Dazzling display of energy, spirit

In an increasingly dangerous world, art represents merely an entertaining distraction for some people, but it can also function as balm for the soul or a heroic defiance of the darkness ahead. Not so coincidentally, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater embraced all of these functions in its triple bill at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, the opening night of a seven-performance engagement.

“Love Stories,” the newest work on the program, began and ended with solos clouded by the turbulence of Darrin Ross’ score but sweetened by Stevie Wonder ballads. Choreographed in 2004 by company Artistic Director Judith Jamison with Robert Battle and Rennie Harris, it developed into a complex, forceful tribute to the late company founder’s guiding spirit, using Ailey sound bites to divide the flow of movement into chapters.

After a lyrical, balletic solo for Clifton Brown, a series of ensembles portrayed a growing sense of community, a passionate identification with contemporary street dance and a shared belief in the symbols of militancy in black American culture. Along the way, solos for Matthew Rushing, Abdur-Rahim Jackson and others erupted as statements of indomitable individuality, but group energies ultimately drove the piece.

Audience members who wanted to tie all the episodes and images together could view “Love Stories” as an abstract history of the Ailey company. But the sense of threat closing in on Linda Celeste Sims in the final moments -- and particularly her sudden flash of fear just before the blackout -- suggested that all the power and prowess we’d been watching was about to be swept away.

If Jamison, Battle and Harris saw the dancers -- and by implication, all of us -- on the edge of an abyss, Ailey’s 1960 masterwork, “Revelations,” reminded us of the faith that pulls people through the worst of times. One of the essential experiences of concert dance, this suite set to American spirituals can charm, dazzle and inspire, and it did all that Tuesday in a remarkably fresh performance of choreography audiences know by heart.

In “Fix Me, Jesus,” for instance, Sims’ spectacular pliancy seemed all the more miraculous coming out of strongly expressed feelings of self-doubt, and in “I Wanna Be Ready,” Amos J. Machanic Jr.’s perfect physical control turned the solo into a serene illustration of absolute readiness, body and soul.

Obviously, “Revelations” was Ailey’s greatest achievement, but it soon became his greatest problem, for its miraculous fusion of virtuosity and spirituality took so many iconic forms that audiences looked at later, lesser Ailey works with a bewildered sadness. Yes, his craftsmanship and high intelligence remained abundant in such pieces as “Hidden Rites,” but who really wanted a clever neo-primitive divertissement from a choreographer previously touched by God?

That question arose again Tuesday. Newly revived by Masazumi Chaya, associate artistic director, this 1973 suite featured such current company paragons as Rushing, Brown and Sims, with Vernard J. Gilmore and Venus Hall each magnetic as the power centers of the ensembles. But the only real interest of the piece was historical: as a creative experiment in which Ailey worked at deliberate cross-purposes. Using a percussion score by Patrice Sciortino, he tried to evoke ancient tribal ceremonies using the most sophisticated contemporary dance techniques at his disposal.

His mentor, Lester Horton, and the great black dance matriarch Katherine Dunham had each triumphed with such pieces, and Ailey too showed a mastery of choreographic assimilation by devising a formidable polyglot vocabulary to bridge past and present.

However, for all their intricacy and energy, his mating dances and rituals of sacrifice-cum-resurrection had no inner life, all too quickly veering in the direction of nightclub exotica -- glossy, overextended and lacking the sly, self-mocking flair of Geoffrey Holder’s “Dougla” from a year later.

Chaya’s revival in Orange County looked meticulous and even stylish. But, sandwiched between the bravura foreboding of “Love Stories” and the bravura affirmation of “Revelations,” it had essentially nothing but expertise to offer. And, with Ailey, that should be just the beginning.

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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

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

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

Price: $25 to $75

Info: (714) 556-2787 or www.ocpac.org