Honorary Chair Mo'Nique. Photo by Dario Calmese

With the holidays fast approaching, nothing brings us pirouetting into the snowflake season quite like the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT). At Wednesday’s Opening Night Gala, the limbs were flying around the stage with unfettered aplomb, flitting from grace to gusto whilst set to solos from the company’s A-List pals Anika Noni Rose, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Jessye Norman.

Now in its 54th year, the group’s rich cultural history was made evident throughout the selection of pieces performed throughout the evening, in particular Revelations, which was initially choreographed by Mr. Ailey himself. The piece had a special significance for Ms. Noni Rose, who told The Observer: “The AAADT was the first ballet that I saw, and Revelations was the piece that stuck in my mind so strongly. So it was a huge honor to be asked to perform here tonight - it was like the circle closed for me.”

The opening was also something of a landmark for dancer Renee Robinson, who was hand-picked by the company’s namesake some 32 years ago. Ms. Robinson is hanging up her dancing shoes this Christmas – for the AAADT at least. Speaking of her three decades with the company, she said, “What feels great is not only that I was chosen by Mr. Ailey, but that I had the opportunity to work under him and hear him speak about his vision and his legacy.”

“Over the years, the changes that have happened within the company have stemmed from the wonderful seed Ailey planted, and that’s what keeps it alive, current and important to society all over the world,” she continued. The only dancer to work under all three of the AAADT’s artistic directors (Mr. Ailey, Judith Jamison and Robert Battle, who currently holds the post), there is no denying that Ms. Robinson knows what the job entails better than anyone. So has she become a mother hen-type figure to the dancers finding their feet in the company? “Oh no,” she laughed, “I’m more like the fun aunt!”

Fun was certainly had by all throughout the evening, from the standing ovation at the performance’s close to hundreds of guests hitting the Hilton’s dance floor for some Beyoncé-esque booty-shaking before the meal began. Academy Award winner and stand-up comic Mo’Nique had the crowd eating out of the palm of her hand during a speech mid-show, and continued to bolster the party atmosphere as the event went on. A long-time AAADT supporter, she told us, “Whenever the group would come to whatever city I was living in at the time, me and my family would go out and see them, and you just felt every movement and every step, every lyric, you felt everything they put into their performances. So when they called and asked me to be involved tonight, it was like – ‘For real? Of course!,’” she enthused.

Widespread involvement in the event was key, with a sublime number in the first half of the show causing quite the stir. As the stern looking company made their way into the audience, apparently selecting ball-gown toting spectators at random, things appeared to be far slicker by the time they reached the stage. Seamlessly moving from the roles of confused audience members to pro-shakers, this additional cast proved that age and physique don’t stand in front of a real dancer’s ability to move, and the piece was precisely the effervescent exhibition of skill that the AAADT has become renowned for.

The dancing continued well into the night, with gala guests evidently inspired by what they had seen earlier on stage. With a jazz band on hand to bust out everybody’s favorite Motown tunes, and the hotel's ballroom decorated like a sparkly winter wonderland, the AAADT brought a slice of Christmassy cheer to New York in a celebration of which Mr. Ailey himself would’ve undoubtedly been proud.

Mo'Nique (Getty Images)

If there’s one cultural experience that people enjoy far more during the holidays than they do the rest of the year, it’s the ballet—any number of kiddos citywide think that ballerinas play no roles other than little Clara and the Sugar Plum Fairy. Though its timing is perfectly in sync with our sentimental yearning for ballet, tonight’s Alvin Ailey Opening Night Gala seeks to broaden our horizons a bit with performances of Ohad Naharin’s dance Minus 16, wherein audience members may join the dancers onstage, and Ailey’s own Revelations, performed live by opera singer Jessye Norman and Tony-winner Anika Noni Rose. Honorary chair Mo’Nique presides over all. An old-school pas de deux it’s not—and all the better!

New York City Center, 131 West 55th Street, 7pm, with dinner and dancing to follow at the Grand Ballroom of the Hilton New York, 1335 Avenue of the Americas, tickets and information may be found at tinyurl.com/8dayNovember28.

Only Sherri and Barbara escaped unscathed!

Apparently drama works in daytime. E-Poll Market Research has released a study (unscientific, it would seem) of the most politically divisive celebrities--those preferred disproportionately by either Republicans or Democrats. Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the conservative voice on The View, is the most disproportionately loved by GOP members--with a difference of 51 percent in her approval by right- and left-wingers. Other celebrities appealing more to Republicans, in order: Hank Williams Jr., Tim Tebow, Ted Nugent, and Amy Grant. Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg, her couch counterparts in the kaffeeklatsch, are the third and fifth most disproportionately Democrat-beloved among celebrities, respectively. They are only less divisive than Spike Lee, Mo'Nique and, in fourth place, Forest Whitaker. (While Mr. Whitaker may seem anodyne, here's a fun fact: 7 of the 10 celebrities found to be most disproportionately appealing to Democrats are nonwhite, including who-knew-people-cared picks like Malcolm Jamal Warner!)

Well, so that happened! Was it just us or were these just the most tediously boring Oscars in ages? And who should we blame? Maybe we should start with the very strange stage design, which we’re guessing was intended to be a nod to old Hollywood glamour, but felt more like an early-'70s set that was dusted off and given a quick polish (and please, we'll give a prize to anyone who can reasonably explain the lampshades). The last half hour of the show almost made up for it all, what with the history-making win of Kathryn Bigelow and the surprise shut-out of Avatar (yes, we know it won a bunch of technical awards but it didn’t crack any of the biggies).

So here are the top five moments of the night, as far as we can recall, though to be honest it is already beginning to fade into hazy memory. Oh, and not for nothing, that death montage was the worst! (And hey: did they forget about Farrah Fawcett? 'Cause that's just wrong.)

1. The ever-classy Bigelow goes down in history: the 58-year-old looked nothing short of fantastic as she became the first female to win best director, and was dignified and elegant during her acceptance speech. Take note, certain (cough) ex-husbands!

2. Best speech of the night? Probably a draw between Mo’Nique, who got an excellent dig in at all of her critics (“I would like to thank the Academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics.”) in addition to a heartfelt thank-you and to the surprised-even-if-we-weren’t Sandra Bullock, who took the time to personally single out each of her fellow nominees (also, she may have very well won best dressed) and emotionally thanked her mother, "for not letting me ride in cars with boys until I was 18 because she was right. I would've done what she said I was gonna do." Honorable mention to Jeff Bridges, because he just seems like a class act.

3. The John Hughes tribute: after getting past the holy-bananas-is-that-really-Molly-Ringwald of it all, seeing the well-chosen clips from She’s Having a Baby, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Vacation, The Breakfast Club, and more, really showed just how influential a writer and director Hughes was. But oh my god, how strange was it to see how those actors aged? My god, Judd Nelson. The horror!

4. The general WTF moments: the dancing (oh, the dancing). The tribute to horror – who, what, where, and most importantly, why? The American Idol-like opener. The woodland creature Paul N.J. Ottosson who won all those sound mixing awards. Love that guy!

5. Did Tom Hanks run out of time at the end or what? Didn’t it seem like he just got up there and yelled Hurt Locker and that was it? And isn’t it weird that while Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin were charming every time they were on stage (loved the Paranormal Activity sketch) but this thing just seemed to drag? What the heck, movies of 2009, we think you're better than that. 

svilkomerson@observer.com

(For the record, the nominees were Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk, Frost/Nixon and The Reader.)

The lack of quality films dawned on us last weekend when we saw a "For Your Consideration" ad for Betty White and her supporting performance in The Proposal. Yep, you read that correctly: The Proposal. Clearly this nomination won't happen, but what's scary is that it's not hard to imagine a scenario in which it does. Never mind that The Proposal was generic romantic comedy pabulum, served cold and wrapped in the admittedly strong charms of Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. Besides Ms. White, who else is even in the running for Best Supporting Actress outside of the apparently self-sabotaging Mo'Nique in Precious and the entire female cast of Nine? And it's not just Best Supporting Actress that's weak: across the board it's hard to find any standouts period. Christoph Waltz was very good in Inglourious Basterds, but in a normal year we wonder if he'd even get a nomination; in 2010, he'll be a favorite.

Taking it even further, by this time last year eventual winner Slumdog Millionaire had built up strong festival momentum and advanced praise, the campaigns for The Dark Knight and WALL*E were in full swing, and the buzz on Milk and Benjamin Button were deafening. However, now, with the exceptions of Up in the Air (the belle of the ball at the Toronto International Film Festival in the same way that Slumdog Millionaire was), and the aforementioned Precious (an Oprah Winfrey endorsement and a massive New York Times piece will do that), a Best Picture frontrunner cannot be found. Even Clint Eastwood's Invictus, an assumed lock for multiple nominations, looks decidedly blah based on its first trailer.

This would all be fine, but for the fact that the Best Picture category has expanded to ten nominees. How is the Academy going to fill up ten slots when they can barely come up with enough for five? We hope you're ready for the admittedly awesome Star Trek to be called  a "Best Picture candidate."

But, hey, such is the state of the Oscars, an awards show that feels perilously close to the edge of irrelevancy—not because of problems with its telecast—because there is a lack of compelling movies. If only Ricky Gervais were hosting, maybe we'd be excited for the Oscar season anyway. Oh, wait...