For a five-week engagement over this holiday season, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New York City Center’s Principal Dance Company, returns to the NYCC stage with a series of rotating programs of premiere works and classic favorites, under the leadership of its new Artistic Director, dancer and educator Alicia Graf Mack, guided by the pioneering legacy of Ailey. The sensational performance I attended, on December 4, featured the company debut of Medhi Walerski’s Blink of an Eye, originally choreographed for Nederlands Dans Theater in 2011, and a new production of Artistic Director Emerita Judith Jamison’s 2004 duet A Case of You, performed to Diana Krall’s slow and sultry rendition of Joni Mitchell’s eponymous song of 1971, along with two returning spiritually charged works – Ronald K. Brown’s Grace and Ailey’s own Revelations.
The show opened with the company premiere of Walerski’s Blink of an Eye, with Sarah Daley-Perdomo, Jacquelin Harris, Miranda Quinn, Constance Stamatiou, Leonardo Brito, Shawn Cusseaux, Xavier Mack, and Christopher R. Wilson, all in black (costumes by Walerski, redesigned by Jon Taylor), dancing to the pre-recorded “Partita for Solo Violin” of Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by Itzhak Perlman, in an exploration of how everything can change, disappear, or begin anew in a brief moment. Presented on a bare stage, surrounded by blackness (staging by Valentina Scaglia; original lighting design by Nicole Pearce), the dancers’ fluid movement, in total harmony with the music, is both balletic and athletic, timeless and modern, as it captures the fragility of time and existence, presence and absence, constantly changing and infinitely shifting through space. It’s a piece of exquisite beauty and grace, strength and resonance, that is a welcome addition to the company’s repertoire.
Following a brief pause, dancers Samantha Figgins, in a sexy red dress and scarf, and Isaiah Day, in a white shirt and dress pants (costumes by Jon Taylor), took to the stage for Jamison’s A Case of You, which had its Ailey premiere as a part of Reminiscin’ in 2005. The new stand-alone 2025 duet (staged by Clifton Brown) looks at the highs and lows of an intoxicating romantic relationship between a man and woman, from a flirtatious meeting and attraction to consummation, separation, and an intense inescapable connection and yearning. The movements and emotions capture what’s “so bitter, and so sweet,” with her enticing use of her scarf, his exuberant jumps and spins, lying and rolling together on the floor, and her sitting up alone and looking longingly from a distance, enhanced with mood lighting (by Al Crawford). There is also an inventive and dramatic jump across the distance, with Figgins landing upright on the standing Day’s thighs, that left the audience gasping and clapping mid-show.
Created for the Company in 1999, and the subject of a new production that premiered in 2024, marking the 25th anniversary of the work, Brown’s Grace (danced by Jacquelin Harris, Hannah Alissa Richardson, Corrin Rachelle Mitchell, Ashley Kaylynn Green, Samantha Figgins, De’Anthony Vaughan, Isaiah Day, Solomon Dumas, Xavier Mack, Patrick Coker, and Christopher R. Wilson) offers a high-energy combination of the secular and the sacred, defiance and blessing, passion and spirit, on the path from everyday life to the Promised Land, in red and white costumes (by Omotayo Wunmi Olaiya) and lighting (by Tsubasa Kamei) that distinguish between them. The stirring music and fervent individual and group movement present a mix of traditional African drum and dance rhythms, Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat synthesis of Nigerian Apala and Yoruba, funk and jazz, and American modern dance and jazz, fueled by Duke Ellington’s iconic “Come Sunday,” and the concept of the titular blessings that surround us and often remain separate from our earthy lives and go unacknowledged.
Closing the show was Ailey’s original signature masterwork, Revelations,which made its debut in 1960, when he was 29 years old, and was subsequently performed around the globe, including at the White House, the inaugurations of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and the opening ceremonies of the 1968 Olympics. Comprised of three revelatory segments (“Pilgrim of Sorrow,” “Take Me to the Water,” and “Move, Members, Move”) and set to a score of traditional spirituals, the dance pays homage to the African-American cultural heritage and reflects Ailey’s own personal childhood memories of church services and the works of groundbreaking Black writers James Baldwin and Langston Hughes. His emotional choreographic vision of Black history in America traces the journey from the horrific inhumanity of slavery and oppression to the loving community of the Christian church to deliverance and salvation through faith, as enacted through dance by a profoundly compelling and emotive company of nine men and nine women (with featured appearances by De’Anthony Vaughan, Ashley Kaylynn Green, Isabel Wallace-Green, Miranda Quinn, James Gilmer, Shawn Cusseaux, Dandara Veiga, Jesse Obremski, Christopher Taylor, Samantha Figgins, Solomon Dumas, Corrin Rachelle Mitchell, Renaldo Maurice, Leonardo Brito, and Xavier Mack).
From the huddled and bent bodies transported on slave ships and working the fields, as expressed in the spiritual “I Been ’Buked,” to the cleansing and uplifting rite of baptism, enacted with strips of blue and white fabric in “Wade in the Water,” to the triumphant company joining together in joy in “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham,” the dancers deliver the meaningful movements, gestures, and feelings, with arms reaching up to heaven and hands folded in prayer. The consummately expressive choreography and storytelling are a revelation, and the evocatively colored lighting (by Nicola Cernovitch), upstage projections, and period-style costumes and props (designed by Ves Harper and redesigned by Barbara Forbes for the jubilant “Rocka My Soul”) appropriately transition from dark to bright. The evening ended with the cheering and elated audience getting a bonus encore of the song, making everyone smile, sing, and clap along to the powerful message and exhilarating performance.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater program at NYCC, including five world premieres, changes with each show, so you can go more than once and have a different experience every time – though all are sure to be consistently masterful and enthralling. For the full schedule, visit the Alvin Ailey website.
Running Time: Approximately two hours, including two intermissions.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater plays through Sunday, January 4, 2026, at New York City Center, 131 W 55th Street, NYC. For tickets (priced at $45-175, including fees), go online.
