The rest of the terrific bill included Kyle Abraham’s 2022 work, “Are You in Your Feelings?” and Alvin Ailey’s 1960 classic, “Revelations,” featuring a polished veteran cast. These two dances were in communion. Both pieces utilized large casts in a series of emotionally charged vignettes. Abraham even stressed the group wedge formation, a powerful callback to the opening of “Revelations.” Though Abraham chose tunes by various hip hop and R&B artists (like Drake, Lamar Kendrick, Maxwell, and Lauren Hill) while Ailey used traditional spirituals, both works were about relationships. Abraham focused on interpersonal relationships; Ailey covered the human relationship to God.

Boy does Abraham get personal. Leaning into—but never on—his soulful playlist, he created detailed miniature portraits of lovers and sometimes rivals: as in a hilarious duet to Shirley Brown’s “Woman to Woman.”  I can never get over how well Abraham fuses contemporary and classical styles of dance. Very few people pull off pairing gargouillades and vogueing. In “Feelings,” Abraham’s references were playful and all over the map. At one point, a dancer crossed the stage eating a bag of chips. Karen Young’s bright costumes proved similarly flexible. Who knew that diaphanous, pastel track suits could bridge the gap between contemporary streetwear and 50s sock hop vibes?  

Sometimes “Feelings” employed witty excess, but then an all-female group number to Erykah Badu’s “I’ll Call You Back” was a masterclass in restraint. The dancers stood still and moved only their forearms and torsos, a brilliant complement to Badu’s musings on daily drudgery vs empowerment. The women evoked robots and T-rexes, scullery maids and DJs. The ladies were in perfect unison, but somehow their individual personalities came through clearly. As in “Century,” the dancers all burned brightly here. Jacquelin Harris and Patrick Coker were especially captivating, from their early flirtations and hiccups to their reconciliatory final pas de deux that ended with a fist-bump.