Music And Dance Reviews : Alvin Ailey Dance Tribute Suffers With Taped Text

Call it “Hymn” Without Her: the first local performance of Judith Jamison’s tribute to the late Alvin Ailey minus the presence of actress/writer Anna Deavere Smith.

On Saturday and Sunday, Smith had wandered among the members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, speaking a text drawn from interviews with them. On Thursday and Friday, however, she was replaced by a tape--as she will be next week at the Cerritos Center.

Perhaps Cerritos will offer decent sound: The amplification at the Wiltern Theater on Thursday made much of her text incomprehensible. And, with Smith absent, you wondered why the dancers’ weren’t speaking for themselves--preferably live. (There’s a distinguished post-modern tradition of dancers doing exactly that.)

With Smith onstage, the solos-of-testimony in “Hymn” became shared moments and seemed oddly diluted. Without her, they emerged more vivid and forceful. These are not dancers who need a high-priced docent along for the ride.

However, the opening moments of the work definitely needed restaging: The transition from Ailey-on-tape to Smith-on-tape left the audience sitting in the dark and made no effect without a living narrator.

The previously reviewed “Vespers” and “Revelations” completed the program, with the latter offering Dudley Williams’ deep sensitivity in the “I Want to Be Ready” solo, Leonard Meek’s spectacular pliancy in the baptismal episode and Renee Robinson’s ability in the same sequence to make you feel the miracle when she walked on water proudly bearing the most famous umbrella in world dance.

* Performances of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater continue, with varying repertory, at the Wiltern Theatre, 3780 Wilshire Blvd. Today at 2 and 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. (310) 825-2101. Subsequent engagements: McCallum Theatre, Palm Desert, Feb. 28 and March 1; Cerritos Center, March 3-5.