Kyle Abraham’s Second Act at City Ballet: Spare, Wintry, Abstract
The choreographer and World Arts and Cultures/Dance professor Kyle Abraham has a new dance for New York City Ballet premiering this week.
Abraham, center, said that in rehearsals, “I think people did need time to let the walls come down.” Credit Erin Baiano "Few ballets in recent years have caused as much of a sensation as Kyle Abraham’s “The Runaway” at New York City Ballet in 2018. In it, Abraham fused elements of classical ballet with street and contemporary dance to thrilling effect — and rapturous reviews — amplified by his equally eclectic musical choices (Kanye West and Nico Muhly, Jay-Z and James Blake) and fantastical costumes by Giles Deacon.
That’s a hard act to follow. And so for his new piece for City Ballet, “When We Fell,” which will debut on the company’s website and YouTube channel on Thursday, Abraham deliberately took another path, moving away from the charged atmosphere of “The Runaway.”
In a video interview, Abraham said that the tone and mood of the new piece were partly inspired by his childhood obsession with the Prince film “Under the Cherry Moon.” (“I used to ask my mother to rent it every time we went to the video store.”)
“If ‘The Runaway’ was my ‘Purple Rain,’” Abraham said, “this new work would be closer to ‘Cherry Moon’” — a black and white movie whose key song, for Abraham, is “Sometimes It Snows in April.”
“This dance was very much developed in snow and winter for a premiere in April,” he said. “So there is a kind of homage to all these things.”
Also in black and white, “When We Fell,” to piano pieces by Morton Feldman, Jason Moran and Nico Muhly, is a spare, abstract and cinematic homage to City Ballet’s choreographic heritage, its dancers and its home at Lincoln Center, the David H. Koch Theater, where it was shot. Directed by Abraham and Ryan Marie Helfant, the film reflects the experiences and visual influences of a three-week “bubble” residency at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park in Tivoli, N.Y., where Abraham worked on the piece with eight dancers."— Roslyn Sulcas, Apr. 6, 2021
This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on the New York Times website.
Read more about Kyle Abraham.
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