Entertainment
Dance Review: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater delivers breathtaking performance at Bass Hall
12:47 PM CST on Wednesday, February 25, 2009
FORT WORTH – Everybody hopes to look this good at 50.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the New York-based troupe celebrating a half-century as one of the pre-eminent modern dance companies in the country, presented a performance at Bass Hall on Tuesday night that suggested this is only its first 50 years.
The evening opened with 12-minute documentary about the late Ailey (who was born in Rogers, by the way) and the history of his company.
The dancing began with Blues Suite, a multi-part work from 1958 set to songs of misery and longing such as "House of the Rising Sun." All the parts, which employed varying numbers of dancers, were beautifully done, but Mean Ol' Frisco, an ensemble piece for five male dancers, was executed with breathtaking precision.
Indeed, one of the most striking aspects of the performance as a whole was that the men made as much of an impression as the women.
The opening work was a microcosm of the overall concert. It featured beauty and strength, as might be expected. But it also contained an unanticipated number of astonishingly liquid moves, where the dancers seemed to free themselves from all constraints of bone and muscle.
Suite Otis, a 1971 piece set to Otis Redding tunes, was especially well-received. both because of the outstanding movement it featured and the soul classics, including "Try a Little Tenderness" and "I've Been Loving You Too Long," that drove it.
The closing work, 1960's Revelations, is such a classic that the crowd of better than 1,600 applauded certain iconic poses the dancers struck. It made for a splendid and joyous conclusion to a near-perfect night of dance.
It should be noted that tonight's performance will differ from Tuesday's with only Revelations being repeated.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performs at 7:30 p.m. tonight at Bass Hall in Fort Worth. $55-$100. 817-212-4280 or www.basshall.com
