TV DANCE REVIEW : AILEY BRINGS ‘THREE BY THREE’ TO PBS

The decline of PBS’ “Dance in America” series continues with “Three By Three,” an hour-long telecast of familiar works danced by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater tonight (8 p.m. on Channel 24; 9 p.m. on Channel 15; 10 p.m. on Channel 28).

From its early commitment to trusting the choreographer and using video techniques to enhance works created for the stage, “Dance in America” has degenerated to flinging isolated bits of movement at the screen, music-video style. Directed by Patricia Birch, this strongly danced Ailey program (studio taped in Lugano, Switzerland) represents a new low.

In Ailey’s “Blues Suite,” the continuity of choreography and performance is trashed by the frenetic cross-cutting between cameras and groups of dancers. Gary DeLoatch, Marilyn Banks and most of the principals look terrific. But beware: What you see amounts to a woozy, unreliable impression of “Blues Suite,” a confusing collage of movement-clips from this vibrant pop-dance genre portrait.

Bill T. Jones’ propulsive post-modern sextet “Fever Swamp” depends on sequencing patterns for its remarkable rhythmic power. But when Birch decides to emphasize only one or two dancers in a passage, not only is Jones’ group-focus vandalized but the kinetic buildup also disintegrates.

Donald McKayle’s “Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulder” suffers least--partly because this intense modern dance depiction of men on a chain gang has a relatively linear (one-thing-at-a-time) structure.

Finally, even Birch seems to understand that when Donna Wood dances, you don’t get in her way with disorienting camera angles or editing tricks. Wood appears throughout “Rainbow” as the eternal woman of the men’s memories and dreams, and her luminous performance alone makes “Three By Three” essential viewing.