerpts
Music: Flight Time
Choreographer: Alvin Ailey
Costumes: A. Christina Giannini
Lighting: Chenault Spence

Opus McShann (1988) Excerpt
Music: JayMcShann and Walter Brown
Choreographer: Alvin Ailey
Sets, Costumes: Randy Barcelo
Lighting: Timothy Hunter

A Song for You (1972) Excerpt from Love Songs
Music: Leon Russell
Choreographer: Alvin Ailey
Costume: Ursula Reed
Lighting: Shirley Prendergast

Amos J. Machinic, Jr.

For Bird - With Love (1984) Excerpts
Music: Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie,
Jerome Kern,Original music by Coleridge-Taylor
Parkinson
Choreographer: Alvin Ailey
Set, Costumes: Randy Barcelo
Lighting: Timothy Hunter

Clifton Brown; Clyde Archer; Guillermo Asca; Abdur-Rahim Jackson; Antonio Douthit; Oliva Bowmna, Hope Boykin; Laura Rossini; Rosalyn Sanders; Aida Thomas; Wendy Wilson Sasser

Hidden Rites (1975) Excerpt
Music: Patric Sciortino
Choreographer: Alvin Ailey
Restaged by: Mari Kajiwara
Costumes: Bea Feitler
Lighting: Chenault Spence

Cry (1971) Excerpt
Music: Chuck Griffin
Choreographer: Alvin Ailey
Costumes: A Christina Giannini
Lighting: Chenault Spence

Briana Reed, Asha Thomas, Bahiyah Sayyed-Gaines

Revelations ( 1960)

Program C March 13, evening:

Bounty Verses (2003)
Music: A collage
Choreographer: Dwight Rhoden
Costumes: Micho Morinoue
Lighting, Scenic Design: Michael Korsch

Hymn (1993)
Music Robert Ruggin
Text: Anna Devere Smith
Choreorapher: Judith Jamison
Costumes: Toyce Anderson
Redesigned: Jon Taylor
Set: Timothy Hunter, Daniel Bonitsky, Donald J.
Oberpillar
Lighting: Timothy Hunter

The Winter in Lisbon (1992)
Music: Dizzy Gillespie
Choreographer: Billy Wilson
Restaged by: Masazumi Chaya
Costumes: Barbara Forbes
Lighting: Chenault Spence

The Alvin Ailey engagement at Zellerbach is an incredibly popular pre-spring regular. With a large African-American population in Oakland and Berkeley, the ambiance is decidedly different in its excitement than generated by Merce Cunningham or the Kirov. This year with unseasonably balmy weather, every inducement existed to heighten the love-in which this company annually generates with Zellerbach audiences. The Ailey enterprise also has started a summer program with Berkeley youth, fostered by CAL Performances, multiplying the home town feeling palpable at every performance.

This engagement provided a glimpse of a range of Ailey's choreography. I first saw Ailey's marvelous Feast of Ashes for the Joffrey Ballet when that company was underwritten by Rebeckah Harkness, a ballet crying for revival. Revelations is a perennial, as body-warming now as when premiered. Last year, in two works done by other choreographers, what impressed most was the quality of the dancers,the company's extraordinary degree of professionalism and the ability to communicate, even in so-so material.

The year 2003 saw three new works created for the company by Robert Battle, Alonzo King and Dwight Rhoden. With excerpts from several Ailey's works for comparison, it seems current African-American choreographers have a near impossible task to stand equal with similar humanity. Their formative exposure from a different place, I feel for them. They seem to slice the large pie of technology and technique, insight and frequently humanity checked in the cloak room.

Alonzo King's practice of utilizing unusual music, played by marvelous musicians, live or taped, was present in Heartsong. The Ailey dancers gave the King movement style a wonderful grounding without pointe shoes. It also revealed movement cliches consistently used in Kings ballets; shoulder/arm circles like birds starting to take wing, a quality similar to arm movements in buck and wing tap routines; the back torso imbalance before some phrases, very funny in a comic situation; the averted eye contact in sharp contrast for dancers whose style is so clearly one of communication with audience and fellow dancers. There were one or two sequences owing genesis to an earlier King work to Zakir Hussein's music, Who Dressed You As A Stranger?

Treading, Elisa Monte's choreographic debut, showed its debt not only to the music's symmetry, but to the principles of tension and composition used in the late 70s; beginning, middle, end - ABA composition, with some distinct references to the Adam's rib, and the contrasting method of human birth: tight construction, comprehensible, well performed.

Revelations is a cult experience, a deserved American classic, a paean to the spirit, rising above and beyond trial and tribulation, from the wing-like tribal formation in I've Been Buked; the falls and contractions in Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel; the earnest, tricky pas de deux in Fix Me, Jesus. There is the Processional which segues into Wade in the Water, the white umbrella floating above the figures, to the gorgeous solo I Wanna Be Ready, performed with intense drama by Guillermo Asca and with utter symmetry March 13 by Jeffry Geordias. Sinner Man never lacks urgency, men running with fugitive conviction. Clyde Archer in both performances, led Clifton Brown and Samuel Deshauteurs March 12 with Jamar Roberts, Clyde Archer and Dion Wilson March 13, lighting and projections reflecting ante-bellum attempts to reach freedom. Then the finale, Rocka My Soul, an ovation-rousing event for dancer and audience, which commences rhythmic clapping, responding to the women who dialog deliciously with their fans while settling into their seats, the men in their elegant vests swooping forward and back between the stools and women congregants festive with their yellow pancake hats. In all the times I have seen the work, this response has never failed. The audience anticipates being roused, to releasing the feeling this extraordinary work continues to evoke and the durable excellence with which Ailey's company performs it.

Ailey's essay to Duke Ellington's music conveys the sophisticated African American experience as entertainer, subtle in its showman chic where timing and form showcases the personality, the gifts of performer and ensemble.

For Bird With Love was a highlight close to Revelations in its understanding of African-American life, here musical and urban, a tribute not only the jazz greats, but illumined by Coleridge-Taylor Parkinson's talents(his obituary appeared recently in the NY Times.
The playful musicians, the nightclub style and habit, the interplay with the women,secondary but necessary foils for the cock of the walk antics of the musicians, are bested perhaps only by a toreador in his prime. Remembering St. Louis Woman with Dance Theatre of Harlem, Michael Smuin could Benefit by Ailey's take on African American night life.

Dwight Rhoden's Bounty Verses provided some glamorous lighting effects for duets, trios and solo passages, filtered spots from above, rather than above the heads of the audience. Mostly in twos, a man and woman, enter, display an antagonistic attraction with partnering, then depart; another woman or man arrives on the scene with a new variation of the same. The women give as good as they get, so the energy is definitely charged and scarcely tender.

If Rhoden wanted to convey fragmented, dissatisfied nature of today's relationships, he has succeeded admirably. In his choreography the sensuous and sexual are clear and well handled, not a sylph in the lot. In the music, which lists Bach, Steve Reich, Vivaldi and Beethoven as part of the collage, I listened vainly for an appreciable tone or recognizable phrase. No luck whatsoever.

Judith Jamison's Hymn with text by Anne Devere Smith includes excerpts from an interview with Alvin Ailey, comments by Jamison about her succession as artistic director, wonderful solos and ensembles by the likes of Renee Robinson, the veteran Dudley Williams, Guillermo Asca and Dwana Adiaha Greenwood, Amos J. Machanic, Jr., and gorgeous ensemble groupings and movement. It was the closest work in the evening to Ailey's spiritual and human emphasis.

Seeing Billy Wilson's The Winter in Lisbon the second time, the Lisbon pas de deux between Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell and Clifton Brown, its strong element of fantasy/encounter aided by lighting, and adroit use of a fedora, is the best part of the work. The sexuality is clear and handled with taste. The Winter In Lisbon is thoroughly urban, elements frequently cheeky, and competitive, a work of good cheer and mild humor.

An evening without an Ailey work in his company is somehow not an Ailey evening. Jamison came close to redeeming the absence. There was one dancer, mid-size and not a major soloist who stood out for the full-bodied participation he brought to his smallest assignment, an embodiment of the Ailey spirit. If the program notes and my reading jibe, the young man is Abdur-Rahim Jackson. Whether leading with the white pom pom in the Revelation processional or portraying the jazz percussionist in For Bird - With Love, he is consistently present, unforced in his precision,providing us pleasure with his own delight.

Doesn't it amaze you - as it does me - that the dancers are able to dance "Revelations" with as much freshness as ever, considering how often they dance it? It says something about the piece itself, about the dancers and also about the artistic director.

I didn't get to see Dudley Wililams, and though this was a disappointment, I was pleased to see that he is still a member of the company. I was also looking forward to once again seeing Matthew Rushing. Last year he danced "A Song for You" and really mesmerized the entire theater, one of those truly magical moments we all wait for. But, from your review it seems he didn't dance in Berkeley either, unless I mis-read.

I always enjoy your reviews - and it's even more fun when we both see the same company, though cities apart.

I didn't see Matthew Rushing, and I confess I'm just beginning to sort
out the various dancers - there's been quite a sea change.

Dudley Williams is as elegant as ever and handles the dimunition of
energy and range of motion with enormous skill. I was utterly delighted
to see him and to know he is there as example and mentor to the younger
dancers. There are scores of such dancers who should be and need to be
utilized and are not, unfortunately.

By the way, that's a beautiful description you gave of Dudley Williams above and I totally endorse what you say about the under-utilization in the dance world of the older dancer. It says something about the state of the art, doesn't it?