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In one episode of Kyle Abraham’s last evening-length work, “An Untitled Love,” four women are on a pink plastic-covered sofa, with a patterned rug at their feet, waving their arms in cool, flirtatious harmony: crossing their wrists, rolling their shoulders, one hand in the air. shaking From time to time, they chatter or sway towards other dancers walking around. The steady, sultry groove of D’Angelo’s “One Mo’Gin” enlivens the scene.
Ever since he founded his New York-based company – now AIM, Kyle Abraham – In 2006, 44-year-old Abraham has frequently studied the past and present struggles of being Black in the United States. His impulsive, deep musical dances for his troupe and larger companies like the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater faced police brutality, mass incarceration, and other problems of slavery legacy. For “An Untitled Love” New York premiere He envisioned a different mood at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Wednesday.
“I wanted this work to focus on joy, celebration, and love,” he said in a recent video interview from Santa Barbara, California, where AIM is touring. “I wanted us to have fun.” In which D’Angelo sings his songs – Abraham calls himself a 1st Day D’Angelo fan – the show arose out of a desire not to ignore painful truths, he said, but to “highlight the beauty in our culture, the way we love and love.” to each.”
Thinking of love, Abraham thought of his parents and social circles in his hometown of Pittsburgh: gatherings in living rooms, church, barbershop, and hairdresser. Her mother was a public school teacher, counselor, and principal; His father was a social worker and coached sports teams. Both died when Abraham was in their 30s, and the memories of their relationship stretch back to and feed into the memories of their friends and extended family. Vibrant colors and varied patterns add warmth to the stage thanks to Karen Young’s costumes, lighting and set design by Joe Scully, and backdrops by illustrator Joe Buckingham.
Catherine Kirk, a dancer at AIM since 2013, described the show in a phone interview as “The black love sitcom dance – fun, outgoing, feel-good.” Rehearsing D’Angelo’s music for months or even years (the premiere originally scheduled for spring 2020 was postponed due to the pandemic) reminded him of the dance reasons in his heart. “I find myself getting more and more immersed in why I love to dance,” she said, “why dance is spiritual and how it’s a language among people, not just techniques and institutions. I think his music helps negate that.”
When the epidemic began, Abraham resisted rehearsing on Zoom (“I wanted to avoid it at all costs”). Instead, each week a company member would suggest a watch or read on “Anonymous Love,” and the group would meet online to discuss. Ibrahim said his long, winding speeches gave him a “sense of strength and purpose” during a difficult time.
This week is a busy week for Abraham with the extravagant, iconoclastic “The Runaway,” which he created for the New York City Ballet in 2018, performing at Lincoln Center Tuesday through Thursday. He also choreographs his first one-act work for the Royal Ballet (he did a shorter piece for the company last year), to the contemporary classical music of Ryan Lott; It will return to London to add the finishing touches before its March 24 premiere. When he’s not on the road, he lives in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, where he teaches at the University of Southern California.
From his hotel room on a Friday evening, Abraham reflected on his inspirations for “Untitled Love” and the ups and downs of ballet troupe projects. Here are edited excerpts from the speech.
What are some of the memories that inspired “A Love Without a Name”?
There are many, really. I am one of those children who grew up on the mother’s side. Adult parties – I was allowed to be there for whatever reason, played cards with the adults and everything. The joke we played in the study, some of which was a nod to my relationship with my mother and our humor. We were like thieves.
The style, the atmosphere I’m interested in is also linked to my childhood and being with my family, like the plastic cover on the sofa – we had one of those – or this kind of textural or pattern clash. I was thinking about my mom and her friends sitting on the couch talking. Many of them worked for the Pittsburgh public school system, so they would come over on a Saturday and hang out and gossip a bit. All of these are at work.
Have you thought about your parents’ relationship?
I was definitely thinking of my family and their love. When my father was aphasic, all he could say was my mother’s name, or tell him that he suddenly loved her. Even when we weren’t very close, when I was a little kid—we became close—he would ask me to help him choose his gifts. To this day, I know the florist from Ludwig Flowers on the north side of Pittsburgh because my father always sent flowers to my mother on a whim.
You also mentioned this show as a love letter to D’Angelo’s music. What do you appreciate about their work?
There is so much to love. There’s funk, there’s depth, there’s a sense of community or a cultural moment that people can connect to, it’s the first time you’re listening to a Brown Sugar album or Voodoo album or it’s the 100th time you don’t want to stop playing it.
It was also difficult because I didn’t want to hear the music so much that I never wanted to hear it again. I didn’t want my connections with him to be watered down by the science of artifact creation.
Does the music still sound fresh to you?
Super fresh. Some things are even exaggerated. Do you know how you can tell who chose which song when you’re in a place with a jukebox and how they react when the song plays? They’re kind of looking around. There’s a song on this show – I look around when it drops. I was like, “Is there anyone? Anyone? Is this your jam too?”
Which one?
“Lady.” We had our show in Seattle last night – the fourth time the company has performed there. Seattle audiences have always been super quiet. But last night, when the “Lady” came, someone said, “Mmm, okay!” I heard you say. [Laughs.] “Yes it works!” said.
“An Untitled Love” is back in Brooklyn, and “The Runaway” is back at the New York City Ballet. Have you seen it since its premiere a few years ago?
No, but I’ll be there this month. I watched a rehearsal on Zoom recently and was really touched, in a good way. The last episode people saw, that wasn’t actually the last episode – maybe I did it in the last two rehearsals. We had another part, another song we used. I said to the dancers, “I can go that other direction or we can just stick with what we’re working on.” And they said, “Keep trying what you want to discover.”
This support is very special. They could phone up and say, “Listen, we don’t have time to learn more choreography.” But they wanted the best. This really suffocates me completely.
What are you working on for the Royal Ballet?
This is the first one-act ballet commissioned by a Black choreographer for the opera house’s main stage. [Robert Garland, of Dance Theater of Harlem, made a work for the Royal’s smaller Lindbury Studio Theater in 2004.] I tell my students this and they get excited. But it actually makes me sad. For example, how is this possible, no matter how long the company has been in existence?
I think someone like Ulysses PigeonHer work for the Royal Swedish Ballet, such as “Dancing Before Heaven”, or her work for the New York City Ballet. If he hadn’t lost his life so soon [to complications from AIDS, in 1996], he would ideally be there before me. It would be great to be able to talk to him and learn from him. i work for him Charlie Rose interviews and any image I could find online.
Is your work a tribute to him?
I don’t know if it’s choreographed. But I was talking to one of my closest friends, the choreographer Darrell Moultrie, and he said, “Whatever you do, if your intention is to honor Mr. Dove, it will happen.” So I try to just sit with that and not get overwhelmed with having a certain kind of narrative to read. I am in a place where I want to do this job at its absolute best while honoring Ulysses Dove and his legacy to the best of my ability.
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