Night Shade

Former Company member Ulysses Dove created this exciting ritual dance, set to Steve Reich’s “Drumming,” for the experimental dance group of the Paris Opera Ballet. The work is an excursion into primitive rites with an urban touch. Night Shade suggests a rite of spring in reverse, with a male rather than a female virgin chosen as the sacrificial victim. Set in a space enclosed by big, silver walls and boxes, with candles in glass globes placed along the floor, the work has an after-the-fall tenor that suggests the decline of a civilization rather than its dawn. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater first performed Night Shade at the Metropolitan Opera House in celebration of the Company’s 25th anniversary.