When they're out on tour, the dancers in Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater end every show performing Revelations. Would that we could all end each day watching it. For there are moments in Alvin Ailey's 1960 work that are as close to perfection as dance gets.
Mary Lou Williams, the jazz pianist, arranger and composer, said that the first time she saw Alvin Ailey's work, "I went out of my mind, and I don't do that often."
"We're about to twirl your socks," Judith Jamison, artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, announced to the Kennedy Center Opera House audience on Tuesday from the stage, flashing a grin to dazzle the upper tier. "All right?"
For Judith Jamison, returning to the Kennedy Center each year with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater feels like a homecoming, with the company's connections to Washington stretching back decades.
In today's times, a 20th anniversary of any sort is not to be taken lightly, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is giving due praise to the milestone of Judith Jamison's tenure as the company's artistic director in its current City Center season with such events as performances of Jamison's Hymn featuring live appearances by Anna Deavere Smith (starting on December 16).
We may be approaching the winter solstice, but there is definitely a breeze of springtime at the City Center Theater. It is provided by Uptown a new ballet by Matthew Rushing for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
At the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Matthew Rushing is a dancer of great spirit and charm, and in his new work for the company, "Uptown," first performed on Wednesday night at City Center, there is plenty of both.
Judith Jamison calls Clifton Brown “my muse,” and for her latest dance, Among Us (Private Spaces: Public Places), he is not only performing a pivotal solo role but also serving as her choreographic assistant. She developed her movement ideas with him before she began working with the full cast of 11.
To research his historical piece on the Harlem Renaissance, "Uptown," Ailey star Matthew Rushing used modern technologies.
Apparently Judith Jamison can draw as well as she can dance. Encouraged by actor, artist and close friend Geoffrey Holder, Jamison, artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, drew the storyboard for her latest dance creation, "Among Us."