Dance Review : Dancers’ Individuality Lost in Ailey Performance

Though the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre turned to works not created by the company founder, Wednesday at the Wiltern Theatre, it still honored Ailey by emphasizing his generous support of other choreographers.

Unfortunately, although the company danced with superb control and commitment, works by Ulysses Dove, Donald Byrd and Talley Beatty relied upon all-too-familiar, hard-sell sexuality or massed effects, all but burying the individuality of these worthy dancers.

If some choreographers seem content to tackle the battle of the sexes, Dove, in his new “Episodes”--receiving its first Los Angeles performance--appears to be taking on World War III.

Against Robert Ruggieri’s percussive electronic score, Dove sets dancers hurtling down diagonal corridors created by John B. Read’s dramatic lighting design. Men and women meet, or rather hurl themselves at each other.

The men are almost invariably tough, arrogant and swaggering monsters; the women, cool, contemptuous, hysteric or needy. Tenderness, where it exists at all, is reduced to a stroke of a palm. Get-togethers are slam, bam, no-thank-you, m’am. The person with the most attitude wins.

When the music runs out, Dove adds a final heel-stomping section in silence for the nine dancers, who regard each other coldly before turning and walking away.

Much of the choreography requires split-second timing and virtuoso power, which the dancers handled with ease. The audience yelled approval for every backward bend to the floor, catch in the air or “so-what?” swagger.

Compared to the violent sexual pairings envisioned by Dove, the hard-driving Spanish-flavored nightclub encounters at the close of Beatty’s “Come and Get the Beauty of It Hot” (to a compiled score) looked positively healthy.

Similarly, the mock-fighting episode, danced with relish by Raquelle Chavis and Michael Joy, could be regarded only as a hoot. Marilyn Banks also brought cheers from the audience with her extensions and balances on the ladder in the “Rooftops and Stairwells” section.

Byrd’s “Shards” (music by Mio Morales) begins and ends with a group cluster that may be an homage to Ailey’s “Revelations” (as are the hovering arm movements).

But as the work unfolds, Twyla Tharp appears to be a major influence, as a balletic couple (Dana Hash and Andre Tyson) offer serene, supported arabesques amidst a swirl of vigorous or funky company movement. The only problem is that the work quickly loses focus and coherence.