Revelations

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1960
Revelations
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Homework

• Due in on 5th June.
• Write essay on Revelations
• Alvin Ailey send strong messages through the
  choreography of Revelations. Discuss themes
  behind his choreography and comment on how Ailey
  portrays themes through movement, lighting,
  costume, music and set design.
• Use homework sheet to help you!!
• Download a copy of the Dance GCSE specification
  to have in your file.

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Learning ObjectivesFriday 22nd May 2009

• To know factual information about Revelations
• To be able to identify key characteristics of
  Revelations.

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Dance GCSE Performance in a Group.

• Dance GCSE requires candidates to perform as
  apart of a group. This assessment will be worth
  20 of their overall GCSE. Group sizes range
  from a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5. The
  dance length should be between 2 and half to 3
  minutes in duration.

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Alvin Ailey (Jan 5,1931-Dec 1,1989)

• Ailey was an African American Modern Dancer and
  choreographer who founded the Alvin Ailey
  American Dance Theater
• Initially, he took dance classes from
  choreographer Katherine Dunham, and later studied
  under Los Angeles, California dance teacher
  Lester Horton.
• Ailey was fascinated by Horton's choreography,
  When Lester Horton died in 1953, 22-year-old
  Ailey was chosen to fill the shoes of his mentor.
  He became the director and resident choreographer
  for the Lester Horton Dance Theater.
• Ailey started his own dance company in 1958
  featuring primarily African American dancers. He
  integrated his dance company in 1963.
• The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
  popularized modern dance throughout the world. As
  a result of these tours, Ailey's choreographical
  masterpiece Revelations, based on Ailey's
  experience growing up as an African American in
  the South, is among the best-known and most
  frequently seen of modern dance performances.
• Ailey died of AIDS, at the age of 58.

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• The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
  popularized modern dance throughout the world. As
  a result of these tours, Ailey's choreographical
  masterpiece Revelations, based on Ailey's
  experience growing up as an African American in
  the South, is among the best-known and most
  frequently seen of modern dance performances.
• Ailey died of AIDS, at the age of 58.

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• Alvin Ailey developed his own style by fusing
  elements of modern dance, jazz and classical
  ballet together. Ailey also combines elements of
  African dance with motifs adapted from blues,
  jazz, and Broadway.
• His pieces tell stories about the light-hearted
  as well as the problematic sides of life for the
  black inhabitants of North America. It is their
  sense of religion and optimism, their pain and
  their vibrancy, which find expression in his
  choreographed works.

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Alvin Ailey Dance Theater

• By the late 1960s, the company had become a
  well-known African American artistic group
  closely tied to the Civil Rights struggle.
• The company started as small modern dance company
  and flourished into one of the premier
  institutions of African American culture.
• They rose to national and international success
  and were renowned for making progress within the
  civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights
  struggles of the late 20th century.
• Ailey as a choreographer was influential as an
  artist and as an arts activist committed to
  developing an African American presence in dance.
  

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Revelations

• FACTUAL INFOMATION
• The ballet was first performed on 31st January
  1960 at the Kaufmann Concert Hall in New York.
• Music - Traditional Afro American Spirituals
• Costumes - Lawrence Maldonado
• Lighting - Nicola Cernovitch
• THEMES
• It tells the story of the Blacks struggle from
  slavery to freedom and ending in the final
  triumph of the human spirit.
• It was a personal, social and political statement
  It is entirely choreographed by Alvin Ailey with
  various traditional and gospel music.
• The piece responds to society in that it portrays
  the lives of the Black people in America at a
  time of heavy oppression.
• The dancers work from their torso using the
  Graham technique of Contraction and Release. The
  use of gravity is evident as work is well
  grounded and the dancers use the floor as a tool
  not as an object that is against them. Ailey was
  not intimidated to use everyday, simple movement,
  like running or walking,to portray what he
  needed.
• The ballet is done in three parts Pilgrim of
  Sorrow, Take Me to the Water and Move, Members,
  Move.

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• The piece responds to society in that it portrays
  the lives of the Black people in America at a
  time of heavy oppression.
• The dancers work from their torso using the
  Graham technique of Contraction and Release. The
  use of gravity is evident as work is well
  grounded and the dancers use the floor as a tool
  not as an object that is against them. Ailey was
  not intimidated to use everyday, simple movement,
  like running or walking, to portray what he
  needed.
• The ballet is done in three parts Pilgrim of
  Sorrow, Take Me to the Water and Move, Members,
  Move.

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1) Pilgrim of Sorrow

• Theme/plot/synopsis It portrays the faith of
  the American Blacks under the oppression if the
  time. Design The curtain rises to a blank
  background. A group of dancers are huddled and
  bent over with their heads down and arms
  extended. The only life is the warm light over
  the dancers. The dancers are wearing long, tight
  dresses in red, orange and yellow.Music The
  songs "I Been Bulked', "Daniel" and "Fix me
  Jesus" Dance movement The dancers move around
  with simple yet powerful movements that show
  gestures of spiritual need. They do this by
  having their arms stretched to the sky of
  reaching out to different parts of the hall. The
  feeling of anguish comes alive in the
  movement-bent legs ,bowed heads and curving
  torsos. It continues with a dance to 'Daniel'
  with two women and a man and is followed by a
  pas de deux to the song 'Fix me Jesus'. The
  piece ends with the woman standing on the
  extended thigh of the male dancer. He has
  represented her spiritual guide through the
  dance.

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2) Take Me to the Water

• Theme/plot/synopsis This is a personal memory
  of Ailey's from his own Baptism by a river. It
  represents the spiritual cleansing of the
  religious Baptism.Design The stage is given a
  spiritual feel as all the dancers are in white
  and are lead on stage by a man holding a white
  pole with white streamers coming off it. A woman
  with a big white umbrella leads the man and
  woman who are to be baptized. The women are in
  long white dresses with frills and the men in
  white pants with mesh white tops. The three
  dance at the end among two big pieces of clothe -
  one white and one blue which represent the
  purifying water. The mood becomes solemn again
  and the song 'I Want to Be ready' comes on
  Music They dance to ' Wade in the Water'.
  Dance movement It is a flowing, light dance.
  It ends with a male dancer under a spotlight with
  heavy contractions and spasms to create the feel
  of anguished repentance for their sins.

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3) Move, Members, Move

• Theme/ plot/synopsisIt starts with three men
  running around the stage in an attempt to shake
  off the burdens of their sins. The men are
  joined by a group of elegant women who portray
  black women coming together at the end of the day
  to gossip and chat.Design The men, dressed in
  shirts and a waistcoat and black pants. The women
  are in long, authentic brown dresses with hats
  and fans.Music It starts with "Sinner man" and
  moves into " The day is past and gone" and ends
  with the fun and upbeat Rock My Soul in the Bosom
  of Abraham". The dancers fill the stage with
  cheerful and vibrant dancing.Dance movement
  The dancers fill the stage with cheerful and
  vibrant dancing. The work if flowing and light
  in weight. There are many turning steps which are
  accentuated by the flowing of the dresses.

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