Evoking a Garden, With Bells, Gongs and Unusual Garb
by JOHN ROCKWELL for the New York Times
published: December 4, 2006

Ms. Armitage has responded with a rather too incessantly busy kind of choreography, as if responding more to the flurry of notes than to the overall mood. The 12 dancers, among the Ailey company’s best, fuss and twitch, alone or in pairs. There is a hint of waving tendrils at the outset, but garden evocations are not sustained.

Ailey Classics: Intimate, Jazzy and Big if Needed
by JENNIFER DUNNING for the New York Times
published: December 8, 2006

The dancers of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater can simply waggle a finger and draw cries of wild joy these days, to judge by the reaction to programs on Tuesday and Wednesday nights at City Center. But the dancers did not play up to that, to their credit.

An ’80s Darling, Here and Now, and Home Again
by ROSLYN SULCAS for the New York Times
published: December 10, 2006

That’s a lot of pressure on an artist, but “my own ambition about what I’m trying to do,” Ms. Armitage said the day after the “Gamelan Gardens” premiere, “has always exerted way more pressure than anyone else could.” That ambition has, she added, remained the same since the early days of her career: “To take classical thinking about technique and form, and bring to it the way we are thinking and experiencing things now.”

New Work Reflects a Company’s Image, White Dresses and All
by ROSLYN SULCAS for the New York Times
published: December 12, 2006

On Friday night at City Center the company offered a premiere by Uri Sands, a former Ailey dancer who is now artistic director of his own company, TU Dance, along with his wife, Toni Pierce-Sands. The new piece, “Existence Without Form,” followed Ronald K. Brown’s “Ife/My Heart,” which features women in flouncy white dresses by Omatayo Wunmi Olaiya. When the curtain went up on “Existence,” there the dresses were again, except these were designed by Tulle & Dye.

Billie Holiday’s Torment Translated Into Movement
by JENNIFER DUNNING for the New York Times
published: December 15, 2006

Content triumphed over form in a program presented by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater on Wednesday night at City Center. After a decade or so of increasingly hectic, high-energy plotless choreography, John Butler’s “Portrait of Billie” looked mighty good.

Dancing on the Edge
Daredevil choreography ups the ante for Ailey's superpeople
by DEBORAH JOWITT for the Village Voice
published: December 18, 2006

Dancers live to be challenged, but they also like to do what they do best. In works new to the Ailey company this season, you can see the magnificent performers trying to strike a balance: to make what's risky possible but not too comfortable.

A Salute, Ailey Style, for a Star’s 25th Year
by GIA KOURLAS
published: December 19, 2006

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater concluded its weekend at City Center with a tribute, equally rowdy and tender, in honor of its veteran dancer Renee Robinson, who celebrated her 25th year with the company. On Sunday evening Ms. Robinson was heralded by the company’s artistic director, Judith Jamison: “She’s our gift.”

Ailey troupe stuns in '80s fun and rocking spirituals
Rachel Howard, Special to the Chronicle

Friday, March 2, 2007

What makes one dance dated and another a delightful reflection of its times? "The Golden Section," the all-dance finale to Twyla Tharp's otherwise problematic dance-drama "The Catherine Wheel," screams '80s. "Solid Gold," roller rinks, Jazzercise: It's all there, in the "Wonder Woman" costumes, in the dazzling turns that burst into shimmying shoulders, in the leaps that stop on a dime before a sprint of "Flashdance"-style running. "The Golden Section" is a time capsule in the best sense, because it doesn't reflect its era so much as reveal Tharp's culturally omnivorous ability to capture it. Or maybe it just seems that way because the members of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater perform it with such infectious playfulness.

Ailey is back at Cal Performances all week with three programs, two of which close with the eternally soul-stirring "Revelations." That classic is reason enough to rush to see them, but as added incentive, Program A, which opened Wednesday and repeats Saturday and Sunday, is one of the stronger Ailey offerings to visit the Bay Area in years -- and "The Golden Section" is a hoot.

Alvin Ailey diva gets unexpected -- but wholly appropriate -- 25th anniversary gift
Mary Ellen Hunt, Special to The Chronicle

Tuesday, March 6, 2007


You could say the Earth moved for Renee Robinson, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater diva who celebrated her 25th anniversary with the company in a special performance at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall last week.

Of course, it moved a little more than the dancers might have liked, but the New York-based company seems to take in stride little things like Thursday's 4.2 magnitude temblor, which struck during intermission. After only a brief delay -- to make sure the stage was secured and to let rattled nerves calm down -- the curtain went up on a resplendent Robinson, framed in a wide stripe of light and looking powerful enough to command the Earth in Ronald K. Brown's "Grace."

In Ailey group, first they dance, then they dine
BERKELEY: Company holds annual cookout on university campus after its show
By Martin Snapp
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
The sweet, smoky smell of barbecue wafted over the Zellerbach Hall courtyard at UC Berkeley on a recent Saturday as table after table groaned under the weight of freshly grilled ribs, chickens, shrimp, salmon, turkeys, bacon, steaks, ducks, frog legs and vegetables.

It could mean only one thing: The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was back in town.

In addition to its costumes and sets, the Ailey company always takes along two huge barbecue grills, two smokers, and two deep-fryers wherever it goes.

Ailey dance troupe spins diverse program
Just how versatile a choreographer was Alvin Ailey? Thursday night at the Citi Wang Theatre there was evidence that Ailey, known primarily for his achievements in modern dance, was just as comfortable making a ballet divertissement.

A night of athleticism and beauty
....
The Thursday night opening of the troupe’s annual Celebrity Series visit marked the Boston company premiere of Tharp’s classic [“The Golden Section” -- the finale of “The Catherine Wheel,” ] and the propulsive, whiplash tour de force is a terrific addition to the Ailey repertoire. It’s an exuberant burst of energy bathed in gold, with dancers running, bounding, boxing, and cavorting like Olympic athletes in a prolonged victory dance.

Converging streams
Ailey does Ailey and Tharp, plus Caitlin Corbett

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater offered two milestones in the development of contemporary dance ... last week. The pairing of Ailey’s The River (1970-’71) and Twyla Tharp’s The Golden Section (1981-’83) allowed for a fascinating comparison between works that couldn’t have inhabited the same repertory without the Ailey company’s extraordinary vision. I wouldn’t have thought of Ailey and Tharp in the same breath, but the programming revealed some concerns they shared.