Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returns to Sadler’s Wells with two exhilarating programmes of new and legacy works
This article was first published on London Unattached
There are many reasons why New York-based Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is one of the best loved contemporary dance companies in the world: the impeccable, expansive technique of its dancers, the joy they bring to everything they do, the variety and inventiveness of its repertoire, the deep plunge into the complex roots of African American culture… it’s all that, but above all, it’s the hard to define, yet palpable humanity the imbues everything on stage and transcends it. In short, their performances stir all manner of emotions, and you can’t help but love them.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre is back at Sadler’s Wells after a three year absence with two programmes: New Works and Legacy. Each presents four distinct pieces and both end, like every single one of the company’s performances at any time, anywhere, with Alvin Ailey’s perhaps most rousing work, Revelations.
Founded in the late 1950s by the dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey as a predominantly, but not exclusively, African American troupe, from its very beginning, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was intended as a repertoire company; taken together these two programmes clearly illustrate that intent.
Besides Revelations (more on that later) Legacy includes three 1970s pieces choreographed by Alvin Ailey and a later work by Ronald K Brown. It opens with excerpts from Night Creature, a fizzy, mischievous hymn to the beautiful people of the night, a large ensemble in blue-tinged, iridescent, floating costumes, sinuously swinging to Duke Wellington’s transporting jazz.
The two solo pieces that follow establish contrasting moods: A Song For You, compellingly performed by Yannick Lebrun to a score by Leon Russell, is love made movement: its wonderment, its rapture, its doubts and certainties all depicted in flowing steps, couched in befitting languour.
By contrast, Cry, originally created by Ailey as a birthday gift to his mother and dedicated to “all Black women everywhere”, depicts the strength and invincible resilience of Black women, with Constance Stamatiou fairly devouring the stage in expansive, assertive movement.
Ronald K Brown’s Grace is a vibrant combination of contemporary movement, club moves and African dances, its soft, meditative beginning by a solo woman erupting into fast moving, energetic dances for an 11-strong group in white and bright red costumes. It’s very much in the Ailey style, yet shows a company evolving and adapting.
New Works further illustrate the path of a company that never stands still. Blink of an Eye, a work by Medhi Waterski acquired by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2005, is a mediation on transience danced to Bach’s violin sonatas and partita. Individual dancers peel off from the group to perform brief solos or duets, the whole thing pervaded by a brisk, nervous energy.
In Song of the Anchorite, by former company resident choreographer Jamar Roberts, and set to a jazzy reworking of a Ravel adagio, one man, again danced by the immensely expressive Yannick Lebrun, yearns for spiritual solace; it contrasts strongly with the sensual physicality of A Case of You, a duet for two passionate lovers convincingly danced by Caroline T. Dartey, Christopher Taylor to Diana Krall’s sultry rendition of the eponymous Joni Mitchell song.
In between the two came Lar Lubovitch’s Many Angels (pictured top), set to the Adagietto from Mahler’s 5th Symphony. The choreographer teases that this is not about angels (“well, maybe a little”) – but set against capricious banks of sunlit clouds, the five dancers in diaphanous costumes move weightlessly, creating soft tableaux of heavenly beauty. It’s a wondrous work.
And so we come to Revelations, a piece I could happily watch every night of my remaining years and never tire of. A perfect distillation of the African American experience over the centuries, it’s a sequence of dances performed to African American spirituals, gospel songs and blues and running the whole gamut of emotions, from fervent prayer to jubilant Sunday celebration. Its opening tableau alone sets the scene and never fails to elicit applause.
The frantic Sinner Man showcases the virtuosity of three male dancers; elsewhere it’s the ensemble that counts, building to the final Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham, a glorious, infectious celebration of an irrepressible culture.
Still a little high on it all, I couldn’t recommend Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater with greater conviction. Go!
© Teresa Guerreiro
(Banner image: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New Works, Many Angels, Image: Paul Kolnik)
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is at Sadler’s Wells 15 – 19 September 2026. Full info and tickets here