Category: A.I.M by Kyle Abraham

‘The vast array of the solos, couplings and larger group numbers in the production were performed by an ensemble of dancers that possessed an inexhaustible fount of energy and stamina. A heightened sense of physicality replete with graceful, lithe-limbed arm/wrist movements, leaps and turns was sustained throughout.’ Read the full article here.

“To make a work experiential, I want people to just take it in,” Abraham says, reluctant to reveal too much about the selected tracks that have had a defining presence in his life since college when the soulful singer-songwriter released his debut studio album, “Brown Sugar.” “This work is really all things. There are moments…

‘But in 2020, the choreographer was profoundly uninterested in Zoom dances. He wanted to make “honest connections.” He wanted to talk. Abraham’s newest piece, “An Untitled Love,” was not quite finished at that point. During those months of isolation, he and his dancers worked out the kinks in an unusual way: in weekly two-hour discussions,…

‘Defying the defeatist lyrics of the Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart ballad “Little Girl Blue” with her astonishing solo to Simone’s rippling chords, Gianna Theodore rose from the floor using only her hands, executing arcs, twists, backward lifts and spins that drew from breakdance but beyond. Her fearless precision was a triumphant counterpoint to this portrayal of…

‘Multi-award winner Kyle Abraham, the recipient of a prestigious McArthur “genius grant’, set up A.I.M in 2006 with the aim of creating a body of dance-based work intimately concerned with Black culture and history. In Requiem: Fire in the Air of the Earth the choreographer explores death, mourning and rebirth through reimagining Mozart’s Requiem in…

‘An Untitled Love brings together the candid and the performative to create a lively atmosphere brimming with the beauty of black love. The crowd undoubtedly felt that love. For one precious, celebratory hour, the world almost felt like itself again.’ Read the full article here

“An Untitled Love” beautifully presents dance as interpersonal communication. It’s a theatrical love letter to social dance. Read the full article here.

Abraham describes An Untitled Love as “the purest Kyle Abraham dance there has ever been,” meaning most of the dance steps originated in his body. “I’m so familiar with the music of D’Angelo that it really was me living out my biggest fantasy, just living this music that I love so much.” Embodying that feeling, Abraham has…

In his evening-length work coming to BAM, Abraham wanted to focus on celebration and joy in Black culture, “the way we love and love on each other.” Set to songs by D’Angelo — Abraham calls himself a Day 1 D’Angelo fan — the show emerged from a desire not to ignore painful realities, he said,…

An Untitled Love, the hour-long work they showed, shook the delighted audience to their emotional foundations with a daring, heartfelt, and brilliantly idiomatic celebration of love, suffering, yearning, and bliss. Read the full article here