Rankin File: ***** AILEY II

Thursday November 4^th 2010 was a very special evening at the Fox Cities P.A.C.  Modern Dance performed as well as AILEY II doesn’t make its way to the Fox Valley often enough.  The audience was excited to have the chance to experience the dance and by the end of the evening they were literally rocking out of their seats and souls.

The extreme physicality of the dance was apparent by the substitutions made to the program due to injury in the company.  Football players are not the only ones sidelined with injuries.  The dances entitled Takademe and Doscongio were the dances substituted and were very well received.  I particularly enjoyed Takademe with it’s staccatos/music by Sheila Chandra.

The choreography by Thang Dao in the dance Echoes was by far my favorite. The dance was perfectly matched with the lighting and the body poetry evoked a consciousness of experience that cannot be defined.  The other dances were all excellent but Echoes was for me the most spectacular.  I believe however by the audience’s reaction the favorite might well have been the final dance of Revelations which was accompanied by traditional vocal spirituals and beautiful costumes with lighting to match.  Several curtain calls were demanded and the troupe was kind enough to give an encore even though they must have been exhausted.

Of all the forms of art human beings endeavor to create dance is the most fleeting and the most difficult to perfect.  This makes dance so very precious.  You experience dance only for the moment it is performed, and then it is gone.  You can only have a taste and then a memory.