Friday, November 23, 2007

Mr. Chaya

Ailey's perfectionist
Friday, November 23, 2007

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

When dancers of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater ask if they should throw a little "West Side Story" flair into "The Road of the Phoebe Snow," a classic repertoire piece by choreographer Talley Beatty, rehearsal director Masazumi Chaya minces no words.

"No," he says. "It's the same idea-ish. But it's not that at all. It's this way." And if this is a typical rehearsal, the 60-year-old will demonstrate. After all, he was in the last production of this piece himself -- in 1976.

"I'm not going to be able to turn like them or jump like them," he admitted in an interview. "But the timing of the music and how the shoulder moves -- Talley's ballet is very stylistically important to dance. Not just the step, but how they move the shoulder, how they step and then look into the distance."

As he spoke, he could not resist physically demonstrating what he meant. Chaya, originally from Japan, will be honored in the upcoming City Center season of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for his 35th anniversary with the company. The moves are in his bones.

IF YOU GO
WHAT: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
WHEN: Wednesday through Dec. 31.
WHERE: City Center, 131 W. 55th St., Manhattan; 212-581-1212 or nycitycenter.org.
HOW MUCH: $25 to $120.

Though he joined the company in 1972 as a dancer, Chaya has been rehearsal director since 1988 and assistant artistic director since 1991. In rehearsal, he has an easy rapport with the dancers, many of whom are less than half his age. Dancers ask both him and artistic director Judith Jamison about positioning and style, but it is Chaya who walks among them in the studio and tugs them into place on "stage." It is he who counts out the beat and does the moves with the dancers to make sure they hit the right turns.

Not because Jamison is any less of an expert -- she was one of Ailey's favorite dancers and knows the style as deeply as Chaya. But Chaya is on the dancers' level. He'll chide them gently and add a joke to the end, softening the blow. He'll walk with them to exactly where they need to go.

Yet when it comes to upholding the details of the choreography, dancers will never find a stricter stickler for the rules.

"It's not just, 'I think it's like this,' but 'It has to be this way,' " he said. "Most of the dance I teach and restage, basically I try to do myself first. I try to remember as much as possible so I can show them the way I like to see, or the way the original choreographer wanted it."

He watches videos of earlier productions religiously. In fact, he travels with a standing trunk that houses his tapes and mini television when the company goes on tour. As a bearer of the flame since Ailey's death in 1989, he needs to keep the memories fresh.

Sometimes he even watches videos of himself. "I look at the videotape and say, 'Oh, that's right. Did I do that?' " he said with a chuckle.

Chaya and Jamison are both living parts of Ailey's legacy. Although some of their own spur-of-the-moment modifications made their way into finished Ailey works, it is no longer their place to make changes, Chaya said.

"I don't dare change anything," he added.

But "I don't want to be a museum piece here," he was quick to say. "The dancers now have such a way to experience that is much shorter, quick." He snapped his fingers. "Like a music video -- I love to use their ideas."

After all, Chaya said, Ailey himself used to say, "Use my steps to dance yourself."

He is always brimming with quotes from Ailey, whose picture adorns one wall of his office. Why has he stayed with the company for 35 years? The answer is simple.

"That guy," said Chaya, pointing to Ailey's portrait. When Ailey died, he thought at first that his time with the company was over. But after serving as pallbearer at the funeral, Chaya rushed back to City Center, where the company was scheduled to stage an open rehearsal. Not only was the theater packed; most of the dancers had shown up, as well.

"At that time I said, 'Wait a minute,' " he said. "There's a lot of work to do here. I need to make sure everybody knows what Alvin thought. I have to make sure to finish telling them before I decide to pack away."

And if Chaya's 35th anniversary shows anything, it's that there will always be work for him to do.

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

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