ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER
March 29-April 1, 2012
By popular demand, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returns to the Detroit Opera House once again in 2012, performing timeless Ailey classics and new works by contemporary choreographers. Always a favorite of Detroit audiences, AAADT will bring its extraordinary beauty and grace, electrifying energy and soulful spirit to Detroit for a limited five-performance engagement from March 29-April 1, 2012.
Founded in 1958 by dance pioneer Alvin Ailey, the company has become renowned for its expansive repertory, extensive touring schedule and community outreach efforts, along with its masterful artistry. In the more than 50 years since its founding, the company has grown from a small, mostly black company into a large, multi-racial institution, fulfilling Ailey’s dream to “touch everyone’s heart through dance.”
The 2011-12 season will mark the first under the company’s new Artistic Director Robert Battle, after the retirement of current Artistic Director Judith Jamison, who has led the company since 1989. Battle will be only the third person to head the company since its founding, and will continue the legacy of Ailey and Jamison. AAADT has performed in cities around the globe, earning a reputation as one of the most acclaimed international ambassadors of American culture.
Official Vehicle Partner of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
SHIRLEY K. SCHLAFER FOUNDATION
Dance Residency Sponsor
Alvin Ailey Repertoire for March 29 – April 1 at the Detroit Opera House
Thursday 3/29 – 7:30p
A: 1hr 58min
Home
Choreography – Rennie Harris (18min)
Description: The bold hip-hop choreographer returns to the Ailey company to create a new work set to a soul-lifting score of gospel house music and inspired by the stories of people living with or affected by HIV.
Takademe
Choreography – Robert Battle (3 min)
Music – Sheila Chandra
Description: One of Mr. Battle’s first creations, this bravura work mixes humor and high-flying movement in a savvy deconstruction of Indian Kathak dance rhythms. Clear shapes and propulsive jumps mimic the vocalized rhythmic syllables of Sheila Chandra’s syncopated score.
“…[a] fast-moving excursion into rhythmic exotica.”
- Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times,, 1999
The Hunt
Choreography – Robert Battle (? min)
Music – Les tambours du Bronx
Description: Artistic Director Robert Battle’s athletic work for six men reveals the predatory side of human nature and the primitive thrill of the hunt. A thundering percussion soundtrack by Les Tambours du Bronx drives the explosive movement that runs the gamut from modern sports to the rituals of the gladiators. This is Mr. Battle’s sixth work for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
In/Side
Choreography – Robert Battle (6 min)
Music – Dimitri Tiomkin; Words by Ned Washington; Sung by Nina Simone
Description: The vivid emotions of Nina Simone singing “Wild is the Wind” play out in Robert Battle’s gripping solo. The bold, unrestrained style that has become his signature is evinced in this visceral cry of pure physicality.
Revelations
Choreography – Alvin Ailey (38 min)
Description: Using African-American spirituals, song-sermons, gospel songs and holy blues–this suite fervently explores the places of deepest grief and holiest joy in the soul. Alvin Ailey said that one of America’s richest treasures was the cultural heritage of the African-American – “sometimes sorrowful, sometimes jubilant, but always hopeful.” This enduring classic is a tribute to that heritage and to Ailey’s genius.
Friday 3/30 – 11:00a
Mini: 60 min
Night Creature (excerpt)
Choreography – Alvin Ailey (Full piece 17 min)
Music – Duke Ellington (“Night Creature”)
Description: One of Ailey’s most classically choreographed ballets, it depicts a series of sexy nocturnal rituals that propel the movement toward a fast-paced, cathartic climax.
“Night creatures, unlike stars, do not come OUT at night-they come ON, each thinking that before the night is out he or she will be the star” – Duke Ellington
Night Creature is the definitive Ailey homage to the exuberance of Duke Ellington’s jazz.
Takademe
Choreography – Robert Battle (3 min)
Music – Sheila Chandra
Description: One of Mr. Battle’s first creations, this bravura work mixes humor and high-flying movement in a savvy deconstruction of Indian Kathak dance rhythms. Clear shapes and propulsive jumps mimic the vocalized rhythmic syllables of Sheila Chandra’s syncopated score.
“…[a] fast-moving excursion into rhythmic exotica.”
- Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times,, 1999
Revelations
Choreography – Alvin Ailey (38 min)
Description: Using African-American spirituals, song-sermons, gospel songs and holy blues–this suite fervently explores the places of deepest grief and holiest joy in the soul. Alvin Ailey said that one of America’s richest treasures was the cultural heritage of the African-American – “sometimes sorrowful, sometimes jubilant, but always hopeful.” This enduring classic is a tribute to that heritage and to Ailey’s genius.
Friday 3/30 – 7:30p
A: 1hr 58min
Home
Choreography – Rennie Harris (18min)
Description: The bold hip-hop choreographer returns to the Ailey company to create a new work set to a soul-lifting score of gospel house music and inspired by the stories of people living with or affected by HIV.
Takademe
Choreography – Robert Battle (3 min)
Music – Sheila Chandra
Description: One of Mr. Battle’s first creations, this bravura work mixes humor and high-flying movement in a savvy deconstruction of Indian Kathak dance rhythms. Clear shapes and propulsive jumps mimic the vocalized rhythmic syllables of Sheila Chandra’s syncopated score.
“…[a] fast-moving excursion into rhythmic exotica.”
- Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times,, 1999
The Hunt
Choreography – Robert Battle (? min)
Music – Les tambours du Bronx
Description: Artistic Director Robert Battle’s athletic work for six men reveals the predatory side of human nature and the primitive thrill of the hunt. A thundering percussion soundtrack by Les Tambours du Bronx drives the explosive movement that runs the gamut from modern sports to the rituals of the gladiators. This is Mr. Battle’s sixth work for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
In/Side
Choreography – Robert Battle (6 min)
Music – Dimitri Tiomkin; Words by Ned Washington; Sung by Nina Simone
Description: The vivid emotions of Nina Simone singing “Wild is the Wind” play out in Robert Battle’s gripping solo. The bold, unrestrained style that has become his signature is evinced in this visceral cry of pure physicality.
Revelations
Choreography – Alvin Ailey (38 min)
Description: Using African-American spirituals, song-sermons, gospel songs and holy blues–this suite fervently explores the places of deepest grief and holiest joy in the soul. Alvin Ailey said that one of America’s richest treasures was the cultural heritage of the African-American – ”sometimes sorrowful, sometimes jubilant, but always hopeful.” This enduring classic is a tribute to that heritage and to Ailey’s genius.
Saturday 3/31 – 2:30p
C: 2hr 1 min
Arden Court
Choreography – Paul Taylor (23 min)
Description: For the first time, the Ailey dancers will perform a work by the modern American genius Paul Taylor. Set to William Boyce’s sumptuous baroque score, this romantic masterpiece has been hailed by The New York Times for “the irresistible pleasure of its dancing.”
Home
Choreography – Rennie Harris (18min)
Description: The bold hip-hop choreographer returns to the Ailey company to create a new work set to a soul-lifting score of gospel house music and inspired by the stories of people living with or affected by HIV.
Journey
Choreography – Joyce Trisler (6 min)
Music: Charles Ives (“The Unanswered Question”)
Description: Joyce Trisler, one of the Ailey company’s first members, set her ethereal female solo to Charles Ives’s “The Unanswered Question.”
A solo dance originally choreographed in 1958 and later incorporated into a revised version of a larger work by Joyce Trisler called “Theater Piece” (1960). Journey is set to “The Unanswered Question” by Charles Ives (1874-1954), composed some time before 1909 – a short, intensely evocative orchestral mood poem comprising a steady, soft background of muted strings, a persistently repeated “Question” by a solo trumpet and an unsuccessful hunt for the “Answer” undertaken with increasing urgency by the flutes.
Revelations
Choreography – Alvin Ailey (38 min)
Description: Using African-American spirituals, song-sermons, gospel songs and holy blues–this suite fervently explores the places of deepest grief and holiest joy in the soul. Alvin Ailey said that one of America’s richest treasures was the cultural heritage of the African-American – ”sometimes sorrowful, sometimes jubilant, but always hopeful.” This enduring classic is a tribute to that heritage and to Ailey’s genius.
Saturday 3/31 – 7:30p
B: 2hr 20min
Streams
Choreography: Alvin Ailey (24 min)
Music: Miloslav Kabelac (“Eight Inventions” Opus 45)
Description: This standout work was Mr. Ailey’s first full-length dance without a plot—a gorgeous exploration of the architecture of bodies in space, with a percussion score by Miloslav Kabelac.
Walter Terry of the Saturday Review writes that Streams “is a stunning group work built chiefly on diagonal lines and evoking the title in abstract form through varying speeds, eddyings, flowings, racings, and floatings, all related to moods of jubilance, sadness, acceptance, and glee.” While there is no story told in the work, Alvin Ailey arouses different thoughts and feelings through the movement and the music. They invoke images and sensations inspired by various bodies of water, from gentle brook to turbulent ocean, which correlate to the changing tides within us.
Urban Folk Dance
Choreography – Ulysses Dove (9 min)
Music: Michael Torke
Description: Characterized by a seamless blend of expressive theatricality and heart-stopping athleticism, Ulysses Dove’s choreography brilliantly captures the raw complexity of modern relationships.
In Urban Folk Dance, two isolated couples search for connection as they engage in ferocious power struggles resonating with emotional intensity and razor sharp physicality. “Dove gives us performing at its most virtuosic and theater of the highest order,” proclaimed the Daily News.
Minus 16
Choreography: Ohad Naharin (36 min)
Description: A delightfully eclectic score ranging from Dean Martin to mambo, techno to traditional Israeli music propels Naharin’s phenomenally inventive piece.
Breaking down the barrier between audience and performer, this work, unlike any other in the Ailey repertory, challenges the dancers to improvise and invite the audience to participate in the experience by joining the dancers onstage.
Revelations
Choreography – Alvin Ailey (38 min)
Description: Using African-American spirituals, song-sermons, gospel songs and holy blues–this suite fervently explores the places of deepest grief and holiest joy in the soul. Alvin Ailey said that one of America’s richest treasures was the cultural heritage of the African-American – ”sometimes sorrowful, sometimes jubilant, but always hopeful.” This enduring classic is a tribute to that heritage and to Ailey’s genius.
Sunday 4/1 – 2:30p
C: 2hr 1 min
Arden Court
Choreography – Paul Taylor (23 min)
Description: For the first time, the Ailey dancers will perform a work by the modern American genius Paul Taylor. Set to William Boyce’s sumptuous baroque score, this romantic masterpiece has been hailed by The New York Times for “the irresistible pleasure of its dancing.”
Home
Choreography – Rennie Harris (18min)
Description: The bold hip-hop choreographer returns to the Ailey company to create a new work set to a soul-lifting score of gospel house music and inspired by the stories of people living with or affected by HIV.
Journey
Choreography – Joyce Trisler (6 min)
Music: Charles Ives (“The Unanswered Question”)
Description: Joyce Trisler, one of the Ailey company’s first members, set her ethereal female solo to Charles Ives’s “The Unanswered Question.”
A solo dance originally choreographed in 1958 and later incorporated into a revised version of a larger work by Joyce Trisler called “Theater Piece” (1960). Journey is set to “The Unanswered Question” by Charles Ives (1874-1954), composed some time before 1909 – a short, intensely evocative orchestral mood poem comprising a steady, soft background of muted strings, a persistently repeated “Question” by a solo trumpet and an unsuccessful hunt for the “Answer” undertaken with increasing urgency by the flutes.
Revelations
Choreography – Alvin Ailey (38 min)
Description: Using African-American spirituals, song-sermons, gospel songs and holy blues–this suite fervently explores the places of deepest grief and holiest joy in the soul. Alvin Ailey said that one of America’s richest treasures was the cultural heritage of the African-American – ”sometimes sorrowful, sometimes jubilant, but always hopeful.” This enduring classic is a tribute to that heritage and to Ailey’s genius.
Visit Alvin Ailey’s website to watch video previews of these performances.
