Alexander Godunov, Judith Jamison, Alvin Ailey

Staging, rehearsing, performing, celebrating "Spell" , a fusion of jazz, modern and ballet, in this slide show. Choreography by Alvin Ailey, music by Keith Jarrett.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre Gala on December, 3rd, 1981, City Center, New York.
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/05/theater/dance-festive-works-at-alvin-ailey-gala.html?&pagewanted=1
Anna Kisselgoff, NYTimes, December, 5, 1981:
''Spell,'' as the Jamison-Godunov premiere is called, stands to make the history books on more factual than artistic grounds. This was a one-time-only performance, and of course, it recalled the pairing in 1976 of another Soviet ballet defector, with Miss Jamison, at another Ailey gala in Mr. Ailey's Ellington duet, ''Pas de Duke.''

Mr. Godunov, who left the Bolshoi in 1979, was given a somewhat more difficult task. Although ''Pas de Duke'' was mostly ballet steps coated with a jazz veneer, ''Spell'' actually engages Mr. Godunov in the kind of Ailey vocabulary that mixes Martha Graham and Lester Horton's training - idioms in which Soviet dancers hardly have any foundation.

So when Mr. Godunov followed Miss Jamison on stage in ''Spell,'' the challenge was set. Looking like a punk rocker 15 years out of date - in black shirt and trousers, with the famous long blond hair improvising in the air - he was obviously ready to meet his striking partner on her own charismatic ground.

This encounter between what the French call sacred monsters is of course what ''Spell'' was all about. Its choreography is minimal - especially for Miss Jamison, who took a night off from the longrunning musical ''Sophisticated Ladies,'' and may have had the dancing tailored to specifications not necessarily as demanding as in her days with the Ailey company. We see her first rising out of a cloudy mist of dry ice, clad in Randy Barcelo's black and gold costume. Keith Jarrett's ''Invocations'' is the score, less dreamlike than usual for him and studded with clarion calls.

Miss Jamison suggests a sorceress, and ''Spell'' is reportedly inspired by the life of Marie Laveau, a 19th-century voodoo priestess. As it so happens, Miss Jamison already portrayed Marie Laveau in Mr. Ailey's 1978 solo, ''Passage.'' In this instance, she is less lonely. Before you can say computer-dating bureau, she calls up a male companion, Mr. Godunov, who comes rushing out of the wings.

The two embrace, she in back just as, at the end, the positions will be reversed. The man lifts the priestess, then falls prone ,and she straddles him. He exits and returns, this time in fringed diaper over white tights. In this solo, danced with admirable if strained intensity by Mr. Godunov, Mr. Ailey has made something out of the Russian dancer's mix of virility and softness. With his hands aflutter and muscles flexed, this is the most graceful Tarzan we have seen.

Miss Jamison returns in her own stripped-down beaded outfit to finish casting her spell. Before we know it, she and her date are rolling in the dry ice..."
http://books.google.com/books?id=8OUCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA74&dq=jamison+godunov&ei=bUDQS6qnHo2EywTj7MzICQ&cd=3#v=onepage&q=jamison%20godunov&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=PkgqLYJfKHUC&pg=PA210&dq=jamison+godunov&ei=bUDQS6qnHo2EywTj7MzICQ&cd=8#v=onepage&q=jamison%20godunov&f=false

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