Cheers, silence greet Ailey troupe

Cheers were expected when the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater made its long-awaited debut Tuesday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. And cheers certainly came every time the dancers finished a piece, or even a section of one, during the four-part opening program.

But within each section, unbroken silence -- a response drastically different than what the company has received in other Southern California venues. For once, nobody screamed at the dramatic backbend in the intense “Fix Me, Jesus” duet from Ailey’s “Revelations,” or yelled “Go, girl!” at the galvanic “Right On, Be Free” finale to Ailey’s solo “Cry.”

Only a few examples of ballet bravura inspired spontaneous outcries, so the dimension of celebratory call-and-response interplay that can make Ailey performances like nothing else in the dance world yielded to standard OCPAC balletomania.

For veteran Ailey-watchers, it was, well, weird. However the attentive, unfamiliar quiet did serve the program’s two newest pieces, both studies in group dynamics. Using music by Peter Gabriel, “Prayers From the Edge” (2002) distilled Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s feelings about Israelis and Palestinians and other divided societies in danced conflicts between seven-member tribes dressed in red or gold.

Accented with realistic mime suggesting rural societies sharing the same space -- and water -- these evocative tribal passages looked far more original than the lyrical platitudes that Taylor-Corbett devised for her star-cross’d lovers, Clifton Brown and Linda Celeste Sims. Or, for that matter, the gymnastic warfare that followed. There are simply far too many excellent dance adaptations of “Romeo and Juliet” (including one by John Cranko that OCPAC will present a month from now) to settle for this soggy-centered retelling.

Far more sophisticated and even daring, Ronald K. Brown’s “Serving Nia” (2001) used four mostly jazz scores to accompany a vehicle for nine spectacular male soloists. However -- miracle of miracles -- no taint of macho showcasing or technique-worship marred this investigation of bonding, of common energies individually expressed and only occasionally merging in a shared unison impulse.

Brown has called “Serving Nia” a “spiritual conversation,” but that may sound too simple and solemn to describe a work that integrated a number of movement idioms in a sustained, upbeat portrait of people facing the future together and stronger for their solidarity.

In his classic “Revelations” (1960), Ailey also kept returning to celebrations of community, and the performance Tuesday displayed ensemble excellence galore, with major individual highlights: the liquid muscularity of Matthew Rushing (“Wade in the Water”), for example, and the fabulous muscular isolations of Jeffrey Gerodias (“I Want to Be Ready”).

But it was Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell who scored the greatest personal triumph on Tuesday with her passionate, detailed performance of Ailey’s “Cry” (1971). There have been weightier, stretchier interpretations of this three-part tribute to black womanhood, but none that delivered every move and image with greater force or clarity. Definitely something to cheer about in Costa Mesa or anywhere else where the finest dancing stirs the soul.

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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Where: Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

When: Today, Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m.

Price: $20 to $65

Info: (714) 556-2787