You can't take pictures during a theatrical performance, and obviously I never would. So that this, before you, is the high cake stack of Philadelphia's City Hall, as seen from below, a half hour before the curtains rose on the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater production staged at Philadelphia's own Academy of Music. Three suites were performed—Dancing Spirit, Forgotten Time, Revelations. We, the nearly sold-out audience, were on our feet by the end, when the dancers—the women done up in bright yellow church dresses and flopping hats, the men wearing proper black and whites, the props nothing more than golden fans and plunked down stools—were rocking our souls in the bosom of Abraham. We were in love with the slender reach of their arms, the bewilderingly beautiful musculature of their backs, the roll and whip of their necks. Mostly, let's be honest, we were in love with their joy; we took some for ourselves when they weren't looking.
All praise on a sunny Sunday. All rise to the dance.
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