Boykin’s “Finding Free,” conversely, was set where angels fear to tread. Ashley Kaylynn Green, wonderful, was bound by thick ropes coming from the four corners of the stage during one intense solo. But this piece was ominous from the get-go: the lights were still up in the house when the droning of Matthew Whitaker’s commissioned score began. The curtain rose on the cast emerging shiftily from the darkness, like zombies. They were clad in sleeveless trench coats (some of their lapels partially obscured their faces) with fabric belts in African motifs. Al Crawford designed the lighting, Boykin and Jon Taylor designed the costumes. The dancers shed layers of clothing as the piece progressed, but the germ of a militaristic idea was firmly planted. This was an oppressive milieu, though the occasional shaft of light streaming in from a corner hinted at the work’s optimistic resolution, in which Whitaker’s score moved into a gospel register and the dancers walked together into a band of light, with Green taking her place in the lineup in the closing moments. 

But before that hopeful ending, dancers silently screamed, sometimes to the strains of an electric guitar—cleverly making for multiple forms of wailing. Another recurrent step had the dancers boldly throwing themselves forward and then freezing in penché, visibly straining to arrest their momentum. This step demonstrated that they were hanging on an emotional precipice. Boykin, a former AADT dancer, was a longtime interpreter of “Revelations,” and she clearly learned from Ailey’s potent storytelling through movement as well as his inventive prop work. She brilliantly addressed the messy, unshakeable legacy of slavery in Green’s rope solo. When the ropes around Green eventually slackened, she was ostensibly freed. But she was left tangled up in her loose bindings and struggling to contend with their weight.            

Also impressive was how Boykin employed her excellent cast of ten dancers as a united block at times, then as soloists on their own transformative journeys at other moments, just as Ailey does so seamlessly in “Revelations.” In addition to Green, Jacquelin Harris and Patrick Coker were standouts in “Finding Free.”