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84 THE LIST 1 Sep–3 Nov 2016
AMERICAN MODERN DANCE ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Tue 18 & Wed 19 Oct
Dance fans can often be vocal with their appreciation, but nobody gets a response quite like Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater does. Every few years, when the company visits the UK as part of a Dance Consortium tour, it attracts hardcore fans and newcomers alike – both of whom throw a whole lot of love at the stage. A dancer with the Ailey company for 21 years, Linda
Celeste Sims has had her fair share of curtain calls, and knows one of the reasons the applause is so boisterous – Revelations. Created in 1960 by the company’s founder, Alvin Ailey,
and set to traditional African-American gospel songs, the work closes every performance on tour. ‘It’s such a powerful work, the music is so touching
and the movement speaks for itself,’ says Sims. ‘We’re the only company who does it, so if we go back to a theatre after a couple of years and we don’t do Revelations, people get kind of upset.’ Revelations may be the jewel in the Ailey company
crown, but a whole host of other treasures are headed our way. The tango-inspired Piazzolla Caldera by dance luminary Paul Taylor, Christopher Wheeldon’s gentle After the Rain Pas de Deux and Exodus by hip hop choreographer Rennie Harris are all on the bill, along with two works by Ailey regular Ronald K Brown – crowd-pleasers all.
‘Because we bring a little bit of everything, we find our shows really change people who have a certain idea of what dance is, and think it can be kind of boring,’ says Sims. ‘So people who don’t even like to go to the theatre love it, which is so cool.’ (Kelly Apter)
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CONTEMPORARY DANCE RICHARD ALSTON DANCE COMPANY Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Fri 23 Sep
Born in the dance halls of late 19th-century Argentina, tango has reinvented itself many times, but it’s not often you find the style cropping up in contemporary dance. It fired the imagination of choreographer Martin Lawrance, however, whose tango-inspired work Tangent receives its world premiere in Edinburgh, as part of a quadruple bill from Richard Alston Dance Company. ‘Not many people know this, but I first started ballroom and tango at the age of nine,’ says
Lawrance. ‘My grandparents used to take me and my sister to weekly lessons, and that’s where the fascination started.’
Set to the music of the late great tango nuevo exponent Astor Piazzolla, Tangent follows in the wake of previous Lawrance creations for the Richard Alston company, none of which have been short on passion.‘I find the closeness of pure Argentinian tango passionate and sensual, and that influenced me while making the piece,’ he says. ‘However I’m not recreating tango, this is a Lawrance version.’
Lawrance’s dramatic work Stronghold is also on the autumn programme, alongside two works by Alston himself, An Italian in Madrid and Mazur – none of which have been seen in Edinburgh before. For the former dancer turned company associate choreographer, owning half the bill is a big step
‘My previous work, Burning, was such a big success with Edinburgh audiences, it will be interesting to see how it works having two Lawrance pieces on the bill.’ (Kelly Apter)
NEO-CLASSICAL BALLET BALLET BLACK Tramway, Glasgow, Fri 28 & Sat 29 Oct
It was during a trip to New Orleans that choreographer Christopher Hampson hit upon a name for the central character in Storyville, his 2012 work for Ballet Black. A popular acronym for the city, NOLA (short for New Orleans, Louisiana) became a woman living in the 1920s.
‘It’s the age old story of a simple country girl who goes to make a life for herself in the big city, but it doesn’t go quite according to plan,’ explains Hampson. ‘And two of the characters who have the biggest impact on Nola’s life are actually real people who lived in Storyville, which was a district in New Orleans in the early 20th century.’ Set to the music of Kurt Weill, including ‘Mack the Knife’, Storyville was a big hit with audiences
and critics when it premiered in London four years ago – hence its place on the company’s UK tour. It’s one of three diverse works the award-winning Ballet Black are bringing to Glasgow this autumn, along with Arthur Pita’s duet Cristaux and Christopher Marney’s To Begin, Begin. The UK’s only ballet company for dancers of black and Asian descent, Ballet Black has received
criticism for being separatist. But as far as Hampson is concerned, its work is nothing short of essential. ‘I really do think that what Cassa Pancho the artistic director is doing is absolutely vital,’ he says. ‘Because what she constantly says is she’s waiting for the normalness of it all. It might be that we’re beginning to have ethnic diversity on stage, but until that’s mirrored in the audience I don’t think her job is done.’ (Kelly Apter)