Tag Archives: Takademe

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER WINTER SEASON 2021

Robert Battle’s new For Four is part of his tenth anniversary celebration at Ailey (photo by Christopher Duggan)

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER
New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
December 1-19, $29-$159
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

If you weren’t following Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater during the pandemic lockdown, you missed out on some of the best virtual presentations of the last twenty months, from online conversations, “Dancer Diaries,” and “Ailey Up Close” talks to archival performances available on Ailey All Access and brand-new works created over Zoom and outdoors. Among the highlights were a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Alvin Ailey’s Cry, members of the Ailey company, Ailey II, and the Ailey School taking on artistic director Robert Battle’s The Hunt, a special filmed edition of Revelations Reimagined, and excerpts from Camille A. Brown’s City of Rain, Rennie Harris’s Lazarus, Judith Jamison’s Divining, and Jamar Roberts’s Ode in addition to Roberts’s exhilarating outdoor work A Jam Session for Troubling Times.

The Manhattan-based troupe, with new members Lloyd A. Boyd III, Caroline T. Dartey, Ashley Kaylynn Green, and Ashley Mayeux, is now back in person for its annual season at City Center, running December 1 to 19. In past years, AAADT has bid farewell to retiring dancers Linda Celeste Sims (now assistant to the rehearsal director) and Matthew Rushing (now associate artistic director) and longtime associate artistic director Masazumi Chaya; the winter run is centered around Bessie winner Roberts’s final performance, as he turns his attention to serving as AAADT’s resident choreographer. On December 9, Roberts will dance his last solo, You Are the Golden Hour That Would Soon Evanesce, with pianist Jason Moran playing his song “Only the Shadow Knows (Honey)” live; the evening also includes the world premiere of Roberts’s Holding Space, which was first seen virtually during the pandemic. Set to an electronic score by Canadian musician Tim Hecker, the piece features an onstage open cube that Roberts calls “a metaphor for many things: quarantine, being confined in a small space — if you were to, let’s say, look at an apartment building and you see the window and you see different people living in the apartment building, but the cube was sort of like taking a magnifying glass and going deeper into just one apartment unit and seeing what that experience is like, experiencing one person out of the whole.”

At City Center, AAADT will also present the in-person world premiere of Battle’s For Four, previously seen only online, with music by Wynton Marsalis. There will be new productions of Ailey’s 1976 Pas de Duke, restaged by Rushing and rehearsal director Ronni Favors, comprising five solos and duets set to songs by Duke Ellington; Reflections in D, Ailey’s 1963 solo restaged by Jamison; The River, Ailey’s thirty-four-minute 1970 opus with an original score by Ellington, restaged by Rushing, Favors, and Clifton Brown; and Battle’s Unfold, a 2007 duet set to Leontyne Price’s rendition of Gustave Charpentier’s “Depuis Le Jour,” restaged by Ailey dancer Kanji Segawa.

AAADT celebrates Battle’s tenth anniversary as artistic director with an evening consisting of Mass, Ella, In/Side, For Four, Unfold, Takademe, and the finale from Love Stories. Also on the schedule are Lazarus, Cry, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s Shelter, Aszure Barton’s BUSK, and Ailey’s Blues Suite and Memoria, divided into such programs as “New Works,” “All Ailey,” “50 Years of Cry,” and “Ailey & Ellington.” As always, the Saturday matinees will be followed by a Q&A with members of the company.

Seeing Ailey on its home stage at City Center is a rite of passage, something all New Yorkers must experience; just don’t be surprised when it becomes an annual December sojourn.

AILEY AT LINCOLN CENTER 2015

AAADT’s Antonio Douthit-Boyd and Linda Celeste Sims perform in Wayne McGregor’s CHROMA (photo by Paul Kolnik)

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will be performing Wayne McGregor’s CHROMA for the last time at Lincoln Center, while also saying farewell to longtime dancer Antonio Douthit-Boyd (and his husband, fellow dancer Kirven Douthit-Boyd) (photo by Paul Kolnik)

David H. Koch Theater
20 Lincoln Center Plaza
June 10-21, $25 – $135
212-496-0600
www.alvinailey.org
www.davidhkochtheater.com

In June 2013, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performed at Lincoln Center for the first time in thirteen years. The late-spring season is now becoming an annual event, as the troupe, which takes over City Center every December, will be back at the David Koch Theater for the third straight year. From June 10 to 21, AAADT will present eighteen works across fourteen programs, in addition to an opening-night gala. New pieces include the world premiere of Rennie Harris’s Exodus, the company premiere of artistic director Robert Battle’s No Longer Silent, and new productions of Talley Beatty’s Toccata and Judith Jamison’s “A Case of You” duet from Reminiscin’. Also on the schedule are Battle’s Strange Humors and whirlwind Takademe, Ronald K. Brown’s elegant Grace, Jacqulyn Buglisi’s female celebration Suspended Women, Ulysses Dove’s Bad Blood, Matthew Rushing’s overly earnest ODETTA, Hofesh Shechter’s exhilarating Uprising, and Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain Pas de Deux, along with the Ailey classics Night Creature and Revelations. The Saturday afternoon family matinees will be followed by Q&As with the dancers, and Ailey Extension instructor Eddie Stockton will lead a free house dance class on June 11 at 6:00 on Josie Robertson Plaza, with music by DJ C Boogie. The company will also be presenting Wayne McGregor’s physically exertive Chroma for the final time while also saying goodbye to two longtime members, married couple Antonio and Kirven Douthit-Boyd, who will stay with Ailey through a Paris engagement at the Théâtre du Châtelet in July, then become the artistic directors of the Center of Creative Arts in St. Louis.

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER NY CITY CENTER SEASON

Robert Moses’s THE PLEASURE OF THE LESSON will makes its Ailey company premiere at City Center (photo by Paul Kolnik)

New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
December 3 – January 4, $25-$150
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has something extra special to celebrate this year, as the company prepares for its annual holiday season at City Center. Their founder, Alvin Ailey, who started the troupe in 1958 and passed away in 1989, will be posthumously honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 24, to be accepted by current AAADT artistic director Robert Battle. In addition, longtime chairman of the board Joan H. Weill is retiring, going out with a bang, as more than $40 million has been raised in her honor so far for in the Campaign for Ailey’s Future. The season begins December 3 with an opening-night gala featuring Battle’s Unfold, with live music by Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu, the company premiere of Hofesh Schechter’s Uprising, and the Ailey classic Revelations, also with live music. Making its world premieres over the course of the month are Matthew Rushing’s Odetta, a tribute to the singer-songwriter and activist, and Robert Moses’s The Pleasure of the Lesson, while the other company premieres are Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain (Pas de Deux), Asadata Dafora’s Awassa Astrige / Ostrich, and Jacqulyn Buglisi’s Suspended Women.

Matthew Rushing’s ODETTA honors the singer-songwriter and activist on the fiftieth anniversary of the Civil Rights Act (photo by Steve Wilson)

Continuing through January 4, the season also includes new productions of Ulysses Dove’s Bad Blood and Hans van Manen’s Polish Pieces; the always popular “Ailey/Ellington” program, consisting of Night Creature, Pas de Duke, The River, and Revelations; Saturday afternoon family matinees followed by Q&As with the dancers; and “Celebrating the Women of Ailey,” a presentation on December 16 honoring the fabulous Linda Celeste Sims, Hope Boykin, and the rest of the Ailey women with Cry, Night Creature, an excerpt from Vespers, and Revelations. Among the returning favorites are David Parsons’s blinding Caught, Ronald K. Brown’s elegant Four Corners and Grace, Ohad Naharin’s rapturous Minus 16, Battle’s dizzying Takademe, and Bill T. Jones’s D-Man in the Waters (Part 1). And for New Year’s Eve, Revelations will be performed by past and present members of the company.

AILEY AT LINCOLN CENTER

Ronald K. Brown leads rehearsal for FOUR CORNERS, which makes its world premiere next week as AADT returns to Lincoln Center (photo by Claudia Schrier)

Ronald K. Brown leads rehearsal for FOUR CORNERS, which makes its world premiere next week as Alvin Ailey returns to Lincoln Center for the first time since 2000 (photo by Claudia Schreier)

David H. Koch Theater
20 Lincoln Center Plaza
June 12-16, $25 – $135
212-496-0600
www.alvinailey.org
www.davidhkochtheater.com

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater always puts a jolt into the holiday season, taking up residence at City Center every December. This month, as an added bonus, they’ll be performing at Lincoln Center for the first time in thirteen years. Led by artistic director Robert Battle, AADT will be at the David H. Koch Theater from June 6 to 12, presenting seven pieces over the course of seven performances. The highlight is the world premiere of Ronald K. Brown’s Four Corners, which was inspired by Carl Hancock Rux’s “Lamentations” and is set to music by Hancock Rux and others. The seven programs also feature Brown’s beautiful Grace as well as Garth Fagan’s From Before, Jiří Kylián’s inventive Petite Mort, Battle’s whirlwind solo work Takademe (performed by either Kirven James Boyd or Jamar Roberts), Ohad Naharin’s dazzling Minus 16, and the company’s signature Revelations. (For reviews of many of these works from the past two years, go here and here.) Battle has just added Ailey II’s Jeroboam Bozeman and Fana Tesfagiorgis and Battleworks veteran Elisa Clark to the troupe, while rehearsal director and guest artist Matthew Rushing will take the stage in both Brown pieces. Revelations, which closes six of the performances, will include either Linda Celeste Sims and Glenn Allen Sims or Alicia Graf Mack and Roberts teaming up for the “Fix Me” pas de deux, and the June 15 matinee will be followed by a Q&A with the dancers.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER

Robert Battle is ready for his second City Center season as AAADT artistic director, along with dancers Antonio Douthit, Rachael McLaren, Jacqueline Green, Jamar Roberts, and Alicia Graf Mack (photo by Andrew Eccles)

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER
New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
November 28 – December 30, $25-$135
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

Since 1958, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has been a central part of the New York City performing arts scene, revolutionizing the perception of dance through its special programs, workshops, classes, and unique melding of music and movement. Originally inspired by Alvin Ailey’s “blood memories” of growing up in Texas with a single mother, the company has gone on to be named by Congress as “a vital American cultural ambassador to the world.” Now led by artistic director Robert Battle, AAADT begins its annual New York City Center season this week, presenting such works as Ohad Naharin’s Minus 16, Paul Taylor’s Arden Court, Rennie Harris’s Home, Ulysses Dove’s Vespers and Urban Folk Dance, Camille A. Brown’s The Evolution of a Secured Feminine, Battle’s The Hunt, In/Side, and Takademe, and Ailey’s Memoria and other classics. (To see which work nine of the dancers are most looking forward to, go here.)

TICKET GIVEAWAY: With so much to choose from, it’s hard to decide which programs to see, but twi-ny has teamed up with AAADT to make the decision easy. We are giving away two pairs of tickets to the Tuesday, December 12, show at 7:30, consisting of the company premiere of Battle’s duet Strange Humors, Dove’s Episodes, and Ailey’s Night Creature and Revelations. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and all-time-favorite Ailey dance to contest@twi-ny.com by Wednesday, November 28, at 3:00 to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; two winners will be selected at random.

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER: ALL NEW

Rennie Harris’s specially commissioned “Home” examines the AIDS crisis in a positive way (photo by Paul Kolnik)

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Through January 1, $25-$150
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

In our exclusive twi-ny talk with Robert Battle last month, the new Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater artistic director discussed his plans for the future of the famed company, explaining, “If it’s one choreographer’s work, it’s harder to do that, but when you’re choosing works from many different choreographers in one season you get the sense of that yin and yang, that stretching forward of busting the whole thing wide open but yet keeping the traditional so that the company stays rooted.” Battle certainly busted things wide open on December 13, when he introduced an all-new program of works that provided a telling example of where he is heading. The evening began with a new production of Ailey’s 1970 piece, “Streams,” an elegant, balletic dance restaged by associate artistic director Masazumi Chaya with affection for Ailey’s original and Miloslav Kabelac’s percussion-and-xylophone-heavy score but lacking deep emotion. That was followed by Battle’s own short but wonderfully entertaining 1999 work, “Takademe,” in which Kirven James Boyd, wearing a ruffled red Missoni outfit, danced wildly to Naren Budhakar’s live vocal performance in what became a fun, scatlike speaking-in-tongues verbal and physical showdown. Thus, Battle kicked things off with the traditional, then announced his arrival, leading to the second half of the evening, the explosive pairing of Rennie Harris’s newly commissioned “Home” and the Ailey premiere of Ohad Naharin’s revelatory “Minus 16,” from 1999. In the former, fourteen dancers, including rehearsal director Matthew Rushing, all wearing street clothes, gathered together in a group before letting loose, moving to music by Dennis Ferrer and Raphael Xavier in a work inspired by actual responses to the “Fight HIV Your Way” initiative. A fanciful tribute to Ailey himself, who died of AIDS in 1989, “Home” is hopeful and uplifting, an excellent lead-in to the grand finale, one of the most cutting-edge works ever performed by AAADT.

Ohad Naharin’s “Minus 16” is a highlight of Alvin Ailey’s New York season at City Center (photo by Paul Kolnik)

With intermission not quite over, a solitary man stands near the front of the stage, dressed in Hasidic clothing, slowly beginning to move as the audience makes its way back inside the theater. It’s impossible not to initially think of the racial tensions that have long existed between African Americans and the Hasidic community in New York City, primarily in Crown Heights, but as he is joined by more dancers and the music turns from the John Buzon Trio’s “It Must Be True” to the traditional standard “Hava Nagila,” those thoughts disappear as Naharin’s unique Gaga movement language takes over. The central part of the piece is an exhilarating section in which eighteen dancers (the number eighteen represents the word “life” in Hebrew) are seated in a semicircle, performing on, under, on top of, or next to their chairs as they follow one another around one by one in order as verses are added on to the Passover children’s song “Echad Mi Yode’a.” It’s as if City Center has suddenly become home to a breathtaking, rather unique bar mitzvah celebration, a riotous party that soon involves inviting audience members, including yours truly, onto the stage to join in duets with members of the Ailey crew. (We have to thank the marvelous Belen Estrada for not making us look like a complete idiot up there.) Things eventually slow down but pick up yet again in Naharin’s sparkling piece, which also uses music by Vivaldi and the Beach Boys in addition to “Over the Rainbow” and “Hooray for Hollywood.” A virtuoso work that signals a major step for AAADT, “Minus 16” is dedicated to Naharin’s late wife, Mari Kajiwara, who was an Ailey dancer from 1970 to 1984 and Alvin Ailey’s rehearsal assistant. Battle made a major statement with this all-new program, one that promises a bright and exciting future under his leadership. (“Streams,” “Home,” and “Minus 16” will all be performed on December 21 at 8:00, along with Joyce Trisler’s “Journey.” “Home” is also scheduled for December 23, 28, 30, and 31, with “Minus 16” scheduled for December 25, 28, and 31, at varying times.)

TWI-NY TALK: ROBERT BATTLE

New Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater artistic director Robert Battle (c.) poses with dancers he has invited to join the company (photo by Andrew Eccles)

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
November 30 – January 1, $25-$150
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

Founded in 1958, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater had only two artistic directors over the course of its first fifty-two years, beginning with Ailey himself, who led the company until his death from AIDS in 1989, followed by Judith Jamison, who continued in the role through this summer, when in July she named her successor, Robert Battle. The thirty-eight-year-old Miami native has had a long affiliation with AAADT, having been an artist-in-residence since 1999, and he has had several works performed by the company, including “The Hunt,” “In/Side,” and “Love Stories,” a collaboration with Jamison and Rennie Harris.

Battle, who studied at Juilliard, danced with Parsons Dance Company, started his own group, Battleworks Dance Company, and was named a “Master of African American Choreography” by the Kennedy Center in 2005, is presenting his inaugural City Center season as AAADT artistic director from November 30 through January 1. The annual five-week event will feature Paul Taylor’s “Arden Court” (in his Ailey debut), Ohad Naharin’s interactive “Minus 16,” Jamison’s “Forgotten Time,” the world premiere of Harris’s AIDS-related “Home,” new productions of Joyce Trisler’s “Journey” and Alvin Ailey’s “Streams,” and several pieces by Battle, most notably the Ailey premiere of “Takademe.” Select performances of a number of works will include live music by such special guests as John Legend, Naren Budhkar, the Knights, and others. With the City Center season just a few weeks away, Battle talked with twi-ny about legacy, responsibility, and the precipice of discovery.

twi-ny: You are now only the third artistic director in the history of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. What is your greatest fear?

Robert Battle: I think that’s an unknown. Fear is not for me something that I turn on and off. Anybody, especially an artist, always has a healthy dose of fear mixed with optimism, because those two opposing forces is what creates energy, the energy that is the creative force. So I think it’s a healthy mixture of both of those things.

twi-ny: What are you looking forward to the most?

Robert Battle: I’m looking forward to watching and reveling at the dancers and the delights of the work that is coming in to the repertory and watching and being a part of taking the company into the future. That’s what I look forward to the most.

twi-ny: How did you go about selecting and grouping the dances for this year’s City Center season, which includes the company premiere of your own “Takademe”? Were you looking for an overriding theme?

Robert Battle has taken over the reins of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater from Judith Jamison (photo by Andrew Eccles)

Robert Battle: Yes, the overriding theme is past, present, and future. We’re a repertory company — in a way, we’re a repository for great modern dance works — so, of course, looking back at Mr. Ailey’s work, Joyce Trisler’s “Journey,” created in 1958, all of these works are part of looking back and new productions of those works. Being in the present, looking at Rennie Harris’s work and his commission [“Home”] — he’s a hip-hop choreographer, so he uses hip-hop as his language. That is a part of the present; hip-hop is on everybody’s mind, radio, whatever it may be, but dealing with hip-hop to tell the stories of people who are surviving and thriving with HIV/AIDS is a wonderful tribute because it’s about the celebration of life. And then looking at works to me that echo the future, like Ohad Naharin’s “Minus 16,” which breaks the fourth wall: It invites the audience onto the stage, it has audience participation, it has a whole new way of moving for the dancers. So in that way we’re looking at the future. So we’re looking at all three of those things.

twi-ny: Who are some of the new choreographers you’d like to bring into the extended Ailey family?

Robert Battle: Aha — that, I cannot say [laughs], with deference to all choreographers who may want to be a part of this. I can’t just list one or two, but I really want the work to express the complexity of the world, society. It should be a reflection of that, so that you have choreographers of different races and backgrounds and approaches and themes bringing their voice to our voice. That’s what Mr. Ailey wanted, what Ms. Jamison continued, and what I will continue, to look far and wide, and to keep the audience and the dancers on that precipice of discovery.

twi-ny: With that in mind, how are you balancing the Ailey tradition with, perhaps, the urge to bust things wide open and initiate potential change under your leadership?

Robert Battle: I think that question could have a period at the end. That is what I am doing, balancing the traditional with the sometimes nontraditional. I think the notion of doing something without it having some connection to what is already here is not something I’m interested in. I’m really interested in blending the two. And that’s because this is a repertory company; that’s why I’m able to do that. If it’s one choreographer’s work, it’s harder to do that, but when you’re choosing works from many different choreographers in one season you get the sense of that yin and yang, that stretching forward of busting the whole thing wide open but yet keeping the traditional so that the company stays rooted. That’s why it began in the first place; celebrating the African American tradition and culture and experience in this country but also expanding on that idea is what I’m trying to do.