By Essiba Small
If you weren’t part of the Queen’s Hall audience at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Tuesday, you missed out on a quality production— Amalgamation Dance Gala.
Presented by Plié for the Arts, in partnership with the National Dance Association of Trinidad and Tobago, Amalgamation featured the Plié Global Collective—founded in Jamaica in 2016 with a vision to broaden the dance palette of the region—and the internationally renowned Ailey II. Amalgamation surpassed expectations. You know that excellence is met and exceeded when you hear thundering applause, mid-performance, and shouts of “Bravo” from elders of local dance, who turned out for the event.
The Calling, choreographed by Jessica Lang and featuring dancer Ashley Gordon of the Plié Collective, opened the show. The lighting was gradually raised from a dark stage to a soft glow, where Gordon stood centre stage, dressed in a long gown, the end of which literally encircled her. Using mainly her arms and head to communicate the piece, Lang’s choreography was gentle but deliberate, the opposite of The Hunt, which featured Plié dancers Steve Cornwall, Faybian Grizzle, Joshua Craigie and Andrew Bailey in a choreography set that looked more like an action movie—such was the intrigue and the audience’s need to follow this lengthy dance storyline.
The young male dancers kicked, crouched, spun each other around, confronted each other, their bare backs and chests covered with sweat—such was the intensity of their delivery.
A ten-minute intermission later, the curtains opened to a new cast of dancers—the members of Ailey II, a company founded in 1974 as the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble. Alvin Ailey Jr was an American dancer, director, choreographer and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater “as havens for nurturing black artistes and expressing the universality of the African-American experience through dance”, according to Wikipedia. Ailey II is under the artistic directorship of Francesca Harper, with Sylvia Waters as artistic director Emerita.
Transcending barriers
Likes vs Life (2025), featuring dancers Meredith Brown, Dario Turner and Jordyn White, was Ailey II’s first performance on the night, choreographed by Renée McDonald, the first Jamaican to set a piece (Breaking Point) on Ailey II. A playful romp among dancers, it seemed to illustrate the pull and tug of managing two personalities—one for social media and one for real life.
Witnessing the performance of Ailey II’s highly regarded Revelations, choreographed by Ailey himself in the 1960s, was hair-raising. Set to popular African-American spirituals and sermons in song, the 36-minute performance explored introspection, repentance, grief and joy, sewn together in an emotionally charged dance storyline.
Revelations was, with its whole chest, a finale—with changes of dancers moving on and off the stage, dressed in elaborate costumes and lit by special lighting. And when the gospel “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham” filled the auditorium that night, the final stage of Revelations, it was cathartic for the audience too, who were taken along by the dancers on the emotional journey. Everyone was singing and clapping along.
According to the Ailey II website, Revelations was “born out of Ailey’s blood memories of his childhood in rural Texas and the Baptist Church. Since its premiere in 1960, the ballet has been performed continuously around the globe, transcending barriers of faith and nationality, and appealing to universal emotions, making it the most widely seen modern dance work in the world,” the website said.
Amalgamation was partly sponsored by CCN TV6.
