Ailey thoughts: My final show of 2009

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Saturday, December 19, 8pm--New York City Center

In the opening stages of Judith Jamison's Among Us (Private Spaces: Public Places), I could barely take my eyes off Jamison's bold paintings fanning out above the stage. But since Among Us is a dance production, not simply pictures at an exhibition, I wish I could say that the portraits set on her "gallery-goer" dancers have similar pull and avoidance of cliché.

The "freshest" idea here--the Obama-like role played by Anthony Burrell in a section called "Precedent (President)"--seems not only out of place but also choreographically didactic and melodramatic. The personal and political complexity of America's first bi-racial, Black-identified president is so clearly something that all of us are still wrapping our brains around. Wouldn't it make sense to wait a bit and study the man and figure out how to render him in art in a way that isn't merely sentimental?

I enjoyed Antonio Douthit, Samuel Lee Roberts and Guillermo Asca--a frisky trio of homeboys checking out everyone who passed them by in a section that, curiously, sort of reminded me of Camille A. Brown's 2007 Ailey hit, The Groove to Nobody's Business.

In other segments, Douthit worked a fey-fabulous role as a snaky genie in skintight blue like something spliced in from a Geoffrey Holder fantasia. I'm imagining that this feather-crowned djinn, who appears here and there, now and again, must stand for the Spirit of Creativity. At the end, with the genie presiding, the cool, pumping, boogie-down music by composer ELEW (Eric Lewis) brings the disparate gallery-goers together in a kind of disco party. You have to hand it to Jamison--whose other sectional endings are fairly vague--for finding a way to pump the audience and send her ensemble out with a flourish.

Also on the program: Jamison's Hymn (1993), restaged by Masazumi Chaya and featuring Anna Deavere Smith, performing live, giving the company's oral history the brilliant Anna Deavere Smith treatment. The choreography comes securely, compassionately swathed in a few amazing stories, portraits in courage and dedication, rendered by the perceptive Smith, as well as charged performances. The Ailey folks sure know how to move you.