There is nothing in Britain like Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
It’s not that black or mixed-race dance hasn’t made it into the mainstream. It’s that no dance of any kind has infiltrated the national consciousness the way Ailey’s has, over the pond. For this is a dance company that’s more than an institution, now celebrating its first half-century (the Mattel toy manufacturer has just brought out an Ailey Barbie doll to honour it). With its emotionally charged amalgam of ballet, Broadway and all-round athletic fabulousness, it’s become the embodiment of an ideal, a purveyor of identity, and a national icon on a par with Mount Rushmore.
Launching an eight-venue UK tour, the first of two programmes at Sadler’s Wells, as you’d expect, plays the heritage ticket, at least in part. George Faison’s Suite Otis, from 1971, glories in the iron-filings-in-the-tonsils vocals of vintage Otis Redding. Girls in swirly skirts and snake hipped guys gyrate and twirl, beam and flirt as the hits roll out. “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” is given to a chorus of stroppy females, who groom themselves for some coming encounter, then erupt in a froth of frustrated rage.
