DANCE REVIEWS : ‘After Eden’ 2 Decades After Its Creation

Some works don’t age well. When it was created, in 1966, John Butler’s pas de deux “After Eden” (set to music by Lee Hoiby) may have seemed a balanced and interesting portrayal of our first parents trying to make it together after their expulsion from the garden.

But as viewed on the Friday program by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at the Wiltern Theatre, despite strong dancing by Sarita Allen and Stephen Smith, this put-the-blame-on-Eve piece was a little hard to take after more than two decades of consciousness-raising by the feminist movement.

We see a statuesque Allen carried in over the shoulder of the powerful Smith. She has some thankless tasks ahead. She curls around him; he flings her away. She comes back; he flinches at her touch. She shadows his movements, but has to keep several paces behind him. They form contorted sculptures, but he seems always encumbered by her.

You can’t help wondering how long she’s going to have to suffer for his anguish.

Eventually, for no noticeable reason, he decides that he needs her and draws himself up at her feet. In a striking final image, she pivots in balance at his knees. But her position remains about one foot off the floor. That’s history.

Ailey’s “For ‘Bird’--With Love,” an Expressionistic dance drama based on the life of Charlie Parker, offered strong portrayals by several dancers, even if the story suffered from narrative gaps and sketchy characters.

Gary DeLoatch made an admirable, tormented Parker. Dudley Williams was the comforting Progenitor; Desmond Richardson, the virtuoso trumpeter.

Unfortunately, the women in Parker’s life, including the dynamo Marilyn Banks, Debora Chase and Desire Vlad, remained vague conceived as individuals.

The program opened with a repeat of Donald Byrd’s “Shards,” which was reviewed previously.