The show began with Medhi Walerski’s “Blink of an Eye,” set to Bach’s popular “Partitas for Solo Violin.” In addition to the familiar music, the dance featured several contemporary dance fads: dark lighting, plain black costumes (by Walerski as well), topless men in pants, slides in socks, fidgeting in lunges, and a lighting boom that rose and lowered. And yet, somehow it wasn’t as much of a drag as many ballets that employ the same tactics. The eight talented and committed Ailey dancers—especially Ashley Kaylynn Green, Isaiah Day, and Jesse Obremski—made it exciting. They sailed through the hooking lifts and counter-weighted partnering. They swiveled and flicked their limbs with pleasing fluidity. Walerski’s overall pacing was fluid too, with the cast meeting in a chorus line or a circle to repeat an arcing relevé as their arms rose, winglike. This motif, a spiritual inhale, acted as a reset before they tore into each new round of flurried movement. 

After a pause, former Ailey muse and artistic director Judith Jamison’s 2004 pas de deux, “A Case of You,” was resurrected. Like “Blink of an Eye,” this duet was not groundbreaking, but it was a very well-executed iteration of a classic trope. The superb duo Jacquelin Harris (who had an exhausting night) and Yannick Lebrun starred as a couple intimately working through stages of distance and desire. They nicely matched Diana Krall’s husky, sometimes reticent cover of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You” through their seesawing emotional intensity. 

The dance was further elevated by the intuitive crowd’s responses. An appreciative murmur rippled through the house when Harris ran and jumped at Lebrun’s torso, clamping herself to him through sheer leg strength (he remained impassive). Later, when she flew and landed in a standing position on his thighs there was a collective gasp. These are flashy examples, but there were reactions to subtler finessed moments too. I find the Ailey audiences to be always so engaged and knowing.