ALVIN AILEY's Premiers EXODUS-by choreographer Rennie Harris

Alvin Ailey Dance Co. has the world's most artistic, athletic & adaptable dancers.  Provide the dancers a challenging new work and the choreography will combust into a pinnacle of astonishing power.  Famed choreographer Rennie Harris, established the 1st hip hop touring company.  Harrris' new piece EXODUS, commissioned by Ailey incorporates intricate & astonishing fleet foot work.  EXODUS' stunning strength emanates from its imagery & poignancy.  The piece starts with dancers strewn across the stage in corpse like figures.  The hazy, austere scene has several rays shining down. Sombre music and lulled motion provide a melancholy ambiance.  A female  embraces a lifeless male on the floor and her grief reverberates throughout her body.  She is gently pulled aside and the motionless figure begins to stir in response to an ephemeral presence.  The other dancers dressed in street clothes are now fleeing in individualized, jilted movements.  The pace of the music by various artists accelerates & the dancers fling themselves in strident, pulsating movements.  The inchoate choreography is bound with fearlessness, and intense energy.  The dancers have transformed in all white clothing.  They form a loosely knit group except for one individual standing alone.  A gun shot rings out and the lone figure falls as does the group in an agonizing ripple. The dancing is breath taking and the prescient message is piercing.  The mass of young lives being taken by gun violence is intolerable.