When curator Adrienne Edwards started conceptualizing an exhibition about the late choreographer Alvin Ailey (which also, surprisingly, happens to be the first-ever show dedicated to the groundbreaking artist) six years ago, she sought to push the bounds of what people typically experience in a museum. “What are the exciting new ways that we might present dance in a visual art context?” she wondered. The result is “Edges of Ailey,” on view at New York City’s Whitney Museum until February 9.
One way she did this was by playing with scale and proportions. When you first enter the space, you’re met with a huge panoramic screen that wraps around most of the room. There, you find footage of some key Ailey moments: actress Cicely Tyson honoring him at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1988; landscape scenes from his hometown of Rogers, Texas; various ballets from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which he founded in 1958, like Blues Suite and Revelations.
“I just didn’t think little monitors would work,” she says. “Oftentimes, these videos are put on small screens or we rely on photographs, and there’s a case to be made for all of those different choices, but I wanted to experiment with a different way that felt cinematic. Ailey’s work is about being seen. It’s about glamour. It’s about beauty. So scale was a way to meet his sparkle, to meet him on his own terms.”
Having an open floor for the work to unfold was also very important to Edwards, as she was interested in presenting Ailey to new and old audiences in a different light. Artwork and sculptures from prominent Black artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Faith Ringgold, Mickalene Thomas, Betye Saar, and Romare Bearden are displayed alongside some of the choreographer’s notebooks, sharing space on scattered red islands placed throughout the exhibition that mimic oceanic eddies. The idea to create islands came from Ailey’s love of water and, more specifically, his dance Archipelago. “I like an openness so that connectivities can be made,” Edwards adds. “It’s a very different experience to implicate the body in space in that way. The islands are a way of taking these ideas that flow throughout his dances and put them in the actual design of the space itself.”
By displaying Ailey’s personal effects throughout the space (like his choreography notes, postcards written to his dear friend Langston Hughes, and sketches of dance costumes), Edwards provides guests with an intimate look at the man behind the world-renowned dance company. “If you had not been in those notebooks, you wouldn’t have known about his love of the visual arts,” she insists. “You wouldn’t have known he was a poet and a short story writer. You would only know him as a choreographer. Many people know the company, but not many know about the man who started it. The primary thrust of the show was about his curiosity, his world of wonders, what a polymath he was, and how diverse his interests were. In some ways, Ailey was the figure that nobody saw coming who was perfect for a museum exhibition.”
