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NEW YORK CITY PREMIERE
“What Abraham brings … is an avant-garde aesthetic, an original and politically minded downtown sensibility that doesn’t distinguish between genres but freely draws on a vocabulary that is as much Merce and Martha as it is Eadweard Muybridge and Michael Jackson.” – Vogue
ABOUT THE WORK
Nostalgia isn’t just a feeling, it’s a rhythm, a groove, a dance that lives in the body. Weaving together the pop, R&B, and New Wave sounds of his youth, Kyle Abraham crafts a work that moves between camp and critique, honoring the influences that shaped him, from M/A/R/R/S to Prince, from Trisha Brown to Bill T. Jones. Ballet technique meets release-based articulation in a hybrid movement language that speaks to the non-monolithic Black experience and the cultural collisions of the 1980s and 1990s. Equal parts joy and reflection, Cassette Vol. 1 invites us to laugh at the extremes, mourn what’s lost, and move with the music that made us.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Kyle Abraham and his choreography have been featured in Document Journal, Ebony, Kinfolk, O Magazine, Vogue, and Vogue UK among other publications. Abraham is the proud recipient of a Princess Grace Statue Award (2018), Doris Duke Award (2016), and MacArthur Fellowship (2013). He serves as the Claude and Alfred Mann Endowed Professor in Dance at The University of Southern California, Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. Abraham also sits on the advisory boards for Dance Magazine and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the inaugural Black Genius Brain Trust, and the inaugural cohort of the Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab, a partnership between the Prada Group, Theaster Gates Studio, Dorchester Industries, and Rebuild Foundation. His company, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, is widely considered “one of the most consistently excellent troupes working today” (The New York Times). Led by Abraham’s innovative vision, the work of A.I.M is galvanized by Black culture and history and grounded in a conglomeration of unique perspectives. Abraham has been commissioned by dance companies including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, The National Ballet of Cuba, New York City Ballet, and The Royal Ballet. Abraham has also choreographed for many of the leading dancers of our time, including Misty Copeland, Calvin Royal III, and Wendy Whelan. For more information, visit aimbykyleabraham.org.
CREATIVE CREDITS
SUPPORT
This project is made possible with the support of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the Harkness Foundation for Dance.
*Princess Grace Award Recipient / **Princess Grace Statue Award
Cassette Vol.1 is co-commissioned by the International Summer Festival Kampnagel (Hamburg, Germany), Festspielhaus St. Pölten (AT), Tangente St. Pölten-Festival für Gegenwartskultur and PEAK Performances, Montclair State University.
Lead Sponsorship support for Cassette Vol.1 provided by the Ed Bradley Family Foundation. Sustaining support for Cassette Vol.1 provided by Torrence Boone.
NYU Skirball’s programs are made possible in part with support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the Howard Gilman Foundation; Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels; Culture Ireland; The Shubert Foundation; Collins Building Services; General Delegation of the Government of Flanders to the USA; Goethe Institut New York with support from the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany; Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation; Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation; New England Foundation for the Arts; Harkness Foundation for Dance; and Marta Heflin Foundation; as well as our valued donors through memberships, commissioning, and Allies for Arts Access Fund support.
