Long before the final joys of Revelations – the talismanic signature work that always closes any performance by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre (AAADT) – it’s clear that this youth wing shares the same spirit, the same inspiration and much of the technical panache of the main company.
Ailey’s own bravura Revelations (1960) apart, this is a mixed bill of fairly recent choreographies that acted as an effective showcase for the dancers. Robert Battle, the designated successor to AAADT’s artistic director Judith Jamison, provides an intense challenge called The Hunt (2002) that suggests the men of Ailey2 are priming themselves in mind and body for a possible transfer into the parent company.
Bare-chested, in long voluminous black skirts (with striking scarlet lining), half-a-dozen storming male bodies engage in swaggering displays of physical prowess that range from mock-combative strikes, to lithe prowlings and martial arts feints – all in precise response to the percussing shifts of pace drummed out by Les Tambours du Bronx.
Wow factor aplenty – preceded by a short solo extract, The Calling, from Jessica Lang’s Splendid Isolation 2 that was quite simply breathtaking in its timeless beauty.
