Fever Swamp

Commissioned by Alvin Ailey in 1983 and revived in 1999, Fever Swamp was the first work created for the Company by noted modern dance choreographer Bill T. Jones. It is a virtuosic, athletic romp for six dancers set to a jazzy score by Peter Gordon. The cast of the 1983 version was all men whereas the 1999 cast included women. Jones' choreography set up no rigid distinctions between specifically male and female types of movement.  

Jones said of the 1999 revival of Fever Swamp:

"Re-staging Fever Swamp has been a joyful revisiting of an era and a sensibility some 15 years in the past. Fever Swamp looks back with curiosity to the music of Peter Gordon, with its irreverent take on musical form and slyly subversive pop inflection. The dance, like the music, while deeply engaged in formal issues, relies on a playful, extroverted spatial approach and an eclectic movement vocabulary. Like the era that informed it, the work sets out to interrogate the notion of 'high' versus 'low' in culture and art. Originally made for six men, I have chosen to include women to give a richer emotional resonance and to expand the possibilities of partnering. Costumes and décor have been reconceived."