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Thursday, March 19, 1998

Ailey through the ages

DANCE: Judith Jamison secures the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's place in history

By Cheryl Klein

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

A few scraps of metal - perhaps the remnants of a broken pen cartridge - lie on the table of the Daily Bruin's otherwise bare conference room. They wait there for a custodian's encompassing sweep.

But instead they get Judith Jamison, artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and sharp-eyed scout for all things bearing creative potential. Immediately, she begins arranging the gold-hued twigs into patterns, her slender dancer's hands saying as much as her bright eyes and mile-a-minute speech.

"It looks like pieces of metal, doesn't it? Look at that!" Jamison marvels. "What does he call it? The something theory. In 'Jurassic Park,' Jeff Goldblum ... The chaos theory!"

It's hard to say just how well the turtle-necked mathematician's musings apply to the artistic world. On one hand, it takes a lot of luck to keep a dance company afloat for 40 years. Perhaps even a little chaos, if one traces the Ailey Company's sporadic if determined beginnings, performing off and on in various New York City YMCA's.

But the modern dance troupe also boasts a firm commitment to populist dance and relentless curiosity. As the 30-some dancers travel the world, stopping at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for four performances beginning Thursday, little escapes Jamison's grasp. She inquires about silly snapshots on Bruin employees' desks, and when the company made an unprecedented visit to South Africa, she made sure her dancers worked a few Zulu dance lessons into their busy tour schedules.

"Because," Jamison says, "dancers are always voracious about new things, about perfecting what is old and grasping at what is new and trying to put it on yourself, rub it into the skin."

Appropriately, the company's 40th anniversary celebration is a sampling of just what Ailey and his legacy have perfected over the years. The six pieces Jamison chose represent the company's eclectic tastes and continual nod to cultural history.

Half the works are Ailey's own creations: 1971's "Cry," 1974's "Night Creature" and, of course, "Revelations," the signature 1960 ballet of African American musical discovery that revealed the company as a powerful voice in contemporary dance. Decades later, a third generation of dancers is making the moves their own.

"There's this constant turnover about relating it in your mind to your life," Jamison says of the choreography. "'Revelations' defines that because 'Revelations' is about our humanity, not how many turns you're going to do, how high you're going to jump."

Backing this up are the three other pieces: a new production of Talley Beatty's "The Stack-Up" (an anti-drug ballet with a disco backdrop), Ulysses Dove's "Bad Blood" (an athletically sexual exploration of relationships) and the Los Angeles company premiere of George Faison's "Slaves."

Faison's ballet depicts African villages being raided and their inhabitants stowed in the holds of slave ships on their way to a grave new world.

"People keep saying, 'Oh, 'Amistad,'" Jamison notes with a bit of frustration. "I'm not on the phone with ('Amistad' producer and renown choreographer) Debbie Allen. But in reviews of the piece, it's said that this is the balletic version of it."

"Slaves" may be the Ailey Company piece easiest to link to the portion of their mission statement that promises to preserve "the uniqueness of black cultural expression." In part, the company began because, in the '50s, concert dance was virtually closed to African American performers. Though many took roles on Broadway or in clubs, Ailey, with six dancers and a square of floor space, grand jeteed through closed doors.

Yet the company's works also spotlight, among other things, a Polish choreographer, the music of Peter Gabriel and an ethnic patchwork of dancers.

"That's what's beautiful about my company," Jamison says. "You're not going to deny that somebody up there is white or Asian or whatever, but I'm hoping you get taken by the dance ... color is uninteresting. My tradition is very interesting, but my tradition includes everything, so it says African American. So here I am at UCLA and, God knows, if this doesn't have as many different people from all over the world."

The Ailey dancers have made their way around the world and into history books.

"We've been to Japan, to Israel, and I see people in the audience gasp, their eyes water, they grab their hands or bow their heads or just clap madly," says Ailey dancer Karine Plantadit-Bageot.

And while the company prides itself on being ambassadors of American culture, their status as a concert dance troupe is still a handicap to fame, at least when compared with the household-name clique that includes mostly film and pop stars. Jamison drums in the impact of seeing live recitals but doesn't shun mass media the way many more attention-laden artists are wont to do.

"The more affiliated with the media, the better," Jamison declares. "A few years ago, we did an American Express commercial that premiered during the Academy Awards and at the Super Bowl. More people saw us in that minute than saw us in the entire history of the company."

Augmenting this are the numerous outreach performances and workshops the Ailey Company conducts world wide. And in attempting to educate young audiences about their cultural history, Jamison and company add another coat of wisdom and nuance to their own knowledge.

Jamison, long ago discovered by Agnes De Mille and dubbed "the face of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater," still watches her audience with the same intensity the passionate fluidity on stage demands from them.

"There's still this roundness, this loop that goes on between us. And it has to be going on not just here,." Jamison gestures to her silver-streaked head, "but in your heart, your mind, your spirit. It has to bathe you."

And what about the next 40 years? Who is the next guest in the Ailey Company's 63-choreographer repertoire?

"I see small performances, I see big performances. That's how I get ballets, that's how I get dancers," Jamison says. "Today I'm going to see a choir sing."

In other words, leave it up to chaos theory.

DANCE: The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater 40th Anniversary Celebration runs through Sunday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. Tickets range from $15 to $55. For more information, call (213) 972-7211.

"The Stack-Up" is one of six pieces in the Ailey Company's 40th anniversary show.

Photos courtesy of the UCLA Center for the Performing Arts

Judith Jamison, previously an Ailey dancer and choreographer, is now the company's artistic director.