December 4, 2011.
As the lovely young woman above unleashes her inner dancer, I recall the sight of a young man tearing down his own walls, shedding his own cocoon so the butterfly kept in his soul for so long could fly...
"Before the men and women in the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater ended the afternoon with the brilliant and lush "Revelations" (1960), leaving their rush of spring fever behind with us, Vernard J. Gilmore, a native Chicagoan, walked out into a peaceful azure blue, getting ready to share with us his "Reflections in D" as the sunlight pervaded the window, casting its shadow on the young man's morning.
As Mr. Gilmore moved rhythmically, defiantly, and passionately in the midst of the Duke (Ellington) and the Count (Basie) with nothing to fetter him, to frustrate him, to disturb his groove, to keep him out of his zone, I thought of Edward Hopper and his muse, a young woman resting alone on the floor in her boudoir, exposing much of her privacy (or what's left of it, anyway) to the voracious vultures among her visitors (or rather, voyeurs) as she posed with a trail of newspapers, of jazz records, of black-and-white photographs telling stories of her past (Spring Interlude, 1940). Just as the woman does for anyone who cares (or dares) to invade her self, her space, her sanity, and her sanctuary, the young man put aside his insecurity, his inhibitions, and his idiosyncrasies for a moment to reveal to us his dreams, his desires, his fears, his fantasies, and his innermost thoughts that he once considered sacred, that he once wouldn't share with just anyone..."
From my Ailey notebook, April 2008.
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