Dance and Music : Martin Co. Soars With ‘Alvin,’ Struggles With ‘Visions’ at Inner City

When they’re good, the Martin Dancers/Dancnicians are very good, but when they’re bad, they reek. Over the weekend at the Inner City Cultural Center, they were both.

There was an arresting premiere of a lengthy selection from Section A of “A Suite for Alvin”, an athletic exploration of the techniques developed by Alvin Ailey’s mentor, the late Lester Horton.

Reportedly inspired by a request from Ailey to Shirley Martin to develop choreography based on her experience with Horton’s method, the dance is a free-flowing study in style. Solos and duets focus on groups of movements--floor moves, balances, the so-called “primitive squat”--as distinct motifs began to mirror and complement one another, like jazz musicians on a roll.

While “A Suite for Alvin” was marred by a few obtuse vocalizations, the second half of the program was filled by a work nearly all chat and almost no dance: a wretchedly hokey dance-drama called “VISIONS . . . it never was” (1983, restaged 1990).

This melodrama--narrated by insipid dialogue fragments--takes place in the warehouse abode of a crazy recluse (Martin) and her family of mannequins.

It was hard to believe that it was the same Martin who choreographed “A Suite for Alvin.”

One hopes the newer creation (which is part of a total of eight hours of choreography yet to be performed) is a sign that Martin is heading back to what she does best: unadulterated dance in the Horton-Ailey tradition.