"What I like is the line and technical range that classical ballet gives to the body. But I still want to project to the audience the expressiveness that only modern dance offers, especially for the inner kinds of things."
-Alvin Ailey
I have always enjoyed dancing more than watching others dance, and as a result don't go to see dance performances very often. I made an exception for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and boy am I glad I did.
The performance was flawless. I am finicky and snobbish about detail. Even in professional troupes, someone is always three inches off - it's only human. These dancers had such perfect lines, such perfect timing it was eerie. One of the more glorious - and more difficult - things about dancing is working in unison and feeling rather than seeing where everyone is on the stage. You need to trust your partner will pick you up when you go flying through the air (or at least trust the fall won't kill you!); I'm pretty sure the choreographers had invented a new lift or ten for the numbers. The dancers had the technique and all the tools needed to be taken seriously, while still managing to be entertaining: the last number was performed in 19th-century dresses, sunhats, and flapping fans. They really did fulfill the goals set in the quote above of combining a classical technique with flexibility and expression. It's all too rare for a dancer to fluently combine jazz, ballet, contemporary modern and African, and all the more admirable for that.
In short: stunning. Go see them. It'll give you goosebumps.
