NEW YORK—Under its current artistic director Robert Battle, the Alvin Ailey Dance Company continues to develop exciting new works and to present high quality interpretations of dances from outside choreographers.
‘Uprising’
The program I attended began with Hofesh Shechter’s “Uprising.” This is a testosterone-fueled piece, with an all-male cast and a percussive score by the choreographer and Vex'd. The muscular dancers don’t know whether to make love or war, so they do both. A chokehold ultimately turns into an embrace. Constantly moving, the seven dancers wrestle and try to escape one another.
Finally, in a sort of Delacroix scene, one waves a flag, so apparently the uprising was successful. The meaning may be murky—what is the significance, if any, of the flag being red or it just meant to match the color of the shirt of the man holding it?—but the work is certainly an attention-grabber.
