Dance brings power to stage

BY SONYA ELLINGBOE SELLINGBOE@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Award-winning artistic director/choreographer Kyle Abraham brought the A.I.M. dance company to the Newman Center at the University of Denver for an exceptional evening of contemporary dance on Jan. 27.

“An Untitled Love,” a powerful new work by Abraham, was set to music by R&B legend D’Angelo. Abraham, who is presently the Claude and Alfred Mann Endowed Professor in Dance at the University of California’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, said he has worked on the new “An Untitled Love” for four years.

“I 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,” Abraham wrote.

“Within his songs existed the histories and Neo-romanticism of Black Love in America. e same year marked the Million Man March, a de ning moment for Black men in the U.S. to unite against injustice. As part of my extended exploration of personal identity through the movement, it feels important for me to dive into a process that explores and celebrates that unity and that love, in all its facets.

“Ultimately, 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,” Abraham wrote.

e stage was bare, except for a somewhat worn, fabric-covered sofa, angled at one side. Music and dancers lled the space at times and each of the 10 AIM members danced individually at other times, as D’Angelo and the Vanguard’s music owed.

“ is 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,” Abraham wrote in describing the intensive project.

Abraham, a MacArthur Fellow (2013), grew up in Pittsburgh, then headed to New York, where he earned a BFA from SUNY Purchase and an MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. He later received an honorary doctorate in ne arts from Washington Je erson College. His dance training began at Pittsburgh’s Civic Light Opera Academy and the Creative and Performing Arts High School in that city.

Prior to USC, Abraham served as a visiting professor in residence at the University of California Los Angeles’ World Arts Cultures in Dance program (2016 to 2021).

A.I.M. was founded in New York City in 2006 and the dancers who appeared at the Newman Center were: Jamaal Bowman, Tamisha

A. Guy, Catherine Kirk, Jae Neal, Donovan Reed, Martell Ru n, Dymon Smara, Kar’mel Antonyowade Small, Keturah Stephen and Gianna eodore.

One additional contemporary dance program remains in the Newman Center Presents series for this season: e Paul Taylor Dance Company on March 27. e remaining performances vary widely from e Philip Glass Ensemble to Kodo to e Mingus Big Band. See newmancenterpresents.com. e box o ce number is 303-871-7720.

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