Closing Fall for Dance with a performance by Alvin Ailey might feel obvious—the company, after all, closes City Center’s annual season with its December residency—but it’s clearly the right move. Ronald K. Brown’s “Grace,” which premiered in 1999, is equal parts liturgy and dance party, blending together elements of West African and modern dance. The 11-person piece begins with an expressive solo by a dancer in white to Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday,” before progressing into a playlist of jazz, electronic, and Afrobeat tracks.

The dancers fully embody the music as they keep in constant motion. There are elements of a procession in the piece when, at one point, a line of dancers in white walk diagonally down the stage while dancers in red dance around them, their palms open, their shoulders rolled back.

When the dancers come together in unison—the beat thumping—it’s hard not to get excited, so much so that a few audience members feel compelled to shout a justified, “woo!” 

Then, it shifts back to where we began. When Fela Kútì’s “Shakara” fades back into “Come Sunday,” there’s a brief lull in energy with tonal shift. But it’s easy enough to forget the transition when the dancers are so fluid, so expansive, and so life-affirming in their movements. Of course they earn a standing ovation.