Dancing the Blues

By CLIVE BARNES The dance heritage of the American Negro has become, I suppose, in effect, the great American folk-dance, although some claim could also be made for square dances and the like. But the indigenous American style of dancing is basically Negroid in derivation, to an even greater extent than American (and hence international) pop music. Here again in the dancing there is presuma_bly a strong African impulse. Right up until the middle of the 1880s there were voodoo drum dances still being held in New Orleans's Congo Square, and what we now think of as jazz-dance is probably quite closely, linked with Africa, if only in terms of rhythmic impulse and response.

The serious American Negro dancers seen previously in London, Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus, both emphasised their ethnic background. Looking at Alley's programme with its blues and its spirituals, you could imagine that he was playing the same atavistic ploy, but in fact he is using a much more sophisticated and more conscious dance idiom. For Ailey is a modern rather than an ethnic dancer, and his style comes from a school of modern dance, Lester Horton's, hitherto almost unknown in Britain. •

The two factors that have made American Negro jazz into the art language of mass com- munication are simplicity and immediacy. These factors are equally present in the dancing of Alvin Ailey and his company, but the wise will go to him expecting an Ornette Coleman rather than a Louis Armstrong, and in the best work on his programme, Revelations, there is prob- ably no recognisable Negro strain except in the traditional spirituals which provide the work with both its inspiration and its music.

Curiously Ailey's programme covers a wide range, both, it seems, in quality and intention. The opening work Been Here and Gone is little more than a blameless cabaret number, with only a few dark and dirty notes—where, for instance, five boys dance with sombre intensity about a chain gang—to disturb an air of almost picca- ninny euphoria. But even here the dancing has a glow to it that digs deeper than polish, and the music—rare, rare thing—is not some synthetic- ally whipped-up dollop of symphonic jazz, but the real article. There in the pit is Brother John Sellers shouting the blues and even though he is pulled back by the raucous enthusiasm of a locally recruited beat-group, this voice of pain, prdtest and ecstasy still goes about its business.

Imrriediately after this, Ailey shows his hand, with one shimmeringly technical solo dance, set to Duke Ellington's 'Reflections in D.' Danced by Dudley Williams its sweet and fast convolu- tions and daring deftness use a style half-familiar

(for all modern-dance styles have a kinship). hut also new.

This technique, or something close to it, Was seen later in the programme to even bettet advantage when Joyce Trisler (the solitary while member of the company) danced Val ía! W"5 choreographed by James Truitte and based 0° technical 'studies by Lester Horton. Here, with its pelvic thrusts, deep and sudden falls, all seamless movement, was an individual danec style. It was a style that also found its eIt" pression in all of Alley's work, influencing 111 final form at least as. much as any Negro folk' lorist elements.

AileY's two major. works on his opening Prcr gramme were Roots of the Blues and Revel lions. The first taking its motivation from the blues and the second from spirituals, together they represent the two faces of Negro mtn,ic' Choreographically in Roots of the Blues AO varies between highly theatrical honky-tonk nunr bers, which rely heavily on American show-hi/ traditions, and yet elsewhere reaches a far Mose personal style, at its best in the passionate tall imaginative 'Backwater Blues,' which he himsel dances with Hope Clarke. This pas de dent; with its lovely imagery, such as the girl carrie° triumphant, braced across the man's shoulder' conveys a profundity of emotion, usually Pr°. test, which emerges, strongly if. sporadicallY, through the entire work. But the finest Ailey work was Reve/ations' which is among the most evocative modern dance works ever seen here. Like all Alley's work,1 i,I5 staging is almost sensuously simple—a backcloth, imaginative lighting, well-cut Cts5. tumes. What Ailey achieves in Revelations 1,', 3 dance statement about faith and the spirit of rtian' He often takes his imagery from that ofIthe spirituals themselves, so that the River Joie/ becomes a fluttering ribbon, and the theatrica10 and force of the choreography, its joy and sPir

limity transcend its earthly agony. ,f ut

The dancing throughout is superlative, hA here it reaches a peak, with Joyce Trisler. gov James Truitte, William Louther, kelvin RgAttie; dier and Morton Winston all dancing their se out.

The Royal Ballet has returned to its ancest0 Covent Garden home, after its summer at Pre Lane. It opened with Balanchine's Seren6 which set a standard the remainder of the Pic gramme could not hope to match. MacMillnIn Images of Love has been shortened and th50 fore improved, but its danced illustrations...sh, Shakesperian quotations remain an odcd's

meretricious work. • Massine's Mam'zelle Angot, the closing ha „

is one of those chase-me-Charlie ballets &Mlle; traditionally intended to send everyone 10,5101 happy. There are worse than Mam'zelle Alf but with the notable exception of a tempestU , Merle Park, and a few decent character stu the performance ,lacked lustre and spirit. Y,cj company that can dance Serenade the way /tit on the opening night offers no cause for cone'

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