New City Stage / Ease, Freedom and Joy: A Preview of An Untitled Love by A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham at the Dance Center of Columbia College

“It’s a celebratory work in a lot of ways,” Kyle Abraham says. “So much of the conversation around the Black experience has been focused on the untimely deaths of Black and brown bodies and the extreme racial injustice we face. I wanted to make a work focused on love, and how we love.” Of course, “how we love” implies a plunge into a deep and boundless sea of emotions—which is in no small part the point. As he says near the end of our phone interview, Abraham hopes his new evening-length dance piece will illustrate “the Black experience to not be monolithic, or for there to be any perceived ideas about what our experience is or should be.” And Abraham, a MacArthur fellow and Bessie-winning choreographer who seems to have the infinite lexicon of human movement at his effortless command, is well-equipped for the dive. In “An Untitled Love,” premiering at the Dance Center of Columbia College September 16-18, Abraham and his New York-based company, A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham, celebrate the tones and hues of Black love across generations through R & B, particularly the music of his formative years.

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Photo Credit: Carrie Schneider