Alvin Ailey's The Mooche
Yarborough, Sarah
performer
Allen, Sarita
performer
Choreography
1975-04-15
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre premiere of "The Mooche" to Duke Ellington music, one of the 13 works set to Ellington music to be grouped for the next year's bi-cenntennial. An earlier version was drafted for the second company. This was the first stage presentation of the final version.
It is an evocative glorification of the jazz spirit...one of the most spectacular works the Ailey company has ever presented. It recalls and celebrates the nightclub era, from the days of the Cotton Club of which Ellington was part, but it is also dedicated to four great black women artists, all of them personal friends of Ellington--Florence Mills (Estelle Spurlock), Marie Bryant (Sarita Allen), Mahalia Jackson (Sara Yarborough), and Bessie Smith (Judith Jamison).
The music consists of amplified tapes of the original version...in a way adds to the authenticity and even the nostalgia of the piece, and who could replace Johnny Hodges and Harry Carney in the original 1928 version of the title piece, "The Mooche." In many respects, "The Mooche" the ballet that is, is more a superb and spectacular realization of show business, or even the crystalization of a show-business era, than a masterly piece of choreography.
Mr. Ailey's choreographic concept is immaculate, however, and his use of tap dance, vaudeville routines, male chorus lines...and strutting flamingo walks for his beauties is all enchanting."
The whole piece, with its tastefully mirrored setting (Reuben Ter-Arutunian) and gorgeous costumes, the anonymous male chorus line with derbies or top hats, the swirling use of dry-ice mist, even the clever use of chairs, is in precise taste. "The dancing was beautiful, every bit as grand and as grandiloquent as Mr. Ailey's concept."
Performing Arts Encyclopedia
http://www.loc.gov/performingarts
Tap Dance America
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/tda/tda-home.html
tda
IHAS
151216
loc.music.tda.2230