"It's pretty clear that there's a love affair between audiences and 'Revelations'," choreographer Alvin Ailey wrote in his autobiography, speaking of the work that would become the signature of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He was not overstating the case.
The rise of the Nazis meant the demise of Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff, whose jazz-inspired, avant-garde classical compositions were blacklisted as the work of a Jew. Under German occupation in Prague starting in 1939, Schulhoff desperately tried to escape to the United States, then to the Soviet Union, but he was arrested in 1941 and died the next year at the Wulzburg concentration camp in Bavaria.
"Art is universal; art connects people." Those sentiments may seem trite -- maybe even cliche to the point of losing meaning. But sometimes a notion or phrase becomes trite because it is true.
Anna Gilligan hit the dance floor for a class on 'Revelations,' the signature choreographic work of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater showed that a popular song, no matter how beloved, can kill a dance, and that a forgotten score can inspire a choreographer to explore an unfamiliar world. Continuing its season at the David H. Koch Theater on Wednesday, the company bookended two works by its founder -- "Night Creature," led by a beaming Hope Boykin, and "Revelations" -- with a restaging of a duet and a new production of a powerful group work.
When a choreographer creates a work for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, it can seem that only one option exists: try to make another "Revelations."
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has been making annual visits to UC Berkeley since 1968, first under its founder and then after his death in 1989; under his successor, Judith Jamison; and since 2011 under former dancer Robert Battle.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has been making annual visits to UC-Berkeley since 1968, first under its founder and then after his death in 1989, under his successor, Judith Jamison, and since 2011, under former dancer, Robert Battle.
Back in 2010, when Robert Battle was announced as the next artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (only the third director in the company's 57-year history) everyone seemed to have one pressing question: What new choreographers would he tap to work with Ailey's awe-inspiring dancers?
We can always count on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to be lively, colorful, and entertaining. But Thursday’s opening night Celebrity Series performance was that and much more, offering Ailey’s rousing “Revelations” on a slate with the Boston premiere of Matthew Rushing’s stirring new “Odetta” and Israeli-born Hofesh Shechter’s provocative “Uprising,” which is having its company premiere this season.