#48: Watch an Alvin Ailey Dance Production
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 2:37PM The college kid in baggy trousers pulled out his BlackBerry at intermission, in the lush box tier section of the Kennedy Center Opera House, and tapped out a message to a friend: "I'm at a stupid concert. I know the game is on..."
It's funny, the different ways we experience life.
The kid and I sat next to each other in the dark concert hall as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre weaved wordless stories on the stage below us. He kicked back at times, rested his head on his chair and shut his eyes to grab snatches of sleep. I scooted to the edge of my own chair, leaned over the balcony's edge and stared awestruck at bodies more chiseled and athletic than any I've seen.
He seemed the reluctant third wheel of his parents. I was fulfilling a dream, ticking #48 off my life list.
The kid didn't want to be there. I didn't want to be anywhere else.
I can't recall the first time I heard about the Alvin Ailey dance company. The Charlie Rose show, perhaps. I know he's a fan. Or maybe it wasn't until I started watching So You Think You Can Dance. Members of the renowned dance company have appeared on the show from time to time.
Whichever, I was intrigued enough to make seeing them myself a part of my life list. The power of the life list is not just that it compels you to live life more fully, but that when you share it, others help make your dreams happen as well. And so, two months ago, I was surprised to see a message in my email box with the simple subject: Life List.
"Hi Dana!," it read. "I've been fascinated by your blog for some time now, and I was marveling at your life list. One in particular caught my eye - your desire to see an Alvin Ailey dance show."
The message was from a parent at the kids' preschool, a woman I don't know well whom I had no idea even read my blog.
"They're coming to the Kennedy Center in February and the tickets went on sale this morning! Consider going - they're incredible."
Without that email, without her help, it's likely I never would have known the dancers were appearing a short drive from our house.
The show opened with a piece called "Streams" that I found disappointing and dispassionate, though my God, I thought, the bodies! I couldn't get over the musculature on display, the raw strength, even if the dancers seemed to just be executing steps. I worried the night would be too complicated for someone like me - a neophyte with no dance background - to penetrate.
After a pause, though, the curtain pulled back to reveal tables and chairs, two door frames. "Props!" I whispered, with excitement. Like the table Twitch and Sasha tangoed on this past season of SYTYCD and the door frame Twitch and Katee fought through years ago.
They called the production "Urban Folk Dance" and it was a steamy tale of relationships, infidelities, passions lost and rekindled, an obvious inspiration for the Twitch/Sasha "Misty Blue" piece. I was on the edge of my seat. The kid next to me? I was too engrossed to notice.
After the intermission, the dancers joined en masse for an electric production of "Minus 16" that sounded, at times, to pulse to the music of Ravi Shankar. Listen, I don't know how to describe this piece other than bodies possessed by a spirit. They threw shoes, stripped off clothes, fell to the ground, stomped chairs and whiplashed backwards. It was mesmerizing. But even more stunning was later when the dancers fanned out among the seats and picked audience members to join them in joyous improvisation on stage.
I died with fright -- and envy too. Had they picked me, I would have stood mortified on stage, paralyzed by my own inhibitions. I envied the people they chose, their freedom and playfulness. And wished it could have been me. I watched them and wished I could have been that brave. That alive.
Because that's what dance does, right? Emboldens and frees you. If you're lucky. If you allow it.
By the end of the show, the disinterested kid next to me borrowed his mother's binoculars to better watch the dancers and I felt overwhelmed by several of the spirituals in the closing production of "Revelations." The music, the dance, they transported me back to the wooden pew in Raleigh where every Sunday I'd shut my eyes and cry as the choir shook the church with their gospel hymns.
Thank you, Emily, for turning me on to the show. Thank you so so much!


