On a recent Monday evening at the Manhattan headquarters of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, rehearsal for Revelations had the camaraderie of a reunion. A drum set rumbled in the corner. Vocalists settled into their chairs, sheet music and iPads in hand. The late choreographer’s canonical 1960 work, set to song-sermons and gospel, is typically performed with live music at the start of the company’s annual residency at New York City Center, and the artists were finally back in one room to prepare for opening night on December 3. The musical director cued the spiritual “Wade in the Water”—an evocation of Ailey’s boyhood baptism in a church pond in rural Texas—and the dancers began a procession with undulating torsos. “Rocka My Soul” brought out a flurry of yellow rattan fans, in homag

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