Repertory
For Four
COMPANIES
CHOREOGRAPHER
RUN TIME
8 Minutes
WORLD PREMIERE
New York City Center, 2021
STAGING
Elisa Clark
MUSIC
Wynton Marsalis
COSTUMES
Corin Wright
LIGHTING DESIGN
Al Crawford
Take four amazing Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater dancers and add in Wynton Marsalis’ delicious jazz score—written in 4/4 time—and you’ll understand why former Artistic Director Robert Battle cheekily titled this exuberant short work For Four. Battle uses this work to express the pent-up energy of a world that had largely been cooped up for the previous 15 months during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally created as the opening video segment for AILEY's 2021 Virtual Spring Gala Benefit, the piece was then re-staged for the Company’s New York City Center season later that same year.
“Dance really is about being close together,” Battle said. “When we were in the studio making this dance, you could feel the electricity of what we did together, the way we felt so free to express ourselves in the way that we do, and so For Four is a manifestation of that expression."
In its review of the Gala, The New York Times observed, "With all its spinning and attitudinizing… [For Four] can seem like simple release. But there’s also a darker, more desperate undertone, a hint of having to perform…. Something more than pent-up energy is being expressed."
PRESS COVERAGE
The Washington Post review, 1/29/22: "As director of the Ailey company, Robert Battle pushed his own creativity aside. The pandemic brought it back."
"His new creation…is called 'For Four.' With a quartet of dancers bounding to feverish jazz by Wynton Marsalis, it’s a seven-minute affirmation that Battle the artist is back in business…fast-paced and jittery, the dancers spinning and jumping without stop. That boiling energy comes from the thrill of being back in the studio, Battle says. Riding that joy, he pushed self-consciousness aside and focused on the dancers."
Leadership support for the world premiere of For Four was provided by Pamela D. Zilly & John H. Schaefer.
The world premiere of For Four was made possible with major support from Melinda & Paul Pressler, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn & Nicolas S. Rohatyn, The Ellen Jewett & Richard L. Kauffman New Works Endowment Fund, Elaine & Lawrence J. Rothenberg, Denise Littlefield Sobel, and the Red Moose Charitable Fund.
For Four was supported, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts.
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