Park Avenue Armory, New York, NY.
December 14, 2024.
Expensive Lord, Make Me Lovely…Kyle Abraham poses this request in his newest work, offered on the Park Avenue Armory this winter. For 70 minutes, the viewers watched as 17 dancers explored what this implies and undoubtable really feel the nuanced and sophisticated methods all of us ask this for ourselves. Abraham, at 47, joined the ensemble forged and danced in his personal work within the first time in almost a decade. His inclusion within the work added the esoteric aspect we hardly ever see in dance: a seasoned choreographer performing their very own work years after many individuals cease dancing. The result’s one thing we must always see extra of, as a result of the influence was vital.
Dance is essentially an adolescent’s pursuit, shifting by center age into educating and choreographing for a lot of. The unusual incidence of somebody like Abraham placing himself onstage is of private curiosity to me, as somebody only a couple years youthful than he’s and nonetheless dancing. I’ve lengthy maintained there’s a richness and poignancy to watching a dancer who has been by life put these experiences into the steps on stage. Expensive Lord, Make Me Lovely proved my concept appropriate.
The huge house of the Armory hosted a stage with a sloped backdrop, awash in projection of verdant leaves, transferring barely. Abraham seems together with his signature smile, working in circles and over time morphs from a physique with the youthful vitality of kid to the labored effort of an aged human. Because the ensemble fills the house, he disappears into the group turning into one with the group he created. Vignettes develop from the big group and we see dancers coming out and in of various facets of life. No dancer is identical, however all of them share a command of approach that enables the concepts Abraham seeks to discover blossom.
The dance morphs by concepts of the passage of time and the anxiousness of life as one ages. We see tableaus of dancers, every seemingly a presentation of the eras all of us expertise. The world created by Abraham and the dancers reminds us of the one and the all, and the way we’re every the one and the all at totally different instances in life. The projections shift tones from colour, to sepia, and at last stop to exist all collectively, leaving a stark white stage because the piece ends. Whereas I can’t converse for the Lord, the work is definitely stunning and a transparent results of the amalgamation of many considerate dance many years, revealing a wealthy and recognizable tapestry of humanity.
By Emily Sarkissian of Dance Informa.
