Ailey Performances Are Fresh and Fluid to the End

Wrapping up a six-performance engagement at the Ahmanson Theatre on the weekend, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre kept its flame burning hot with three vintage Ailey works and the local premiere of a Judith Jamison piece from 1998.

Ailey’s choreography, looking strong and fresh, fairly glowed. On Saturday night, dancers in “Streams” poured themselves into positions as if they were melted steel, and showed a level of technique practically unheard of when the piece was created in 1970. Small moments--such as a lingering arabesque by Mucuy Bolles--became uplifting haikus. In “Cry”(1971), a well-tempered Dwana Adiaha Smallwood forged boldly eloquent and economic gesture to sculpt that classic. And during “Revelations” (1960), more moments were illumined by performances--Linda Caceres and Glenn A. Sims in a rhapsodic swoon in the “Fix Me, Jesus” section, to name just one.

The dancing was also faultless in Jamison’s “Echo: Far From Home,” but it was a harder piece from which to gather an impression.

That a kind of story wanted to emerge seemed clear: It began with a portrait of a little girl in ballet costume and words about being excluded from a school, and ended with a young woman in a tutu picking up red shoes. But there was also the looming theme of the era of slave ships, which was evoked by stormy gray paintings lowered briefly into a scene or, on one occasion, made into a large, impressive transparency (the art was by Tom Feelings). Mostly, however, the characters whisked on and off or had tiny solos and duets that only hinted at moods--Daughter (in the tutu) explores; Mother is jittery or struts; Father struggles and worries; Mentor whirls his robes around. Unlike the paintings, these characters and relationships were drawn with vague strokes, barely hitting the canvas.

What emerged was a dreamlike atmosphere, emphasized with streaming light, smoke and studied pauses, all to a protean taped score by Robert Ruggieri. Like a reverie of interesting beginnings, “Echo” in the end remained an inchoate parade of unfinished thoughts.