The thing about the dancers of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is that they are precision performers – technique visible, placings academic – but at the same time, they can elasticate and undulate their bodies; they can be sensual and spiritual. Above all, they dance with great sincerity.
On one hand, they are still performing many works of founder Alvin Ailey, who died in 1989, including the legendary Revelations (1960). On the other, under the direction now of Robert Battle, they are gracing the stage to Drake and Kendrick Lamar in work that is bang up to date. This opening programme for the Edinburgh international festival was supposed to include two newer works, Kyle Abraham’s Are You in Your Feelings? and Aszure Barton’s Busk, alongside Revelations, but due to injury, Busk was replaced by Twyla Tharp’s Roy’s Joys (1997).
