2022 Supported by Flure LOVEUNTITLEDANGrossartA.I.MbyKyleAbraham Saturday 20 August & Sunday 21 August 8pm Sunday 21 August 3pm KING’S THEATRE The performance lasts approximately 1 hour 10 minutes. Please ensure that all mobile phones and electronic devices are switched off or put on silent.
Karen Young and Kyle Abraham
Music
Jamaal
Sound Editor
Commissioning support for An Untitled Love comes from American Dance Festival with support from the Doris Duke/SHS Foundations Award for New Works; August Wilson African American Cultural Center; Brooklyn Academy of Music; Performing Arts Houston; Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival; The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College, Director Seth Soloway; Seattle Theater Group; and White Bird, Portland, Oregon, made possible through White Bird’s 2020 Barney Choreographic Prize.
Visual
Joe Buckingham Design
Costume
Risa CharlotteSteinbergBrathwaite
Kyle Abraham in collaboration with A.I.M D’Angelo & The Vanguard & Lighting Design
Scenic
Dan Scully Art
Performers
AN UNTITLED LOVE
GiannaDymonMartellDonovanJaeCatherineClaudeKeeratiTamishaBowmanA.GuyJinakunwiphat‘CJ’JohnsonKirkNealReedRuffinSamaraTheodore
Choreography
Leadership support for An Untitled Love is generously provided by Denise Littlefield Sobel. Additional support is provided by Steven M. Pesner.
Sam Crawford Artistic Advisor
An Untitled Love was made possible by the Nathan M. Clark Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; and New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Mellon Foundation; and the Harkness Foundation for Dance. An Untitled Love was created in part through residencies at the Pillow Lab at Jacob’s Pillow; the August Wilson African American Cultural Center in Pittsburgh, PA; the National Center for Choreography at the University of Akron; and during a ‘bubble’ residency at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park and LUMBERYARD, made possible by the Mellon Foundation. An Untitled Love was created in part to benefit Dancers Responding to AIDS with generous support from Legacy Sponsors Rockefeller Brothers Fund and The SHS Foundation, in loving memory of Tom Morgan.
An Untitled Love is Kyle Abraham’s new evening-length work. 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.
CHOREOGRAPHER’S
‘Some say we are responsible for those we love. Others know we are responsible for those who love us.’ Nikki Giovanni Thank you for being here to see An Untitled Love. It’s been four years in the making, and I’m so overwhelmed with emotions to finally present this work in theatres. I’m humbled, nervous and curious to finally share this work with Iyou.fell in love with D’Angelo’s debut album Brown Sugar when I was an undergrad at Morgan State University, a historically Black university, in Baltimore in 1995. Within his songs existed the histories and neo-romanticism of Black love in America. The same year marked The Million Man March, a defining moment for Black men in America to unite against injustice. As part of my extended exploration of personal identity through movement, it feels important for me to dive into a process that explores and celebrates that unity and that love, in all its Ultimately,facets. this work is dedicated to my parents, family (extended and immediate), to the cousins, aunts and uncles who aren’t blood related, but who we call family all the same.
© Kyle Abraham NOTE
BYA.I.MKYLE ABRAHAM Founded in 2006, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham provides multifaceted performances, educational programming and community-based workshops worldwide, inspired by Black culture and history and drawing on a multitude of sources and dance styles. It is now one of the most active touring dance companies in the USA, with a hugely diverse audience base. Kyle Abraham has created more than 15 original works for and with the company, which also commissions new works and performs existing works by other leading choreographers such as Trisha Brown, Bebe Miller, Andrea Miller and Keerati Jinakunwiphat, who currently dances with A.I.M.. The company aims to extend Kyle Abraham’s unique vision and his illumination of poignant and relevant issues, and to amplify artistic voices. Sophie NYForest72-11LotusPresidentMyrtil-McCourtyArtsManagementAustinStreet,Suite371Hills11375 Telephone: 347.721.8724 Email: Website:sophie@lotusartsmgmt.comlotusartsmgmt.com
KYLE ABRAHAM
Kyle Abraham was born in Pittsburgh, where he began his dance training at the Civic Light Opera Academy and the Creative and Performing Arts High School. He subsequently studied in New York at SUNY Purchase, the Tisch School of the Arts and Washington Jefferson College. In addition to performing and developing work for his company A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, which he founded in 2006, he has been commissioned by numerous dance companies. His commissions include the divertissement Optional Family for The Royal Ballet, presented as part of its 21st-Century Choreographers programme last year; When We Fell and Ces noms que nous portons for New York City Ballet (NYCB); Unto The End, We Meet for the National Ballet of Cuba; to be seen for the virtual 2020 Fall For Dance Festival; Ash for Misty Copeland; Only The Lonely for Paul Taylor American Modern Dance; The Bystander for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago; The Runaway for NYCB’s 2018 Fall Fashion Gala; Another Night and the three-part work Untitled America for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; and The Serpent and The Smoke, a pas de deux for himself and Wendy Whelan as part of her documentary Restless Creature. He is a professor at the University of Southern California Glorya Kaufman School of Dance and an inaugural member of the Black Genius Brain Trust.