Alvin Ailey’s performance on Friday was spectacular: riveting, creative, beautiful and…fun!

                 The  program, one of several in new director Robert Battle’s first directorial season,  opened with Arden Court,

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Antonio Douthit and Alicia Graf Mack in Paul Taylor's Arden Court. Photo by Paul Kolnik

Photo by Paul Kolnik

set to the baroque music of Richard Boyce and the most “classically” patterned of the evening’s  pieces.

Described  as “an unfolding petal” by Dance Magazine and as  “lush”  and lauded by the New York Times for “the irresistible pleasure of its dancing,”  it  is replete with big movements,  high jumps, and  elegant formations.  This is the first season the Alvin Ailey company, founded in 1958,  has performed a work by Paul Taylor.

Video: at http://www.alvinailey.org/arden-court

The second piece,  Minus 16, by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin has been widely performed but it was a first for me–and  one of the most unusual dance compositions I’ve ever seen.

It began during what seemed to be an intermission…with  a dancer (Samuel Lee Roberts),  wearing a poorly fitting black suit, seeming to be  lackadaisically fooling around on stage..shuffle step, tap,  to rumba and cha cha music… as if there were no audience. Gradually, more men in hats, black pants and  T-shirts joined him.

In another part of Minus 16,  members of the company dressed in black suits white t shirts sat on folding chairs in a semi-circle– swooping forward and leaning back,  one after the other, in a clockwise wave– to a souped-up version of the passover song Echad Mi Yodea (one who knows). At the end of every repetition, and there were many,   the dancer in the chair farthest right  fell to the floor, taking longer and longer to return to his chair as the “wave” began again.    Part way through, the dancers removed their jackets, and, at the end,  they piled  most of their clothes, including their shoes, at the center of the stage.

In the final  piece of Minus 16,  the dancers walked somberly and silently off the stage and through the performance hall–  returning to the stage,   still silent, escorting  people from  the audience who were then incorporated into the performance.

At first, I thought the audience members on stage were plants: some were great dancers; some were hams; some were both–and many of the women selected wore red tops or scarves  and black skirts or slacks. But  not all were so dressed and not all seemed comfortable being led by their professional partners,  on stage.

The piece ended with all but one of the performers lying down on stage. The one left standing,  a slightly overweight middle-aged blonde  woman,  bowed gracefully.  The lights dimmed, and  a spotlight shone on  her as she walked across the stage,  down the steps  and through the hall to her seat.  The audience–including me–loved it.

I’ve since read in Dance Magazine that  if you want to be chosen to go on stage,  you should wear bright colors; if not, bring a pen and pretend to be a critic by taking notes.  And the Alvin Ailey Web site quotes Battle as saying that  Minus 16  “offers surprising new experiences for the company and our audience,”   and that it will be “both a great joy and a challenge for the dancers to improvise, break the fourth wall and invite the audience in.” So–the audience participation was for real.

The closing piece, Alvin Ailey’s 1960 Revelations, set to  familiar “traditional” songs such as “Wade in the Water,”  “Sinner Man,” and “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham,”

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Briana Reed and Yannick Lebrun in Alvin Ailey's Revelations. Photo by Gert Krautbauer

brought an encompassing sense of history to the entire performance.   I had seen Revelations as a teenager…and now, as an adult, the variety of periods, costumes it incorporated  got me thinking about the importance of art in integrating  the past and present–and escorting us into the  future.

–Anita M. Harris

Anita M. Harris is a writer and consultant based in Cambridge, MA. New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, a   PR and marketing communications firm.

 Local AFL-CIO Insulators, Tin Kinockers and Pipefitters from Cambridge Local  use a large inflatable rat to make clear how they feel about the use of non-union, non-Cambridge workers by PH Mechanical for work currently underway at 302 Third Street in Kendall Square.  “They don’t conform to community standards; they are unlicensed, and they have no apprentice program,” said one union member who declined to give his name. He said he expects that Cambridge City Council will be discussing the issue at its next meeting, possibly this evening.

Photos C. Anita M. HarrisInsulators, Tin Knocker, & Pipefitters Local AFL-CIO unions protest use of non-union workers at 302 3rd St.

—Anita M. Harris

Anita Harris is a writer in Cambridge, MA.  New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group,  a marketing and public relations firm based in Kendall Square, Cambridge.

My friend Bill Lichtenstein is working on what’s certain to be a wonderful nonprofit documentary film about WBCN–a groundbreaking Boston radio station deeply involved in the political and cultural changes of the 1960s.  He’s seeking funding through Kickstarter: an innovative fundraising mechanism that will be of interest to entrepreneurs of all stripes–in order to help change the future.

The film, entitled  “The American Revolution: How a Radio Station, Politics and Rock and Roll Changed Everything”  documents Boston radio station WBCN from 1968 (when Bill, as a 14-year-old high school became the station’s youngest DJ) through 1974.

As reported in the Boston Herald (Dec. 5, 2011), during those years, Bruce Springsteen did his first radio interview ever on WBCN;  Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir,  of the Grateful Dead, and  the Allman Brothers’ Duane Allman stopped into the studio at 2 AM and jammed for an area. When Nixon invaded Cambodia, “BCN got local college kids to strike.

WBCN  “had tremendous national impact both musically and politically,” Lichtenstein told the Herald. “We changed the world one time,” Lichtenstein says.  And, with this film,  “we can do it again.”

Lichenstein, who has produced TV news and documentaries for ABC and PBS, has gathered more than 50,000 documents, photos,  and tapes–which include performances by Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground.

He has also garnered some $50,000 in contributions–but needs to double that amount by Dec. 19 to complete the film.

He’s  seeking $104 thousand in donations via Kickstarter–a nonprofit that allows contributors tax deductions–but gives fundraisers just a month to get the entire bundle.That is, Kickstarter takes an all or nothing approach:  Lichtenstein must  bring in all $104K by Dec. 19–or he gets nothing.

After three weeks of fundraising, he’s  now almost at the halfway point, with just a week to go.

More info and the film trailer are available at  www.KickstartWBCN.com.  Lichtenstein and Kickstarter will be featured on Boston’s WCVB-TV  “Chronicle”  on Dec. 13, 2011.

——Anita Harris

Anita M. Harris is president of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning public relations firm located in tyhe Cambridge Innovation Center in Kendall Square,  Cambridge, MA.   Anita  is a former national journalist who got HER start in the alternative press–as a founder of the Harrisburg Independent Press and writer for  the The Real Paper and Phoenix in Boston, MA.

Apologies, once again, for the long absence….but this time I have a good excuse. I’ve moved  to the country!

Actually, I still live in Cambridge–but after 29 years in that lofty perch overlooking the Cambridge Common I now live in a new house–just across from Fresh Pond Reservoir.

New home, new neighborhood, new outlook on life–less than a mile and a quarter from Harvard Square.

A few observations:

When I told people I was moving after so many years in the same building, I usually got one of the following responses:

(1) Why are you moving NOW? (As if I should die in a place I NEVER liked. Too little space, too much noise and no parking!)

and

(2) That’s wonderful. Now you have a good reason to get rid of your stuff. (Huh? The main reason I”m moving is that I want more ROOM for my stuff).

The new place is gorgeous-three floors, a garage, a basement, big windows, light…and just a 10-minute bike ride from my favorite morning coffee haunt.  There’s a grocery store nearby, a gym, a Chinese restaurant…I have nice neighbors who like gardening so much that they bought some plants that they take care of in my front yard.  When you walk down the street, people actually smile and say “hello”

Yesterday, my friend Susan and I walked around the reservoir.  On a Sunday afternoon, it felt rather like a Parisian promenade, except that it’s 2.2 miles in  circumference and there were many, many dogs. Part-way round,  theCity of Cambridge Water Department  is renovating…that’s not what they call it…but setting up ramps for people disabilities, a walkway out over the water and something called a vernal pond–which, I now know, courtesy of Susan and Wikipedia, is a temporary or “emphermeral” pool.

These pools, devoid of fish, are dry for at least part of the year but when filled (usually in the Spring) they teem with life such as frogs, toads, salamanders, daphnia and fairy shrimp–the last of which are often used to decisively define a vernal pool.

Close by the pool, we met  MWRA Ranger Jean–who, with a colleague, was posting a sign explaining all of the above. She welcomed us to the neighborhood and told  us to say hi to people and dogs–who, along with the golfers, tennis and base ball players and my neighbors, make up quite a friendly community, and a welcoming crowd.

—-Anita M. Harris

Anita Harris is president of  the Harris Communications Group, a strategic marketing communications and public relations firm located in Cambridge, MA.