A Tribute to Alvin Ailey

Rating:
Summary: Tribute to honesty
Review: Alvin Ailey was a member of Anna's (Sokolow) theatre Dance Company in 1956, Two years before he has founded is company, others memberes in the same 1956's company where : Eve Beck, Judith Coy, Jeff Duncan, David Gold, Jack Moore, Sandra Pine, Paul Sansardo, Beatrice Seckler and Annelies Widman. The person who edited this DVD thought that this fact is not important in Alvin Ailey's Biography. In my opinion it is important.

Rating:
Summary: Tribute to honesty
Review: Alvin Ailey was a member of Anna's (Sokolow) theatre Dance Company in 1956, Two years before he has founded is company, others memberes in the same 1956's company where : Eve Beck, Judith Coy, Jeff Duncan, David Gold, Jack Moore, Sandra Pine, Paul Sansardo, Beatrice Seckler and Annelies Widman. The person who edited this DVD thought that this fact is not important in Alvin Ailey's Biography. In my opinion it is important.

Rating:
Summary: NO SUPRISE
Review: It's no surprise that this DVD is good, because Ailey is always good. Ailey is better than good, damn near perfect.

Rating:
Summary: Ailey and the Legacy
Review: This was the first dance collection taped by the Ailey Company after Ailey's tragic death from AIDS in December 1989 and Judith Jamison's subsequent appointment as Artistic Director days later. It also contains one of the only taped performances available of a work Ailey created for a company other than his own, the solo "Witness," created in 1986 for the Royal Danish Ballet (the soloist here, Marilyn Banks, ironically now teaches dance in Denmark). This two-hour tape was actually presented with slightly different editing as two hour-long Dance in America presentations on PBS. April Berry is luminous as longtime Ailey friend Joyce Trisler (a role more closely identified with her Ailey predecessor Donna Wood) in "Memoria" (1979), and as tortured jazz great Charlie Parker, the late Gary DeLoatch gives a tour-de-force performance in "For Bird With Love." The real stars of this video, in my opinion, are the then-relative newcomers to the troupe, Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, featured in supporting roles as musicians close to Parker in "For Bird . . ." and in central roles in the late Ulysses Dove's "Episodes" (1991). Desmond Richardson says more with just his right arm in either ballet than some novelists can write in 300 pages.

The only drawback to this particular tape, I feel, is that Jamison's comments about each piece could have been more tightly edited, but that's what fast-forward buttons are for. Enjoy the dance!

Rating:
Summary: Ailey and the Legacy
Review: This was the first dance collection taped by the Ailey Company after Ailey's tragic death from AIDS in December 1989 and Judith Jamison's subsequent appointment as Artistic Director days later. It also contains one of the only taped performances available of a work Ailey created for a company other than his own, the solo "Witness," created in 1986 for the Royal Danish Ballet (the soloist here, Marilyn Banks, ironically now teaches dance in Denmark). This two-hour tape was actually presented with slightly different editing as two hour-long Dance in America presentations on PBS. April Berry is luminous as longtime Ailey friend Joyce Trisler (a role more closely identified with her Ailey predecessor Donna Wood) in "Memoria" (1979), and as tortured jazz great Charlie Parker, the late Gary DeLoatch gives a tour-de-force performance in "For Bird With Love." The real stars of this video, in my opinion, are the then-relative newcomers to the troupe, Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, featured in supporting roles as musicians close to Parker in "For Bird . . ." and in central roles in the late Ulysses Dove's "Episodes" (1991). Desmond Richardson says more with just his right arm in either ballet than some novelists can write in 300 pages.

The only drawback to this particular tape, I feel, is that Jamison's comments about each piece could have been more tightly edited, but that's what fast-forward buttons are for. Enjoy the dance!