There were no expectations when the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performed in the Pittsburgh Dance Council's first season 35 years ago at Heinz Hall. But the rewards were great.

	Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell and Clifton Brown scooped up applause at this week's performances of Elisa Monte's work, "Treading." It was part of a program at the Benedum presented by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Click photo for larger image.

On Tuesday night, in its return to Pittsburgh at the Benedum Center, the company was the most popular of all groups presented by the Dance Council, this time in partnership with the African American Cultural Center. The Ailey is older (it celebrated its own 40th anniversary last year) and a little sleeker, but it hasn't lost its heart.

This group has always presented the soul of Alvin Ailey, nowhere more apparent than in one of two local premieres, "Love Stories." With a running text and voice of Ailey himself and a music collage featuring Stevie Wonder, "Love Stories" represented the past, present and future of the company through the eyes of a trio of choreographers.

Artistic director Judith Jamison represented the past, the early days with Ailey, filling small studios with plenty of hope. She began with a knockout solo by Clifton Brown, who appeared to be toying with the movement, the music and the mirror, and gave ample opportunity for the other dancers to test their own prowess, largely through duets that illustrated their need to move.

But it was most intriguing to watch how Rennie Harris' movement transferred onto the Ailey dancers. This Philadelphia master of the hip-hop idiom concocted chunky streams of bootylicious street dance, coming and going like a tag team match.

Robert Battle, meanwhile, brought up the future by tapping the past allusions to a chain gang, '70s club dance and a dash of James Brown, all between fists that pumped and fingers that pointed.

"Love Stories" was yet another example of the Ailey company's bread-and-butter works, in which dance, driven by power into a form of artful entertainment, is elevated by its charismatic performers. Moving from ballet to modern to the street with a muscular yet supple ease, the dancers drew appreciative applause, even in the controlled flow and sumptuous lifts of Tina Monica Williams and Dion Wilson in Elisa Monte's "Treading."

Battle, who appears to be the Ailey choreographer of the moment, was also represented by "Juba," a work that could be submitted to six degrees of separation. A seemingly incongruous mix of Russian ethnic dance (bolstered by John Mackey's rhythmic Stravinsky-esque score) and Caribbean voodoo accents, Battle's work connected the quartet of dancers through a communal spirit.

But nowhere was the Ailey spirit more apparent than in the ageless gospel songs found in "Revelations," the must-have finale of any Ailey program.

The opening swell of arms in "I Been 'Buked" are by now familiar, and the piety of "Fix Me Jesus" (Venus Hall and Clyde Archer) and "I Wanna Be Ready" (Brown) provide continued comfort. But this group seemed to go shoulder-to-shoulder with those that came before them when it came to "Rocka My Soul." With fans waving and hands clapping, they still had more to give.