Ailey's signature Revelations, just a year younger than the company itself, will conclude every program in the Opera House run. These days, that's pretty much by popular demand, and it's not hard to see why: following Go in Grace and Suite Otis, the piece looked that much more muscular, volumetric, and rooted in the African-American experience, the ensemble of the opening "I Been 'Buked" speaking in tongues and luxuriating in the Light. The moments that spoke loudest Tuesday were the humble, solitary ones: Linda Celeste Sims and Glenn Allen Sims relating in a way that needed no fixing in "Fix Me, Jesus," Amos J. Machinic Jr. supporting a crushing burden of sin in "I Wanna Be Ready." The more communal celebrations, like the "Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham" finale, can seem impersonal when you flash back to the iconic, multi-winged bird of Revelations' opening tableau.
Every program will begin with the 12-minute film "Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 50." We see Ailey — who was born in 1931 in Rogers, Texas — as a boy in a cowboy outfit and brandishing six-shooters; we learn of his origins in the South, the blues, the gospel church; we get testimonials from Donald Byrd and Garth Fagan and Elisa Monte and Robert Battle. Best of all, there's Ailey himself, the force of his personality coming across even on film. The second half is more corporate, a plug for the company, for its Ailey II troupe, its Ailey Extension program, its Ailey Camp. Sweet Honey would sum all this up in a lyric about "how far we've come"; it might be a platitude, but it's also the truth.
Related:
Long-lasting launch pad, The real deal, Slideshow: Ballets Russes at the Wang, More 
- Long-lasting launch pad
Of the nearly 70 ballets that made up the repertory of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, only a few inhabit our stages today. But the Diaghilev adventure still inspires legions of choreographers, antiquarians, archivists, scholars, and gossips.
- The real deal
Nineteenth-century ballets are not all alike. But Boston Ballet's Sleeping Beauty is the real McCoy.
- Slideshow: Ballets Russes at the Wang
Boston Ballet performs "Diaghilev's Ballets Russes Centennial Celebration" at the Wang Theater
- Review: Dance on Camera at Lincoln Center
Gotham was awash in dance during early January as the annual Dance on Camera Festival coincided with the conference of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (better known as APAP, the national bookers' convention).
- Dynamos
The four pieces on the program that Philadanco brought for its Boston debut last weekend at the Institute for Contemporary Art were all-dance numbers showcasing a troupe of highly polished, supercharged dancers.
- Steps . . . and more steps
Martha Graham’s Steps in the Street doesn’t look anything like a dance of the 21st century, but at the end of Boston Conservatory’s fall program last weekend it fit right in.
- Converging streams
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater offered two milestones in the development of contemporary dance during its annual Celebrity Series visit to the Wang Theatre last week.
- Dancing in the year of the Rat
If you’re hot for Victoria’s Secret ads and addicted to Dancing with the Stars, Tango Fire will be right up your alley.
- Scenes from the city
I missed more things in two and a half days last week than I managed to take in, so whatever I might infer about dance in the New York vortex could have come out a different way if I’d reversed my priorities.
- Love and death
“Classic Balanchine” as opposed to . . . “Jazz Balanchine”? “Porno Balanchine”? What was the alternative?
- Tragic tropes and anti-tropes
The only question to ask about a new Romeo and Juliet, besides “Why?”, is “Why New York City Ballet?”
- Less
Topics:
Dance
, Entertainment, Otis Redding, Dance, More
, Entertainment, Otis Redding, Dance, Dance, Performing Arts, Modern Dance, Alvin Ailey, Alvin Ailey, Opera House, Opera House, Less
