Ailey 2 at Birmingham Hippodrome - Review

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Tue 03 Oct 2023 - Wed 04 Oct 2023

Dance company Ailey 2 next year celebrates its 50th anniversary and over that time it has been a starting point for many successful dancers and choreographers. And from the performance at Birmingham Hippodrome, there is little doubt that many of these young performers are already on their way to great achievements.

Forming the bridge between New York-based Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Ailey School, Ailey 2 gives young dancers the opportunity to build performance skills – and for audiences to see them at an early stage in their careers.

And the company asks a lot of its performers with an ambitious programme featuring works by William Forsythe, Francesca Harper, Robert Battle and Alvin Ailey.



The opening piece is an excerpt from Forsythe’s Enemy in the Figure, which explores both the dark and light of appearance and also the dark and light of experience. Initially, dancers in tasselled black trousers whirl in and out of the spotlights before the piece moves to a more contemplative but not less challenging series of solos and duets.

Here every movement is pinpointed by the lighting which is as much a part of the performance as the dancing. Created by Ethan Saiewitz, the lighting also involved consultation from Ailey 2 artistic director Francesca Harper, who worked with Forsythe for many years, so brings her own experience of the piece to the production.

Harper’s work Freedom Series also uses illumination to highlight the dancers but this time in a different way, as the performers hold and dance with glowing orbs. Using these to emphasise the movement but also the moments of quiet, the work looks at the cyclical nature of life and experience.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre artistic director Robert Battle’s The Hunt features four males, bare-chested but in flowing skirts, in a performance heavily based on their masculinity. With inspiration from gladiatorial combat and also from sporting rituals, the work exudes virile machismo as they square up to each other, even fighting, pushing and pulling each other while vying for dominance.

Set to a brutal percussive soundtrack by Les Tambours du Bronx, both the music and the movement, remind us of soldiers preparing to go into battle as much as sportsmen about to compete to outwit each other.

The evening concludes with the AAADT signature work Revelations which was created by Alvin Ailey in 1960 and remains hugely popular with audiences today. Ailey drew on the shared African-American heritage as well as his own experience growing up in Texas for this work which features a series of solos, duets and ensemble pieces.



Set to a series of spiritual, Gospel and blues songs, Revelations sees dancers racing across the stage to 'Sinner Man' and then maintaining painstaking detailed balances in 'Fix Me Jesus' and 'I Wanna Be Ready. 'Concluding with a hot afternoon in the Deep South to 'Wade in the Water' and 'Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham', Revelations ends on a joyous note – so much so that the final piece is performed again as a finale with many in the audience up on their feet and clapping along.

It is this balance of sharing both the pain and the joy of life through dance that has made AAADT and Ailey 2 such a worldwide phenomenon. This is the first time Ailey 2 has toured the UK in more than a decade and the tour is presented by Dance Consortium, a group of UK and Irish theatres dedicated to bringing the best of international dance to local audiences.

AAADT and Ailey 2 have a strong community engagement commitment and this was clear on the evening of 4 October when a group of 20 local young dancers took to the stage to showcase their work.

Following auditions and six rehearsals with choreographer and former Ailey dancer Marcus J Willis, the young people aged between 14 and 21 presented a curtain raiser to the programme with the new work Reception.

Forming part of a learning and participation project involving Ailey 2, Dance Consortium and Birmingham Hippodrome, the work explores themes around inclusivity, welcome and the future.
The young people gave an exuberant performance which saw them dancing both in synchronicity and also as individuals. Hopefully, this experience will have given them a taste for performing and we will see them back on stage at the Hippodrome in future productions.

The Ailey 2 tour continues to Norwich, Nottingham, Salford, Bradford, Hull, Newcastle and Inverness, see [LINK https://danceconsortium.com/] for more information.

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