His A.I.M. is true: Kyle Abraham's Joyce season

Claude CJ Johnson, Connie Shiau and Catherine Ellis Kirk
of A.I.M. perform Kyle Abraham's Drive.
(photo: Ian Douglas)

No half-measures. No uncertainty. Kyle Abraham is at The Joyce Theater this week with his newly-renamed troupe, A.I.M., doing things to the max.

This season--which makes room for dances by Doug Varone and Bebe Miller, world premieres by Andrea Miller and Abraham as well as the Joyce commission of his first solo performance in nearly a decade--feels like a bold announcement of a new phase in the life and career of this award-winning artist. In an opening-night audience packed with New York's dance notables and media, it also felt like the place to be.

Program A opens with the Miller trio, state, where a knife-sharp trio of Black women--Kayla Farrish, Catherine Ellis Kirk and Marcella Lewis, with whom Miller collaborated--splash their stark images, live or via looming shadows, against the pale glow of a backdrop. They resemble stylish fashion models distorting their bodies out of mundane functionality into nifty abstractions for the eye of photographers and magazine readers; a fascination grows with the hypnotic observation of their physical capabilities and precision design, their aggressive flair. Reggie Wilkins's music underscores a certain sci-fi otherworldliness in this picture as does Nicole Pearce's lighting design--but she's got even more astonishing ideas for Abraham's solo, INDY.

Created with composer-pianist Jerome Begin, INDY is a work of emergence, search and breakthrough, as moving as it is beautiful to behold. It reveals itself slowly, literally coming out of mist. In its early moments, I see aspects of the dancer I remember from way back: part b-boy/part voguer, the latter's effortlessly slinky moves a form of catnip for this audience. (Let me pause, a minute, to throw a few !!!s behind the name of designer Karen Young whose black slacks/top costume, with its thick bands of fringe, throws more than a few !!!s around Abraham's gyrations: Karen Young!!!). But with the spreading of his arms and the parting of the black curtain behind him, Abraham moves on from this image of himself.

We find him shuddering, his arms locked behind his back as if his wrists are handcuffed. Pearce's lighting, here and throughout, arrives from the oddest places and in the strangest ways. She is a fount of surprises, stepping up to the challenge of choreographer ready to surprise himself and all who follow him. Begin's sound chamber suddenly erupts in an audio clip of a voice announcing Abraham's BFA graduation. The dancer strips down to briefs to move around like an awkward, broken marionnette.

The work's fully-revealed, eye-popping visual design suggests a well-ordered cosmos--external and containing the dancer or internal and generative of his evolution, perhaps both. The Abraham we see now has unshackled himself from our and, likely, his own expectations.

With Meditation: A Silent Prayer, another Abraham world premiere, made in collaboration with his performers, the choreographer returns to a concern that has informed his works in previous years--the precarious existence of Black lives in white supremacist society; specifically, the unrelenting roll call of deaths of Blacks at the hands of police. The ensemble gently performs moments of human connection before Titus Kaphar's backdrop-spanning mural of what, at first, might seem to be looming images of three distinct Black faces. Instead, you come to realize, the three are blurs made to look like multiple, overlapped and moving faces. We hear a litany of ages, family roles and names, written and read in voiceover by artist Carrie Mae Weems. In addition to Kaphar and Weems, the notable creative team for Meditation includes Craig Harris (music), Dan Scully (lighting) and Young (costumes).

This program--as well as Program B--ends with Drive, an Abraham collaboration with A.I.M. which was a hit of the 2017 Fall for Dance Festival at City Center. More tight work by the ensemble, more stunning lighting by Scully, and the asserted conviction that--when ready--you can just pick up and go wherever you choose to go. A.I.M. is ready.

Performers:

Kyle Abraham, Kayla Farrish, Catherine Ellis Kirk, Marcella Lewis, Tamisha Guy, Keerati Jinakunwiphat, Jeremy "Jae" Neal, Matthew Baker and Claude "CJ" Johnson

****

A.I.M.'s Joyce season runs through Sunday, May 6 with two programs and varying start times as follows:

Program A (approx. 1hr 40 min)

Tuesday (7:30pm), Friday (8pm) and Saturday (2pm)

state (World Premiere) by Andrea Miller
INDY (World Premiere) by Kyle Abraham
Meditation: A Silent Prayer (World Premiere) by Kyle Abraham
Drive by Kyle Abraham

Program B (approx. 1 hr 20 min)

Wednesday (7:30pm), Thursday and Saturday (8pm) and Sunday (2pm)

Strict Love by Doug Varone
Habits of Attraction by Bebe Miller
Meditation: A Silent Prayer (World Premiere) by Kyle Abraham
Drive by Kyle Abraham

For information and tickets, click here.

The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Avenue (corner of 19th Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Subscribe in a reader

Doug Varone and Dancers strip it down at 92Y

My review of Doug Varone and Dancers at 92nd Street Y's Harkness Dance Festival has just been posted to DanceMagazine.com.

Read it here.

"Body and Soul" podcast presents Listen.: Doug Varone [AUDIO]

Surprise!

It's time to revive my old dance interview podcast, Body and Soul.

I'm starting with Listen., a new series-within-the-series that will feature short, unmediated takes by artists from the dance world and allied disciplines about...well, really about anything they want to say, any way they want to say it. While I expect that these folks have plenty to say about life, art, politics, spirituality and more, each one will have to keep it all down to 10 minutes max--which is good for focusing the speaker's mind and holding the typical Web surfer's attention, right?

Click here to subscribe to Body and Soul podcast in iTunes and listen to my great first guest of the new series--choreographer/director Doug Varone, Artistic Director of Doug Varone and Dancers.

Doug Varone (Photo by Phil Knott)

Doug's bio

Doug Varone and Dancers
 
Joyce Theater season, October 9-14

All upcoming performances
 
Your donation will help keep Body and Soul together. Please get in touch, and I'll happily send instructions. Thanks!

(c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody (http://infinitebody.blogspot.com)

Doug Varone at The Joyce

Here's my Dance Magazine review of Doug Varone and Dancers at The Joyce Theater (March 15-20). Click here.

The beat does not go on

Hey, there.

I've just returned to New York and the news that my colleague (and first Dance Magazine editor) Tobi Tobias has just lost her paying gig at cost-cutting Bloomberg News.

Sigh...

Two recent reviews by Tobi, originally posted to Bloomberg News and re-posted to her ArtsJournal blog, Seeing Things:

Paul Taylor Celebrates Walt Whitman on Life, Love
March 6, 2009

Murdered Reporter Pearl Evoked in 'Daniel' Dance
February 26, 2009

A few thoughts on Macaulay at Barnard

"I hope I say what I see. I hope I don't just give my opinion. You have to justify it. It's important to discipline your feeling as well as your vision." -- Alastair Macaulay

Alastair Macaulay, the New York Times's new Senior Dance Critic, joined the ranks of dance journalists in 1978--a few years after I did--and now sits in the most visible, most influential and powerful position in our (still rather marginal) field. I greeted the Times appointment of this talented, expressive British writer with a mixture of hope and skepticism, and now my hope has been bolstered somewhat by Macaulay's chat with Mindy Aloff, his American colleague and friend, at Barnard College last evening. As they say in the sports world, that hope comes with an asterisk, and we'll get to that asterisk later.

What I like about Macaulay

Now that I've had a chance to lay eyes on the man and hear him speak, I'm intrigued and can well imagine how the Powers-That-Be--who, according to Macaulay don't know much about dance and small-talked their way through his job interviews--would find him a captivating candidate. Before an audience of Barnard dance students and faculty, with a fair representation from New York's critic rank-and-file, Aloff posed gentle questions and Macaulay responded with all the courtly grace of the ballroom dance student he used to be and the "closet dancer" he says he is today.

His thoughtful replies often took the form of stories--some amusing in a low-key way, some honestly told at his own expense. (Here's one: He must rise very early to draft his reviews at the Times offices because he has yet to set up a computer--or much else--in his apartment.) I was surprised and charmed by his soft-edged, even self-effacing manner. And I recognized in all of this the person whose work first caught my attention--a writer with a very human, personal voice, a clear sense of engagement, a smart but also free, lively, colorful mind. Confident in his writing, but not overly invested in his own cleverness. Authoritative and firm in his opinions but not arrogant. Someone who sounded as if he gave a damn.

His critical expertise and experience extends to music and theater, but he declares a proper respect for dance--"a hard art to write about," which it is. In his work, he recognizes a desire to communicate why dance matters to him, the son of a farmer. As a farmer's son, he knows a thing or two about nature, like precisely how swans' massive wings beat and sound, and that perceptiveness informs his preference for one Swan Lake choreographer's approach to the movement of swans' wings, which he demonstrates impeccably. Even if I were not a birder, I'd have tip my hat to Macaulay for that alone.

What still concerns me
And now we get to that asterisk.
"A critic--if he's going to spend time looking at this art--had better become acquainted with plenty of it."

That was Macaulay talking, not me. But it gave me just the opening I needed for a question I later asked him after listening to him repeatedly (and solely) refer to his gods: Balanchine, Mozart, Cunningham, Shakespeare. Imagine if you took up residence in New York but your exploration extended only as far as Lincoln Center and its immediate precincts and you never ventured down to Chinatown or out to Little India, and you never discovered the amazing variety of little shorebirds (and the occasional swan) at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. In short, I felt that a Senior Dance Critic of the New York Times should be required to get around more.

I've been thinking a lot about this since he got here. My thoughts have not always been as diplomatic as my words were last evening. I posed my question nicely, and he agreed. He mentioned, with pleasure, some initial excursions--to Noche Flamenca, to Reggie Wilson and Andreya Ouamba's Accounting for Customs. Although he declared his intention to critique any dance according to his own sense of what was right, he acknowledged that his inexperience with some forms, histories and legacies could interfere somewhat with the effectiveness of his criticism. In short, he promised to work on it.

One of my colleagues, while trading emails with me about Macaulay's notorious smackdown of Doug Varone's Dense Terrain, described the Times guy as a work-in-progress. It's clear, from the non-defensive openness in his answer to my question, that he'd agree with that assessment. He has hit the ground running, and he says he is interested in seeing more, seeing more widely, and determined to write honestly, based on his perceptions and standards.

I know I will not always agree with Macaulay, but I respect his word, and I want to see him take on the most interesting and remarkable and even the most baffling dance New York has to offer. I'd like to see him show his colleagues at the Times and elsewhere what the Senior Dance Critic of the New York Times should be, and maybe make us all work a little harder to catch up. I remain interested in what a writer of his passion and sensibilities will do with the multifaceted challenge and opportunity that is New York.

(c) 2007, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

My reviews in Dance Magazine's July issue

The July Dance Magazine has a few of my reviews of shows from recent months:

[bjm_danse] -- April 17-22, Joyce Theater (print only)
(This is the company formerly known as Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal.)

DanceAfrica -- May 25-27, BAM Opera House (online only)

Doug Varone and Dancers -- May 16-19, BAM Harvey Theater (online only)

If the above links do not work directly, click here, then click on the Reviews tab, click on 2007 and click on July.

Eva Yaa Asantewaa