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Events An Untitled Love

An Untitled Love

A.I.M by Kyle Abraham

September 23 + 24 at 7:30pm

See All Showtimes

September 23 at 7:30pm

September 24 at 7:30pm


2022 Fringe Festival

65 min

$35

Philadelphia Film CenterMap

Wheelchair Accessible


You know how when you’re out at a place with a jukebox, you can tell who’s picked what song by their reaction when the song comes on? “Anybody? Anybody? Is this your jam too?” (The New York Times)

An Untitled Love is a new evening-length work from acclaimed choreographer Kyle Abraham (2013 MacArthur Fellow, Choreographer for NYC Ballet, The Royal Ballet, and Alvin Ailey). 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.

A.I.M by Kyle Abraham is one of the most active touring dance companies in the United States, with an audience base as multi-facetted as its movement vocabulary, drawing inspiration from a broad range of cultural themes and dance styles. Since the company’s founding in 2006, Abraham has created more than 15 original works for and with the company—including this interdimensional exploration of love.

NOTE: the Thursday, September 22 performance of An Untitled Love has been canceled due to technical issues that prevent the presentation of the show. Ticket buyers can reach out to the FringeArts Box Office at patronservices@fringearts.com or 215.413.1318 to exchange their tickets or receive a refund.

“There’s a bit of nostalgia, a bit of pride, a lot of love.”
New City Stage

Credits

Choreography: Kyle Abraham in collaboration with A.I.M
Music: D’Angelo & The Vanguard
Scenic & Lighting Design: Dan Scully
Visual Art: Joe Buckingham
Costume Design: Karen Young and Kyle Abraham
Sound Editor: Sam Crawford
Artistic Advisors: Risa Steinberg, Charlotte Brathwaite

Health & Safety

Proof of vaccination is required to attend this event. Masks are encouraged. For the safety of audiences, artists, staff, and our greater community, you must be fully vaccinated to attend this event. You will be asked to show proof of vaccination before entering the venue. Accepted forms for proof of vaccination include a physical vaccine card with your name on it or a digital proof of vaccination Please plan accordingly.

Supporters

Support for An Untitled Love has been provided to FringeArts by the New England Foundation for the Arts.

Festival Co-Producers: Michael Lillys, Jane G. Pepper, Lynne & Bert Strieb 

Leadership support for An Untitled Love is generously provided by Denise Littlefield Sobel. Additional support for An Untitled Love is provided by Steven M. Pesner.

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.

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.

Pricing

$35 general
$15 student and 25-and-under
$2 FringeACCESS

Tickets go on sale to FringeArts Members on Friday, August 5, and to the general public on Monday, August 8.

 

Not a member? Join now and receive 20% off tickets, among other perks!

Venue

Philadelphia Film Center
1412 Chestnut St
Philadelphia, PA 19102

About the Artists

Contemporary dance company A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, considered “one of the most consistently excellent troupes working today” (The New York Times), provides multifaceted performances, educational programming, and community-based workshops across the globe. Led by acclaimed Choreographer and Artistic Director Kyle 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; described by Abraham as a “post-modern gumbo” of movement exploration. 

A.I.M is one of the most active touring dance companies in the United States, with an audience base as diverse as A.I.M’s movement vocabulary, drawing inspiration from a multitude of sources and dance styles. Since A.I.M’s founding in 2006, Abraham has created more than 15 original works for and with the company. To expand its repertoire and offer a breadth of dance work to audiences, A.I.M commissions new works and performs existing works by outside choreographers, such as Trisha Brown, Bebe Miller, Andrea Miller, and current A.I.M dancer Keerati Jinakunwiphat.

Kyle Abraham’s unique vision and illumination of poignant and relevant issues set him apart from his generation of choreographers as a leading creative force in dance. A.I.M extends this vision and amplifies surrounding artistic voices to share movement and community-based work with audiences around the world. 

For more information, to get involved, or purchase your A.I.M merchandise, please visit http://aimbykyleabraham.org. Follow A.I.M on Instagram @aimbykyleabraham and Kyle Abraham at @kyle_abraham_original_recipe.

 

Princess Grace Statue Award Recipient (2018), Doris Duke Award Recipient (2016), and MacArthur Fellow (2013) Kyle Abraham began his dance training at the Civic Light Opera Academy and the Creative and Performing Arts High School in Pittsburgh, PA. After graduating from Schenley High School, Abraham continued his dance studies in New York, earning a BFA from SUNY Purchase and an MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Abraham later received an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Washington Jefferson College. Abraham is currently the Claude and Alfred Mann Endowed Professor in Dance at The University of Southern California (USC) Glorya Kaufman School of Dance (2021-). Prior to USC, Abraham served as a visiting professor in residence at the University of California, Los Angeles’s (UCLA) World Arts Cultures in Dance program (2016-2021). Abraham serves on the advisory board for Dance Magazine, and in 2020 was selected to be their first-ever Guest Editor. Abraham sits on the artist advisory board for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the ​​inaugural Black Genius Brain Trust. In addition, Abraham was named a Kennedy Center Next 50 Leader (2021), a list of leaders who exemplify the Center’s mission to help shape culture and society through the arts.

Rebecca Bengal of Vogue wrote, “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 [Cunningham] and Martha [Graham] as it is Eadweard Muybridge and Michael Jackson.” 

In addition to performing and developing new works for his company A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, Abraham has been commissioned by a wide variety of 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’s third work for New York City Ballet, When We Fell (2021), was reviewed by The New York Times as “among the most beautiful dance films of the pandemic.” Other recent works include The Weathering (2022), commissioned by The Royal Ballet; Abraham’s collaboration with NYCB Principal Dancer Taylor Stanley on Ces noms que nous portons (2020), a Lincoln Center and NYCB commissioned solo; and Unto The End, We Meet (2020), commissioned by the National Ballet of Cuba. Abraham was the final choreographer commissioned by Paul Taylor before his passing, creating Only The Lonely (2019) for Paul Taylor American Modern Dance. The Runaway (2018) was recognized on the “Best Dance of 2018” list by The New York Times, and Untitled America (2016), a 3-part commissioned work for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was described by The New York Times as “potent and explosive and wonderfully of the moment.”

In addition to his work for A.I.M and other major dance companies, Abraham has choreographed for many of the leading dancers of our time. Most recently, to be seen (2020), a new solo for American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer Calvin Royal III, premiered during the virtual Fall For Dance Festival. Of this solo, The New York Times observed “how skilled [Abraham] has become at mingling the ballet vernacular with other forms, from hip-hop to West African movement” and his unique talent for “finding the person within the dancer and the bodies within a body.” Abraham created Ash (2019), a solo work for American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer Misty Copeland that also had its premiere at Fall for Dance. The Serpent and The Smoke (2016) toured as part of Restless Creature, a pas de deux for Abraham and acclaimed Bessie Award-winning and former New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Wendy Whelan. Off the stage, Abraham choreographed the music video for Sufjan Stevens’ Sugar (2020), and for the feature-length film The Book of Henry (2016) for acclaimed director Colin Trevorrow. 

In his early career, Abraham served as a choreographic contributor for Beyonce’s British Vogue cover shoot (2013) and was named a Joyce Creative Residency Artist (2017-18), a City Center Choreographer in Residence (2015), the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award recipient (2012), a USA Ford Fellow (2012), and the New York Live Arts Resident Commissioned Artist (2012–2014). Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater premiered Abraham’s Another Night (2012) at New York City Center. OUT Magazine labeled Abraham as the “best and brightest creative talent to emerge in New York City in the age of Obama” (2011). Abraham is the recipient of a Bessie Award for Outstanding Performance in Dance for The Radio Show (2010), a Princess Grace Award for Choreography (2010), and was selected as one of Dance Magazine’s “25 To Watch” (2009).

Abraham’s choreography has been presented throughout the United States and abroad. Notable venues and festivals include Brooklyn Academy of Music, Danspace Project, Fall for Dance Festival at New York City Center, Harlem Stage, The Joyce Theater, and Lincoln Center in New York; Carpenter Performing Arts Center, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Los Angeles Music Center in California; Dance Center at Columbia College Chicago in Illinois; ICA Boston and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts; Bates Dance Festival in Maine; American Dance Festival in North Carolina; The Andy Warhol Museum, The Byham, and The Kelly-Strayhorn Theater in Pennsylvania; Performing Arts Houston and TITAS in Texas; On The Boards and Seattle Theatre Group in Washington; and The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Internationally Abraham’s works have toured to Théâtre Paul Eluard, Maison de la Danse, Théâtre de la Ville, and L’Onde in France; Tanz Im August and Kampnagel Festival in Germany; Project Arts Centre in Ireland; The Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum in Japan; and the Royal Opera House and Sadler’s Wells in the United Kingdom, among others. 

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