Knight Theater February 9-14, 2010
North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center
Charlotte native and Northwest School of the Arts alum Constance Stamatiou enjoys homecoming and living her dream as dancer with the internationally renowned Alvin Ailey troupe.
Twenty one years ago, four-year-old Constance Stamatiou sat in her Mint Hill family room transfixed by images of lithe dancers on the television screen. She was watching a PBS special on the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and knew at that moment she wanted to dance with AAADT, one of America’s premier contemporary companies.
“I saw them performing Revelations,” said Stamatiou, referring to one of Ailey’s most recognizable and heralded works. “Watching [it] was phenomenal. The way they moved was powerful, and something I recognized, even at that age, was special. I knew then where I was destined to dance.”
Twenty five-year-old Stamatiou has been affiliated with Ailey her entire professional career. She was a student in the dance program at SUNY Purchase, New York, when a teacher introduced her to the school that operates under the Alvin Ailey umbrella. There she continued to train in dance full-time after receiving a fellowship. Less than two years later, she was offered an invitation to join Ailey II, a smaller junior company to AAADT.
After another two years of performing and working with Alvin Ailey II, she joined the main company in 2007 and has been performing with them ever since. “I am definitely living the dream,” remarked Stamatiou, who spoke with me a week before the company launches their twenty-city tour across the country. “We begin our tour in Washington, D.C., where the President and Mrs. Obama will be in attendance at the Kennedy Center. It is quite exciting to have this kind of experience.”
Stamatiou will be making her second visit to Charlotte as part of the Ailey company when AAADT stops here in early February for seven performances in six days at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center’s newly-opened Knight Theater. The performances are part of their celebration of artistic director Judith Jamison’s twentieth anniversary at the creative helm this contemporary American dance institution.
“I have heard some wonderful things about the Knight Theater,” said Stamatiou.
“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to perform there. I understand it is more intimate and smaller than the main theater at the Belk. I love to perform at smaller venues that allow us to connect more with the audience. It will be especially gratifying to perform with so many family and friends in the audience.”
Stamatiou grew up in the Mint Hill and University areas of the Queen City, where her mother saw to it that her interest in dance was nurtured from a young age. Stamatiou attended Northwest School of the Arts from grades 6–12 before leaving Charlotte for New York in 2002.
“It’s always great to come back home and see my parents, brother and sisters, and good friends from school. I’ve been getting lots of calls for tickets and can’t wait to see everyone!” Stamatiou told me.
What can Charlotteans expect when Ailey comes to town? Powerfully expressive dance from a company known for fluid movement and an almost spiritual bearing.
It has been more than forty-five years since Alvin Ailey, a product of itinerant, working class Texan parents, founded his eponymous company and introduced the world to an innovative dance troupe that celebrated the African-American experience in a time in America when there was little for the black audience to celebrate.
What began as a repertory company with only seven dancers in the late 1950’s has grown to become an internationally-acclaimed stalwart of modern dance captivating audiences from the White House to a U.S. State Department-sponsored nine-nation tour of Africa. Known for its expansive reach, it was the first American modern dance company to perform in the post-war Soviet Union and has been celebrated across the globe. In 1997, in an event covered by Time Magazine and The New York Times, AAADT went on a historic residency in South Africa, signaling the end to a long cultural boycott of the old apartheid regime by the world’s performing arts community.
In his short life, Ailey certainly earned his standing in the pantheon of contemporary dance history. Several of his works represent particular triumphs. Ailey’s choreography of Samuel Barber’s Anthony and Cleopatra for the New York Metropolitan Opera’s inaugural production at Lincoln Center is of note as perhaps his most widely-known and immediately recognizable piece. The River, which he developed for the American Ballet Theater, was performed to an original score commissioned for Duke Ellington. The piece is timeless and never fails to arouse deep emotion in audiences.
With Ailey as her sole predecessor in the role of artistic director, Judith Jamison has stewarded AAADT through phenomenal growth and outreach over the course of the past twenty years. She announced that she will be stepping down in 2011, and that this production will likely be Charlotte’s last opportunity to see the company under her artistic direction.
Over the last twenty years, Jamison has commissioned or revived nearly one hundred works, providing unparalleled opportunities for choreographers both renowned and newly-discovered. This season, a “Best Of Twenty Years” program features highlights from popular ballets she has brought to or revived in the Ailey repertory. These represent a wide range of styles and voices that have contributed to the Ailey canon. Among these dances are Ronald K. Brown’s Grace, Donald McKayle’s Rainbow Round My Shoulder and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s Shelter. Other works scheduled to be featured during various performances here in Charlotte include: Uptown, Dancing Spirit, Revelations, Suite Otis, Among Us, and Love Stories, a piece choreographed by Jamison with Rennie Harris and Robert Battle.
Jamison’s impact upon AAADT and the world of modern dance cannot be overstated. The enterprise today owes much to her very public and larger-than-life persona. She has been the face of Alvin Ailey for not just her twenty years as artistic director, but during her own extended dance career in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Many young dancers today were motivated, no doubt, by visions of the lean, willowy and tremendously athletic dancer that Jamison was in her prime. The striking portrait of Jamison in full pose while performing Ailey’s signature piece, Revelations, is an iconic image burned in the minds of generations of dancers.
Today Ailey’s vision encompasses a vast enterprise which includes The Ailey School, Ailey II Dance Company, and Ailey Arts and Education Community Program, all operating under the umbrella of the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation.
AAADT will be showcasing their work at the Knight Theater. Part of the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, the theater joins the Mint Museum (scheduled to re-open in fall of 2010), Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, and the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture in a new cultural campus on South Tryon Street that is proving to add a whole new dimension to the uptown arts scene.
Stamatiou promises dancegoers a wonderful evening regardless of which performance they attend. “We really offer a wide variety of dance and expression that is sure to be appealing,” she said. “Suite Otis is a great piece that offers a fun, flirty work set to an Otis Redding medley and Love Stories is a gem as it’s a collaboration piece from three choreographers that runs from hip hop to modern. Of course, Revelations is a classic Ailey piece, but really, regardless of the performance, people should be amazed.”
Dance lovers will be hard pressed to find a more engaging and captivating opportunity to experience the best of what contemporary dance has to offer.