It was in the middle of “Wade in the Water,” a section of Alvin Ailey’s signature work Revelations, when our row started to rock from side to side. My first thought was that members of the audience–either very heavy ones or several of them–were swaying in their seats to the music, for it felt rhythmic at first. Or was it a Disney-esque added feature of the work? I wouldn’t have ruled it out, not in Orange County, CA, nor at an Ailey performance. Just the other night, for instance, I had heard someone compare a performance by AAADT to a rock concert, an uncommon thing to hear in the modern dance sphere. And certainly rock concerts shook. Right? It was an earthquake, my California-born companion told me matter-of-factly. Dancers Matthew Rushing and Kelly Robotham were onstage, smiling brightly, stepping confidently into balances on one leg. I looked up and feared that the heavy ceiling of Segerstrom Hall would crash down onto the packed house any minute; our bodies would finally be recovered months, if not years, later. In the time it took my mind to race to these improbable conclusions, the earthquake had ended. We looked up. The dancers were […]
↧