At the edge of Manhattan, in an 18,000-square-foot gallery on the fifth floor of a bright asymmetrical building, is the first large-scale exhibition about the life and work of the groundbreaking Black American choreographer Alvin Ailey (1931-1989). This show is a long time coming, both for Engell Speyer Family Senior Curator Adrienne Edwards (who has been working on the show for about six years) and for fans of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, founded by Ailey in 1958 (I, for one, have been looking forward to it for months).

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An exhibition at an art museum about dance is the kind of thing I live for. But when I first stepped into “Edges of Ailey” at the Whitney Museum of American Art, I was surprised. The walls are deep red, the space is not quiet and the materials are not arranged chronologically. There is—to be honest—not that much dance on display. It was not at all what I expected, and I am so glad for that.

What I quickly came to understand as I walked around the immense, immersive exhibition—which Edwards delightfully calls an “extravaganza”—is that it is not a solo retrospective. It is a group show. An ensemble performance. A jam session. It is less bio-pic than avant-garde film, more ode poem than biography. It contains artwork from eighty-two visual artists, a wide range of archival materials from Ailey’s personal and creative life and a multi-screen video installation drawn from interviews and performance footage.

What this collaging of art forms and artifacts does so well is put Ailey and his work in a larger artistic and social context. Ailey once said, “I wanted to paint… I wanted to........

© Observer