Pittsburgh is already prominently featured on the world map of art. Mr. Pop Art aka Andy Warhol was born here, as was Gene Kelly, who made the MGM musicals steppe. Now you will have to remember another name: that of the choreographer Kyle Abraham, born in 1977 in the US metropolis, currently still debutant on the international stage. In this respect, Hamburg’s Kampnagel director Amelie Deuflhard and her summer festival director András Siebold showed the right instinct when they invited Abraham and his eleven-person company AIM to develop a new piece. “Requiem: Fire in the Air of the Earth” fuses Mozart and rave, mixes ballet, jazz and modern dance – a hybrid that transforms traditional lines into future vectors.
It is no coincidence that someone like Abraham can do something like this. The man has a different background than most dance creatives who are involved in classical dance: he belongs to the still small black community in the ballet diaspora, to the artist vanguard who have gained entry into the strongholds of white culture. In Abraham’s case, that means three works for the New York City Ballet, which will soon be premiered at the Royal Ballet in London. If it turns out to be just as compelling as the Hamburg “Requiem”, the opera house in Covent Garden will be upside down.
All “Requiem” episodes are as airy as Giles Deacon’s silky white costumes. Where the fashion designer plays with tutu, peplum and puff sleeves, Kyle Abraham quotes the signatures of historical styles and dance epochs: courtly poses and romantic pas de deux, rococo gallantries and charming ménages-à-trois. But the amusement is just a nice accessory along the way, before death makes the bodies tremble. “Requiem” brings dying right into life, immersing it in the chiaroscuro of a solar corona on the otherwise dark stage. Apart from Mozart’s composition, electronically transposed into the 21st century by the music producer Jlin, the halo is the only reference to the pandemic that raged particularly cruelly in New York, Abraham’s adopted home.
The evening reflects the US dance iconography and its legends.
(Photo: Peter Hönnemann)
The choreography jumps back and forth between tutti, duet and solo passages. Twists of the chain, spinning around at lightning speed and connecting individual dance elements, keep the staging going as well as rapid changes of mood. The dancers balance barefoot through the existential experiment, plunge into ecstasy, touch the grief with swinging arms. They let themselves fall into the music, as undramatic as they are virtuoso, and shine with phenomenal versatility. Viewed rightly, the evening reflects US dance iconography and its legends: the expressive emphasis of Martha Graham, the black dance theater of Arthur Mitchell or Alvin Ailey, filigree elegance à la Merce Cunningham and Balanchine’s crystalline ballet trials.
Abraham is not an autodidact, but a well-trained all-rounder. A professional who has a brief conversation after the rehearsal just as friendly as a Zoom appointment days later – “I don’t have jet lag because I always sleep badly”. And since his childhood, which he spends in an artistic family home and a rather cozy neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The school bus shuttles him and his cello to the center every day, where street gangs are in charge. His sister teaches him hip-hop, followed by a phase as a rave kid, then he jumped into musicals – “that’s how one thing resulted in the other.” Finally, he studied dance in New York, which familiarized him with the full range of contemporary dance and led to the founding of AIM in 2006. The troupe receives both state funding and private sponsorship in return for a convincing concept. Abraham’s aesthetic does not detach itself from everyday life; his pieces always open up social lines of sight. This could already be seen in the very first work that he presented in Berlin in 2016: “Pavement” tells of police violence and youth revolt, packs the lust and frustration of growing up in catchy images.
He doesn’t want to be a black alibichoreographer in a mostly white ballet milieu
The forty-four year old has just proven that he can do other things with “When we fell”, a poetic elegy for the New York City Ballet: ballerinas in pointe shoes in front of the backdrop of the Lincoln Center, everything kept strictly black and white. It was his artistic emergence from the Corona Valley. What does he take with him from the crisis? “Firstly, we should concentrate on what is possible instead of staring at the obstacles. Secondly, we should be aware of the losses.” “Requiem” arose from this idea, although the material has accompanied him since the death of his parents a few years ago.
Abraham lives in Brooklyn, between two parks, many artist colleagues and two corners from Spike Lee’s film studio. The fact that it will make more and more trips into the world has to do with its rising market value. For his part, it is important not to be a placeholder: not a black alibichoreographer in the predominantly white ballet milieu. But a master, a thoughtful and differentiated type who creates exciting body narratives. Anyone who has seen the Hamburg “Requiem” will not doubt it for a moment.