Alvin Ailey dancers have been dancing about survival, grit, positivity and joy in the Lord for half a century now, and even though the parents of last night’s dancers may not have been born when Ailey did the unthinkable and launched a black dance company in the dark days of 1958 America, the company still evidently has an urge to rejoice running in its veins.

The regular returns of AAADC to Britain – and there’s a big nationwide tour this time – are constant wake-up calls to the spirit. How can you sit down-in-the-mouth about anything at all when you’re watching a girl haughtily unfolding her shoulders and power rippling down her arm into a curling hand, or swishing her big skirt and prancing high on bare feet as if walking on mountain-tops?

There is such vim and innocence in the movement style that’s evolved at Ailey’s – a ballet-meets-showtime-meets-salsa-meets-pure-bolshie that sweeps through the body without a single inhibition. Ailey girls must be some of the most beautiful creatures on a stage anywhere, and that may be the feminist influence of the long-serving artistic director Judith Jamison, an Amazonian figure on the same inspirational level as Martha Graham was to her dancers.