Mark Reviews Movies: AILEY

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 22, 2021

There are so many potential modes suggested by director Jamila Wignot's biographical documentary Ailey. What is most important about choreographer Alvin Ailey's life? Is it his work? Is it his personal history? Is it the success he found, as well as what that success meant in terms of the culture of modern dance? Is it his legacy, and if it's that, which is most vital: the dance pieces Ailey left behind, the school he founded, or the generations of dancers and choreographers who continue to find inspiration from his work and his example?

Wignot wants to approach all of these angles. The resulting documentary, while giving us a broad sense of the celebrated choreographer's life, ultimately fails to give a tangible sense of significance to the subject's accomplishments.

There genuinely are flashes of promise and inspiration here. After some brief footage of a dance piece and the choreographer accepting an award, Wignot really introduces us to Ailey, not through the man himself, but through the rehearsal for a work being prepared to celebrate Ailey's life. The choreographer at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is determined to bring the life, choreography, and influence of the company's namesake to the stage, by way of a dance piece that will meld biography, career highlights, and politics.

The remainder of the movie offers glimpses of the rehearsals for this ambitious piece, while the narrative itself falls back on a series of reliable methods. Ailey's life story proceeds in chronological order, tied together by footage directly or indirectly related to that biography. Interviews with people who worked with the choreographer, as well as some archival interview with the man himself (who died in 1989 at the age of 58), offer some anecdotes and insights into Ailey's philosophy and process, as he and his company became a worldwide success.

As for the dances that everyone says were revolutionary for showing both the specificity and universality of Black culture, we only catch glimpses of those, too, with Ailey or a member of the company explaining a dance's origin. The glimpses mostly let us know how much is missing.

That's because the movie is primarily telling us about the work, but when discussing an art as visual and kinetic as dance, telling isn't quite enough. We have to see and experience all of this, too, and in that regard, Ailey regrettably falls short.

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