A.I.M REPERTORY
Kyle Abraham's choreographic brilliance is at the heart of A.I.M's captivating repertoire, serving as a poignant celebration of Black and Queer culture. Grounded in these rich cultural experiences, Abraham's work becomes a dynamic exploration, weaving a tapestry of stories that often go unheard. Through movement, he brings forth the nuances and complexities of Black and Queer identities, contributing to a more inclusive and diverse representation in the world of contemporary dance. Abraham's commitment to highlighting these voices not only shapes A.I.M's distinct movement vocabulary but also establishes the company as a space for authentic storytelling and cultural expression. In doing so, he not only breaks barriers within the dance world but also contributes to a broader societal conversation about the importance of embracing and honoring diverse cultural perspectives.
5 Minute Dance (You' Drivin'?)
A new quartet, 5 Minute Dance (You Drivin’?), was created in part during Abraham’s first semester working with the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance at USC. After exploring a new duet in the studio with A.I.M dancers Keerati Jinakunwiphat and Kar’mel Antonyo Wade Small, Abraham brought this work in progress to his students at the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. Assigning the students different variations of the work, the duet has now become a quartet. Music by pioneering electronic musician and past A.I.M collaborator Jlin scores the dynamic work.
MotorRover
MotorRover is a new duet, both abstract and tender, created by Kyle Abraham in conversation with Merce Cunningham's 1972 ensemble work, Landrover. Cunningham said his original idea for Landrover was to capture "the sense that we move in our country–across varied spaces–with varied backgrounds.” He initially considered performing the work in front of a continuously changing landscape, although in the performance there was no décor. Abraham's work also appears unadorned with no music or set. But in the silence, one can almost hear the earth rearranging itself, as America continues to shift, beneath the dancers' steady feet.
If We Were a Love Song
If We Were a Love Song is a series of poetic vignettes created by Kyle Abraham in collaboration with A.I.M and set to some of Nina Simone’s most intimate songs. Melding Abraham’s movements’ intricate qualities and musicality with Simone’s seminal silky voice creates the atmosphere for this work. Composed primarily of solos and duets, with versions created for both stage and screen, the work unfolds like a series of living portraits, deepening our reflections on community, love, and one’s self.
An Untitled Love
An Untitled Love is an evening-length work created by Kyle Abraham. Drawing from the catalogue of Grammy Award-winning R&B legend D’Angelo, this creative exaltation pays homage to the complexities of self-love and Black love, while serving as a thumping mixtape celebrating our culture, family, and community.
Kyle Abraham and pioneering producer/electronic music composer Jlin have come together to create a reimagining of Mozart’s Requiem in D minor through abstracted themes of afterlife, reincarnation, mythology and folklore. Ten dancers from Abraham’s company—A.I.M by Kyle Abraham—take the stage to the music of Jlin, who has transformed Mozart’s score into an electronic opus that memorializes ritual and rebirth.
Requiem: Fire in the Air of the Earth
Studies on a Farewell is a tender group work choreographed by Kyle Abraham, set to classical music by Sebastian Bartmann, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Nico Muhly.
Studies on a Farewell
Cocoon
Cocoon, a solo choreographed and performed by Kyle Abraham's newest solo that premiered in October 2019 at The Joyce Theater, features costume design by couturier Giles Deacon and musical accompaniment by Nicholas Ryan Gant and his gospel choir, performing arrangements of Björk songs.
Meditation: A Silent Prayer is an ensemble work featuring voice-over recording by Carrie Mae Weems and visual artwork by Titus Kaphar, which premiered at The Joyce Theater in 2018.
Meditation: A Silent Prayer
INDY
INDY, a work commissioned by the Joyce Theater that premiered in May 2018, marks the first full-length solo choreographed and performed by Kyle Abraham in nearly a decade. The solo includes original music composition by “fabulous composer-pianist” Jerome Begin (The New York Times) and visual artwork by Abigail DeVille.
Drive, a high energy, propulsive work set to thumping club beats, is an ensemble work for eight dancers that was commissioned for New York City Center’s 2017 Fall For Dance Festival.
Drive
Dearest Home
Dearest Home (2017), an intimate dance work focused on Love, Longing and Loss. The work (created for six dancers as a series of solos, duets, and one trio) is a love letter to relationships, a meditation on memories, and ultimately, a source of healing.
Absent Matter
Absent Matter (2015) is a dance for five performers created in collaboration with musicians Kris Bowers and Otis Brown III, and with filmmaker Naima Ramos Chapman.
Created as one of three repertory works during Kyle Abraham’s tenure as Resident Commissioned Artist at New York Live Arts from 2012-2014, The Gettin’ (2014) is a work for six dancers set to music by Grammy Award-winning jazz artist Robert Glasper and his trio, who reimagine Max Roach’s We Insist! Freedom Now Suite.
The Gettin'
Live! The Realest MC
Live! The Realest MC is a work inspired by both the story of Pinocchio and an early solo work of mine, entitled, Inventing Pookie Jenkins. The similarity in these characters lay in their quest for acceptance. For one, it’s a quest to become a “real boy” for the other, it’s a quest for “realness.” Reimagined in an evening-length, ensemble work, that investigates gender roles within my community, this story took on a deeper dive when faced with the 2010 media headlines surrounding the untimely death of college student, Tyler Clementi and 13-year-old Ryan Halligan in 2003. I began to think about a time in my life when I prayed that I could go unnoticed. Hoping that if I get my voice to sound like the other male students around me, I wouldn’t be found out. I just wanted to be a robot…a puppet…but maybe without the lederhosen.
Pavement
“Men call the shadow prejudice, and learnedly explain it as a natural defense of culture against barbarism, learning against ignorance, purity against crime, the ‘higher’ against the ‘lower’ races.” – W.E.B Du Bois
In 1991, I was fourteen and entering the ninth grade at Schenley High School in the historic Hill District of Pittsburgh. That same year, John Singleton’s film, Boyz N The Hood was released. For me, the film depicted an idealize “ Gangsta Boheme” laying aim to the state of the Black American male at the end of the 20th century. Twenty years later and more than ten years into the 21st century, I am focused on investigating the state of Black America and a history therein.
Reimagined as a dance work and now set in Pittsburgh’s historically black neighborhoods, Homewood and the Hill District, Pavement, aims to create a strong emotional chronology of a culture conflicted with a history plagued by discrimination, genocide, and a constant quest for a lottery ticket weighted in freedom.
As two rivaling neighborhoods, their histories run parallel. Both experienced a cultural shift in the 1950’s when jazz legends like Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington performed at local theaters and Billy Strayhorn spent most of his teenage years. Over a century later, those same theaters are now dilapidated. And the streets that once strived on family run businesses and a thriving jazz scene now show the sad effects of gang violence and crack cocaine.
The Radio Show
The Radio Show is broken up into various shorter works that blend my fondest memories of driving with my family and of listening to Pittsburgh's radio stations Hot 106.7 FM WAMO and its sister station AM 860. On September 8, 2009 WAMO, the only urban radio station in Pittsburgh sadly, went off-air. With the turmoil surrounding the death of 16 year old Darrion Albert in Chicago discussed over the airwaves of radio stations around the world, I wondered how aware listeners were to the goings on in other urban communities around the country now that this voice had been taken away. Without black radio, where is the audible voice of the black community? Radio was so prevalent during times of strife in the past. Where is its place today? Is radio fading away? Are we still listening? Reinterpreting those questions into the context of my father's diagnosis of Alzheimer's ten years ago and his more recent aphasia-afflicted conditions is where these losses of a voice find a common thread.
The Watershed
The Watershed, an evening-length work for nine dancers, is a commanding and provocative cross-cultural exploration of Freedom created by Bessie-award winner and 2013 MacArthur Fellow Kyle Abraham. Featuring Abraham’s signature style of mellifluous fluidity juxtaposed with sharp accents, The Watershed follows the universal aspiration toward Freedom and simultaneously references emancipation following the Civil War, the political tumult of 1960s, and civil rights challenges of our present day. The work features arresting scenic design by world-renowned visual artist Glenn Ligon and a score ranging from a contemporary cello suite to the soulful sounds of Otis Redding.
