Dance preview
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, Feb. 11-13. 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 14 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 15. Tickets start at $25, with several specials offered (see www.alvinailey.org/atlanta). Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 1-855-285-8499, www.foxtheatre.org.
As only the third artistic director of the famed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater since its founding in 1958, Robert Battle carries the weight of history on his shoulders.
But Battle, a choreographer and leader of his own rising dance company when he was hand-picked to lead Ailey in 2011 by his predecessor Judith Jamison, hardly considers that history a burden. That’s even as he works to ensure the African-American dance troupe is relevant in 2015 and is evolving to embrace its future.
For a few reasons, history was very much on Battle’s mind in an interview ahead of Ailey’s annual tour stop at the Fox Theatre from Wednesday to Feb. 15. The company is bringing with it a new work, “Odetta,” Matthew Rushing’s tribute to the powerful folk singer whose music has been called the soundtrack of the civil rights movement. And Battle accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, from President Barack Obama last November on behalf of Ailey, who died in 1989.
The upbeat Battle freely discussed all that and more.
Q: Atlantans seem to treat the Ailey dancers more like family than visitors. Do you sense a special bond between the company and the city?
A: Yes, I believe so. There's something about the soulfulness of Ailey that I think really connects with Atlanta audiences. You get a sense that the audience there really feels that this is their company: "This is our Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater…."
Sometimes I like to sort of stand and hide in the (Fox) lobby and watch the way people come through the front doors, and you get that sense that they’re visiting a friend, catching up, you know?
Q: Has your agenda as Ailey’s leader changed over the last three-plus years?
A: It becomes more focused and clear — in terms of trying to express the versatility and the beauty of the dancers as a compass, as opposed to thinking of it as just expanding the repertory. … Really giving them the platform to express that, it’s more clear to me now that that’s important.
Q: How big of a challenge is it to balance respect for the past with the need to push the company forward?
A: In some ways, I think if you allow the history to be the catalyst, seeing what has been there, you can see what’s possible. … It’s kind of the way I choreograph, starting with what’s there and then saying, “OK, how can I inhabit this differently without completely ignoring what is there?”
I think it’s balance and that’s what’s great about the fact that we are a repertory company, because you can balance everything on a program from folk songs to Mozart. There’s that sense that you’re always dealing with past, present and future. There’s no sense that it’s one detached completely from the other.
But having said that, certainly there are going to be times where I make choices where some people think, “I’m not sure about that one.” That happens, but I think all for the good. What’s important is having the courage to make choices that are not always going to land easily but can begin to open the door to other possibilities in the future.
Q: Tell me about what hit you at Odetta’s memorial service in 2008 that led you to feel that her life and music could make for a contemporary dance?
A: First, just the resonance of the story of using your art to open the door for change and better understanding. … There’s something about her artistry that reminds us of the power of the performing arts, the power of the voice, the power of whatever your talents happens to be as a way to really move people.
Anytime I see something that’s enlightening to me, I want to share it, I want people to have this revelation that I’m having. And so I remember sitting there and (as I heard the recollections of Maya Angelou and others about Odetta), I thought, “Oh my gosh, I’ve got to share this with everybody.”
Q: What was it like to accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom for Mr. Ailey?
A: It was such a huge moment — for me, growing up and having to have been taken in by my great aunt and great uncle when my mother and father weren’t able to provide at that time. (I thought of my great uncle) Willie Horne, born in 1904, and some of the wounds that he suffered internally from segregation and racism and bigotry, that he didn’t always talk about but that you just knew.
And then seeing Alvin Ailey’s life, his death, his mission. And then I’m looking out at Judith Jamison and how she carried it and then put it in my hands.
And then I’m thinking about the president and all that he has to endure, regardless of what your politics might be. But some of the treatment is, I think, more racist than it is political …. And when I was standing there with the president, I couldn’t imagine the weight of that responsibility. So there was something beautiful about that moment.
I felt his weight, I felt my own, but I also felt Alvin Ailey’s presence saying, “You can do this, you know, and let me be an example.”
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