this week in dance

ALVIN AILEY: ALL NEW 2023

Caroline T. Dartey and James Gilmer team up in world premiere of Elizabeth Roxas-Dobrish’s Me, Myself and You (photo by Paul Kolnik)

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER
New York City Center
131 West 55th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Through December 31, $42-$172
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s annual all-new programs at City Center are among my favorite events of the year, and the 2023 edition, the troupe’s sixty-fifth anniversary, is no exception. The evening began with a new production of Alonzo King’s Following the Subtle Current Upstream, which the choreographer calls “a piece about how to return to joy”; the original debuted at City Center in 2000. The twenty-two-minute work unfolds in a series of vignettes featuring, on December 23, Patrick Coker, Isaiah Day, Caroline T. Dartey, Coral Dolphin, Samantha Figgins, Jacquelin Harris, Yannick Lebrun, Corrin Rachelle Mitchell, and Christopher Taylor, who perform to silence, a storm, chiming bells, and other sounds by Indian percussionist Zakir Hussain, American electronics composer Miguel Frasconi, and the late South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba (a gorgeous duet to “Unhome”). At one point a dancer is alone onstage, like a music box ballerina, two horizontal beams of smoky light overhead; the lighting is by Al Crawford based on Axel Morgenthaler’s original design, with tight-fitting, short costumes by Robert Rosenwasser, the men in all black, the women in black and/or yellow.

Former Ailey dancer Elizabeth Roxas-Dobrish’s world premiere, Me, Myself and You, is a seven-minute duet that recalls Jamar Roberts’s 2022 In a Sentimental Mood, about a young couple exploring love and desire. Here Roxas-Dobrish uses Damien Sneed and Brandie Sutton’s version of the Duke Ellington classic, “In a Sentimental Mood,” as Dartey, in a sexy, partially shear black gown, sets up a three-paneled mirror in the corner and shares tender moments with James Gilmer, bare-chested with black pants, combine for some awe-inspiring moves. The costumes are by Dante Baylor, with lighting by Yi-Chung Chen that makes the most of the couple’s reflections in the mirror while calling into question whether it is actually happening or a memory or fantasy.

A new production of Hans van Manen’s Solo, originally performed by the company in 2005 and staged here by Clifton Brown and Rachel Beaujean, is seven minutes of playful one-upmanship as Renaldo Maurice, Christopher Taylor, and Kanji Segawa strut their stuff in a kind of dance-off, their costumes (by Keso Dekker) differentiated by yellow, orange, and red; as each finishes a solo, they make gestures and eye movements inviting the next dancer to top what they have just done. But this is no mere rap battle; instead, it’s set to Sigiswald Kuijken’s versions of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Partita for Solo Violin No. 1 in B minor, BWV 1002 — Double: Presto” and “Partita for Solo Violin No. 1 in B minor, BWV 1002 — Double: Corrente.”

A new production of Ronald K. Brown’s Dancing Spirit honors Judith Jamison’s eightieth birthday (photo by Paul Kolnik)

In 2009, AAADT presented the world premiere of by Ronald K. Brown’s Dancing Spirit, which Brown choreographed as a tribute to former Ailey dancer Judith Jamison’s twentieth anniversary as artistic director of the company. Now, in honor of Jamison’s eightieth birthday, Brown revisits the work in a lovely new production. The half-hour piece, danced by Hannah Alissa Richardson, Deidre Rogan, Yazzmeen Laidler, Harris, Solomon Dumas, Taylor, Christopher R. Wilson, Jau’mair Garland, and Coker, builds at a simmering pace as the cast, in blue and white costumes designed by Omatayo Wunmi Olaiya that evoke Jamison’s performance of the “Wade in the Water” section of Revelations, move in unison and break out into solos, duets, and other groups to Stefon Harris’s and Joe Temperley’s versions of Ellington’s “The Single Petal of a Rose,” Wynton Marsalis’s “What Have You Done?” and “Tsotsobi — The Morning Star (Children),” the Vitamin String Quartet’s cover of Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right Place,” and War’s “Flying Machine (The Chase).” Brown incorporates Afro-Cuban and Brazilian movement into his rhythmic language; the work is highlighted by Dumas and Richardson celebrating Ailey and Jamison, respectively, with stunning solos as the moon arrives for a glowing conclusion.

Also debuting at City Center in 2023 is a new production of Roberts’s Ode and the world premiere of Amy Hall Garner’s CENTURY.

In her 1993 autobiography, Dancing Spirit, Jamison writes, “Dance is bigger than your physical body. When you extend your arm, it does not stop at the end of your fingers, because you’re dancing bigger than that; you’re dancing spirit.” AAADT has been maintaining that spirit for sixty-five years, with more to come.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER: 65th ANNIVERSARY SEASON

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Y. Lebrun, P. Coker, X. Mack, and R. Maurice in Alvin Ailey’s For “Bird” — with Love (photo by Dario Calmese)

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER
New York City Center
131 West 55th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
November 29 – December 31, $42-$172
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

No matter what’s going on in the world — and in case you haven’t noticed, right now there’s a whole lot — when the end of November rolls around, you can count on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to provide a much-needed respite with its always exciting and entertaining end-of-year season at New York City Center. This time around the company is celebrating its sixty-fifth anniversary by presenting more than two dozen works, including world premieres by first-time AAADT choreographers Amy Hall Garner (CENTURY) and former Ailey dancer Elizabeth Roxas-Dobrish (Me, Myself and You) and new productions of Hans van Manen’s Solo, Alonzo King’s Following the Subtle Current Upstream, Ronald K. Brown’s Dancing Spirit, and Jamar Roberts’s Ode.

Kyle Abraham’s Are You in Your Feelings? is part of Ailey season at City Center (photo by Paul Kolnik)

The programs are divided into “Premiere Night,” “Ailey Classics,” “All Ailey,” “Live Music,” “All New,” and “Pioneering Women of Ailey”; the opening-night gala, honoring former Ailey dancer, choreographer, and artistic director Judith Jamison, pairs a performance of Revelations with a live choir and a world premiere with Tony, Grammy, and Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Cynthia Erivo.

The personal CENTURY was inspired by Garner’s grandfather and is set to music by Ray Charles, Count Basie, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and others; Me, Myself and You explores reminiscence, love, and loss. “Pioneering Women of Ailey” pays tribute to Jamison, Carmen de Lavallade, Denise Jefferson, and Sylvia Waters, while rising jazz stars will perform live December 15-17. Among the other highlights the company of thirty-three dancers will perform are Paul Taylor’s DUET, Alvin Ailey and Mary Barnett’s Survivors, Roberts’s In a Sentimental Mood, and Kyle Abraham’s Are You in Your Feelings? After twelve years as artistic director, Robert Battle announced that he is stepping down immediately because of health concerns; longtime Ailey dancer and associate artistic director Matthew Rushing will take over temporarily until the board chooses a full-time successor; among Battle’s works for the company are Ella, For Four, In/Side, Love Stories, Mass, and Unfold.

JUNGLE BOOK REIMAGINED

Akram Khan reimagines The Jungle Book for contemporary audiences at Lincoln Center (photo © Ambra Vernuccio)

JUNGLE BOOK reimagined
Rose Theater, Frederick P. Rose Hall
Broadway at 60th St.
November 16-18, pay-what-you-wish (suggested price $35), 7:30
www.lincolncenter.org
www.akramkhancompany.net

“We are now living in unprecedented and uncertain times, not only for our species but for all species on this planet,” artistic director, dancer, and choreographer Akram Khan notes. “And the root cause of this conundrum is because we have forgotten our connection to our home, our planet. We all inhabit it, we all take from it, and we all build on it, but we have forgotten to return our respect for it.”

Khan takes a new look at The Jungle Book, which was first an 1894 collection by Rudyard Kipling and then a popular 1967 Disney animated musical film, in Jungle Book reimagined, a two-hour show that focuses on colonization, refugees, gender, and climate change. The story is written by Tariq Jordan, with music by Jocelyn Pook; Khan is the director and choreographer, with sound by Gareth Fry, lighting by Michael Hulls, visual stage design by Miriam Buether, art and animation direction by Adam Smith, and video design by Nick Hillel.

The work is performed by Maya Balam Meyong, Tom Davis-Dunn, Harry Theadora Foster, Filippo Franzese, Bianca Mikahil, Max Revell, Matthew Sandiford, Pui Yung Shum, Elpida Skourou, Holly Vallis, Jan Mikaela Villanueva, and Luke Watson.

Tickets are pay-what-you-wish, with a suggested price of $35, to see this multimedia production appropriate for children ten and up.

COMPLEXIONS CONTEMPORARY BALLET: DREAM ON

Dwight Rhoden’s Ballad Unto . . . is part of Complexions two-week season at the Joyce

COMPLEXIONS CONTEMPORARY BALLET
The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
November 14-26, $62-92
212-691-9740
www.joyce.org
www.complexionsdance.org

Complexions Contemporary Ballet returns to the Joyce this week, kicking off its two-week fall season displaying the diversity that has been its trademark since its founding by Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson in 1994. The company will present three programs plus a sold-out gala, offering work from a wide range of choreographers.

The gala, honoring artistic advisor and Ailey instructor Sarita Allen, will be held on November 14, with Dream On, set to a poem by CCB inaugural poet-journalist-in-residence Aaron Dworkin; Rhoden’s Black Is Beautiful, a 2022 pandemic film making its live debut, with the Pre-Professional Students of Howard University; Justin Peck’s The Dreamers, a 2016 duet set to music by Bohuslav Martinů; Rhoden’s 2015 Ballad Unto . . . , set to music by Bach; and excerpts from Ricardo Amarante’s Love Fear Loss (inspired by the life of Édith Piaf) and the world premieres of Jenn Freeman’s Regardless and Rhoden’s For Crying Out Loud (with music from the U2 album Songs of Surrender).

Program A consists of Ballad Unto . . . , For Crying Out Loud, Love Fear Loss (with pianist Brian Wong), and Regardless (with drummer Price McGuffey). Program B comprises The Dreamers and Rhoden’s 2020 solo Elegy, 2023 Blood Calls Blood, 2020 eight-movement Endgame / Love One, and Ballad Unto. . . . Program C features The Dreamers, Elegy, Blood Calls Blood, For Crying Out Loud, and Ballad Unto. . . .

The November 15 performance will be followed by a Curtain Chat, and there will be a family matinee on November 18. The CCD dancers include Alberto Andrade, Christian Burse, Jacopo Calvo, Kobe Atwood Courtney, Jasmine Heart Cruz, Jillian Davis, Vincenzo Di Primo, Angelo De Serra, Chloe Duryea, Joe Gonzalez, Alexander Haquia, Aristotle Luna, Marissa Mattingly, Laura Perich, Miguel Solano, Lucy Stewart, Candy Tong, Manuel Vaccaro, and April Watson.

“We are thrilled to be headed back to the Joyce with ‘Dream On,’ a dynamic program that showcases the talent and incredible range and diversity that has always been the bedrock of our company,” Rhoden said in a statement. “‘Dream On’ is an affirmation of the dream Desmond and I had twenty-nine years ago, and the passion, pride, and possibility that have brought us this far and encourage us to keep going.”

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

WATCH NIGHT

Bill T. Jones leads rehearsal for upcoming Watch Night at PAC NYC (photo by Stephanie Berger)

WATCH NIGHT
Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC)
251 Fulton St.
November 3-18, $52-$138
pacnyc.org

Bill T. Jones’s home base might be New York Live Arts, where he’s the artistic director, but he stages works all over New York (and the world). In August, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company presented the free, site-specific Dance for Sunset in Brookhaven, Long Island. In April, his Deep Blue Sea dazzled audiences at Park Avenue Armory, where he debuted the immersive Afterwardsness the previous year. And last month he was back at NYLA with Curriculum II, kicking off his troupe’s forty-first season.

So it’s no surprise that he is presenting the first dance work at the brand-new Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC) in Lower Manhattan, by Ground Zero. Running November 3-18, Watch Night will explore tragedy, justice, and forgiveness in these ever-more-difficult times. The multimedia work was conceived by director and choreographer Jones and librettist/poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph; the score is by Brooklyn musician and composer Tamar-kali.

The cast features approximately two dozen dancers portraying such characters as the Wolf, Super/Natural, and members of an Echo Chamber, with an eight-person ensemble including violin, viola, cello, bass, flute, oboe, and clarinet. The set is by Tony-nominated designer Adam Rigg, with costumes by Kara Harmon, lightning by Robert Wierzel, sound by Mikaal Sulaiman, and projections by Lucy Mackinnon.

In a program note, Jones lists dos and don’ts; for example:

DO NOT:
Create an event too easily digested in its desire to succeed by standards not of my making.
Be cowed by the city and this theater site’s precarious history in our fractious era.
Be oppressed by personal fear and anger.
Try to heal the world in this event.
Ignore each character’s worldview, individual psychological motivations that give them dimension and substance.
Attempt to be understood by all viewers and stake holders.

DO:
Acknowledge the privilege of this opportunity and the platform provided by the Perelman Performing Arts Center in its Inaugural Season.
Acknowledge this event is informed by real tragedies, real people, and real consequences.
Explore the potential of this new historic theater, built on contested land and a site of trauma.
Challenge my own taste and notions of abstraction and movement.
Attempt to “see this event” through the eyes of many people — different from myself and very much like me.
Stay alert, grateful, and hungry for joy!

Jones will be on hand for two postshow talkbacks, on November 9 with Joseph, Tamar-kali, and dramaturg Lauren Whitehead, moderated by rabbinical consultant Kendell Pinkney, delving into the creative inspiration behind the show, and on November 12, when Jones and guests from the Interfaith Center of New York will discuss faith and forgiveness. In addition, on December 4, Jones will speak with Joseph at NYLA as part of the ongoing “Bill Chats” series.

In her program note, Whitehead explains, “Every massacre has its moment. In the aftermath of every staggering act of violence we are inundated, for a time, with outrage and rallying cries, marches and memorials, public lament and lengthy speeches and great groanings of grief. And then, as is our way, we metabolize the grotesque. We will ourselves into movie theaters, send our children into schools again. We weep, we wail, and then we walk on. What our show is attempting to do is to ask ‘what if?’ What if we were unsatisfied by platitudes of forgiveness and forgetting? What if instead of moving on, we pointed our rage and discontent in a different direction?”

Don’t expect any easy answers to those challenging questions in what promises to be a memorable experience.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

HOW TO BE A DANCER IN 72,000 EASY LESSONS

The Dancer (Rachel Poirier) whips the Dance Man (Michael Keegan-Dolan) into shape in semiautobiographical show (photo by Teddy Wolff)

HOW TO BE A DANCER IN 72,000 EASY LESSONS
St. Ann’s Warehouse
45 Water St.
Through November 5, $39-$69
718-254-8779
stannswarehouse.org

“Don’t look back,” Michael Keegan-Dolan says near the beginning of the exceptional How to Be a Dancer in 72,000 Easy Lessons. “But I want to look back.”

The Irish choreographer and director takes a unique look back in his triumphant return to the stage after two decades, joined by his longtime collaborator and life partner, French dancer Rachel Poirier. The semiautobiographical ninety-minute show — the first dance-theater work to be presented by St. Ann’s Warehouse — starts and ends with a story about an egg, signaling birth and rebirth. Keegan-Dolan is the Dance Man and Poirier the Dancer as he relates episodes from his past. Driven by his deep desire to be a dancer, he walked a long road to success with his pigeon-toed feet that included being bullied by other boys for dancing like a “queer” and a bruising stint in musical theater, among other adventures.

Michael Keegan-Dolan returns to the stage in How to Be a Dancer in 72,000 Easy Lessons at St. Ann’s (photo by Teddy Wolff)

The Dance Man prefers Gene Kelly to rugby, ballet to musical theater. Across forty-one brief scenes, the character introduces us to his mother and father, his best friend, his choir priest, his ballet teacher, his first girlfriend, Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, his brother Paul, and a famous Australian conductor. He includes the high and low points, the moments that forged his future as he sought the freedom to be who he wanted to be, anchored by his meeting the Dancer, who moves about the stage and interacts with him in often outrageously funny and deliciously wicked ways as he shares his tales.

Each vignette features playful props that Keegan-Dolan and Poirier remove from a large wooden box and scatter about, from a child’s bicycle and a red balloon to a mirror and a helium tank, from cinderblocks and shoes to a dartboard and a ladder. A long white rope hangs down from the ceiling, offering danger and escape. White tape forms a large rectangle on the floor and back wall, but Keegan-Dolan, in a black suit and white shirt, and Poirier, in a black dress, ignore it, refusing to be contained.

The set and costumes are by Hyemi Shin, with lighting and direction by Adam Silverman and sound by Sandra Ní Mhathúna, creating an anything-goes atmosphere. Keegan-Dolan often carries a boombox with him, playing such songs as Jacques Brel’s “J’arrive,” Men Without Hats’ “The Safety Dance,” Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough,” Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and Charles Penrose’s “The Laughing Policeman,” in addition to pieces by Stravinsky, Strauss, Handel, and Verdi.

“Psycho Killer,” with its touch of French, plays a pivotal role, as the Dance Man points out, “If there is a place in the world for the Talking Heads’ lead singer and front man David Byrne, then there must be a place in the world for me.” Poirier brings down the house with an exhilarating and exhausting fifteen-minute solo to Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero in C Major” that is breathlessly exquisite.

Nearly every minute provides something singular and unexpected, running the gamut of emotions, as exemplified when the Dance Man runs around the stage. “I have a voice!” he declares early on. “And it’s not, the endless monologue in my head, in my head voice. This is my voice.”

Keegan-Dolan found his voice through dance; his latest show, subtitled “A Performance Ritual in Four Parts for Two Performers,” is a clarion call for everyone to seek out and find theirs.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

NEXT WAVE 2023: CORPS EXTRÊMES

Rachid Ouramdane makes his BAM debut with the high-flying Corps extrêmes (photo © Pascale Cholette)

CORPS EXTRÊMES
Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
October 27-29, $44.50-$84.50
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Choreographer Rachid Ouramdane and Chaillot — Théâtre national de la Danse make their high-flying BAM debut with the soaring Corps extrêmes, having its US premiere October 27-29 at the Howard Gilman Opera House. The sixty-minute multimedia piece is centered around a large climbing wall where eight acrobats from Compagnie XY (Joël Azou, Airelle Caen, Tamila de Naeyer, Löric Fouchereau, Peter Freeman, Maxime Seghers, Seppe Van Looveren, and Owen Winship) are joined on film and/or onstage by French tightrope walker Nathan Paulin, French rock climber Camille Doumas, and Swiss rock climber Nina Caprez. The work explores the relationship of the human body to the natural world, filled with possibility, danger, and fun. The original score is by Jean-Baptiste Julien, with costumes by Camille Panin, lighting by Stéphane Graillot, and video by Jean-Camille Goimard.

Corps extrêmes is part of BAM’s 2023-24 Next Wave Festival, which includes Geoff Sobelle’s Food, Lynette Wallworth’s How to Live (after you die), and composer Huang Ruo, director Matthew Ozawa, and filmmaker Bill Morrison’s Angel Island, as well as the citywide Dance Reflections Festival, which continues through December 14 with Boris Charmatz’s Somnole and Dimitri Chamblas and Kim Gordon’s takemehome at NYU Skirball, Ola Maciejewska’s Bombyx Mori at FIAF, and Dancing with Glass — The Piano Etudes at the Joyce.