The Fall Fashion gala premiered a new work by Jamar Roberts, former longtime star and former resident choreographer of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, in a collaboration with Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen. I chose to see it the day after, when Ratmansky’s Voices was added to the program.
I was rewarded because Voices is as brilliant as I remembered it from February 2020. A suite of solos for five women interrupted by five men, Voices is based on Peter Ablinger’s Voices and Piano. Each soloist dances to a different woman’s voice, as recorded by Ablinger and augmented by piano. Their choreography matches the rhythm of the recorded voice—one sharp, another languid, another delicate—studded by little firecrackers of precision. Each time, a flank of four men whisks her offstage, ...
