[title]
In his eloquent, sensitive review of Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight, Joshua Rothkopf wrote that it “takes the pain of growing up and turns it into hardened scars and private caresses. This film is, without a doubt, the reason we go to the movies: to understand, to come closer, to ache—hopefully with another.” Now there’s another way to experience the pain and longing that movie so poetically captures: a short dance film choreographed by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Robert Battle, set to music from composer Nicholas Britell's soundtrack. This afternoon, Ailey released Moonlight x Ailey, featuring the blue-lit movements of Alvin Ailey’s Jamar Roberts and Ailey School students Christopher Taylor and Jeremy T. Villas.
Interesting detail: It happens that Battle, Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney (on whose autobiographical play the movie is based) all hail from Miami’s Liberty City, where Moonlight is set. The company is currently on the road. For more information about Ailey’s 2017 U.S. tour, visit them online.