Tickets & Events

Community Class with Kyle Abraham

KST Presents

Part of My People 2021 | Presented by PearlArts

Friday, November 12
10:00am – 12:00pm

KST’s Alloy Studios | 5530 Penn Ave
Pay What Makes You Happy (Limited Capacity) 

Proof of Vaccine and masks required 

REGISTER NOW!

Classes taught by A.I.M emphasize four of the company’s core movement values: exploration, musicality, abandonment, and intuition. The opening warm-up sequence focuses on the fluidity of the spine, articulation, and core body strengthening; and then builds up to challenging, creative and invigorating phrase work. Students experience a personalized postmodern movement vocabulary full of intricate gestures and signature A.I.M moves.

Community Class with Kyle Abraham is presented as part of the PearlArts @ KST Mutual Aid Residency.

Credit: A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, Photo by Alice Chacon.


AND DON’T MISS THESE OTHER MY PEOPLE 2021 EVENTS:

Love and Relationships: a Screening and Conversation
with Kyle Abraham, Brian Broome, Akasha L. Van Cartier, Staycee Pearl, and sarah huny young

Wednesday, November 10
8:00pm

KST’s Alloy Studios | 5530 Penn Ave
Pay What Makes You Happy 

My People begins on Wednesday, November 10, the city of Pittsburgh’s official Kyle Abraham Day, and celebrates the art of Abraham with an in-person screening of a new dance film. Set to a tender soundtrack the film was created by Abraham in collaboration with the dancers of his contemporary dance company A.I.M by Kyle Abraham and filmmaker Dehanza Rogers. The 30-minute piece features performances from Abraham, Tamisha A. Guy, Keerati Jinakunwiphat, Claude “CJ” Johnson, Catherine Kirk, Jae Neal, Donovan Reed and Gianna Theodore.

The film screening is followed by a panel discussion with Abraham and Pittsburgh based artists including Brian Broome, Staycee Pearl, and sarah huny young. Centered around queer relationships in Pittsburgh, the conversation will explore self love, Black love and the multiplicity of ways love is exchanged between queer folx and across race.

Photo Credit: Gianna Theodore


Get Ur Spades On: An Immersive Card Playing Experience

Thursday, November 11
7:00pm – 10:00pm

KST’s Alloy Studios | 5530 Penn Ave
Pay What Makes You Happy 

Calling all Spades players! Come out and get into the game at KST’s first spades tournament, led by Trini Massie! Sign up with a partner in advance or at the door and play the night away for prizes including tickets to My People’s Friday and Saturday night performances!


Black, Queer, & Here
Curated by sarah huny young 

Friday, November 12
7:00pm

KST’s Alloy Studios | 5530 Penn Ave
Pay What Makes You Happy 

The heat gets turned up with an evening of live performance curated by sarah huny young, based on her recently realized epic queer extravaganza for TQ Live at the Carnegie Museum of Art in September 2021! Get cozy at KST’s Alloy Studios for a more intimate encounter with the Pittsburgh queer performance scene.


A.I.M by Kyle Abraham
An Untitled Love 
Presented by Pittsburgh Dance Council in partnership with Kelly Strayhorn Theater 

Saturday, November 13
8:00 pm

Byham Theater | 101 6th Street 

Pittsburgh Cultural Trust COVID-19 policies 

An Untitled Love is Kyle Abraham’s newest evening-length work. 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 the Black love, while serving as a thumping mixtape celebrating our culture, family, and community. Led by Artistic Director and Pittsburgh native Kyle Abraham, whose accolades include being named a 2013 MacArthur Fellow and 2016 Doris Duke recipient, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham creates work that is galvanized by Black history and culture, and characterized by a sensual and provocative vocabulary that is informed by a vital blend of artistic influences. 

Photo by Carrie Schneider

 

 

 

 

2018 Princess Grace Statue Award Recipient, 2017-18 Joyce Creative Residency Artist, 2016 Doris Duke Award Recipient and 2015 City Center Choreographer in Residence, KYLE ABRAHAM is a 2013 MacArthur Fellow who began his dance training at the Civic Light Opera Academy and the Creative and Performing Arts High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He continued his dance studies in New York, receiving a BFA from SUNY Purchase, an MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Washington Jefferson College. He has served as a visiting professor in residence at UCLA’s World Arts Cultures in Dance program from 2016 to 2021. And in 2021, he was named the Claude and Alfred Mann Endowed Professorship in Dance at The University of Southern California Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. Abraham currently sits on the advisory board for Dance Magazine and the artist advisory board for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. In 2020, he was selected to be Dance Magazine’s first-ever Guest Editor.

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 and Martha 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 variety of dance companies. Most recently, Abraham received two international commissions from the Royal Ballet. Abraham’s work, Optional Family, a divertissement premiered in May 2021 as part of their 21st Century Choreographers program. He was also commissioned to be the first Black choreographer to create a one-act ballet for the Royal Ballet, set to premiere in spring 2022.

Additionally, Abraham premiered When We Fell in 2021, his third creation for New York City Ballet, which The New York Times reviewed as “among the most beautiful dance films of the pandemic.” Previously, Abraham collaborated with NYCB Principal Dancer Taylor Stanley on Ces noms que nous portons, a Lincoln Center and NYCB commissioned solo; choreographed Unto The End, We Meet, commissioned by the National Ballet of Cuba, and choreographed the music video for Sufjan Stevens’ Sugar. He premiered to be seen, a new solo for American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer Calvin Royal III, for the 2020 virtual Fall For Dance Festival. The New York Times raved on “how skilled he 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.”

In fall 2019, he choreographed Ash, a solo work for ABT Principal Dancer Misty Copeland; Only The Lonely, a newly commissioned work for Paul Taylor American Modern Dance; and The Bystander, a new commission for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago to rave reviews. Abraham premiered the Bessie-nominated The Runaway for NYCB’s 2018 Fall Fashion Gala, which was recognized as one of the “Best Dance of 2018” by The New York Times. In 2016, Abraham premiered Untitled America, a 3-part commissioned work for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; toured The Serpent and The Smoke, a pas de deux for himself and acclaimed Bessie Award-winning and former New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Wendy Whelan as part of Restless Creature; and choreographed for the feature-length film, The Book of Henry, for acclaimed director Colin Trevorrow. 

In 2012, Abraham served as a choreographic contributor for Beyonce’s 2013 British Vogue cover shoot, 

named the 2012 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award recipient, 2012 USA Ford Fellow, and the New York Live Arts Resident Commissioned Artist for 2012–2014. Later that year, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater premiered Abraham’s Another Night at New York City Center. Abraham has also received a prestigious Bessie Award for Outstanding Performance in Dance for his work in The Radio Show, and a Princess Grace Award for Choreography in 2010. The previous year, he was selected as one of Dance Magazine’s “25 To Watch” for 2009, and received a Jerome Travel and Study Grant in 2008.

His choreography has been presented throughout the United States and abroad; at Fall for Dance Festival at New York City Center, Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Joyce Theater, The Los Angeles Music Center, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Théâtre de la Ville, Sadler’s Wells, Maison de la Danse, Tanz Im August, On The Boards, Danspace Project, Dance Theater Workshop, Bates Dance Festival, Harlem Stage, Montreal, Ottawa, Italy, Germany, Sweden, France, Jordan, Ecuador, Dublin’s Project Arts Center, The Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum located in Okinawa Japan, The Andy Warhol Museum, The Byham and The Kelly-Strayhorn Theater in his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA.

In 2011, OUT Magazine labeled Abraham as the “best and brightest creative talent to emerge in New York City in the age of Obama.”

Photo Credit Tatiana Wills

Founded in 2006 by choreographer Kyle Abraham, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham is a Black-led contemporary dance company that provides multifaceted performances, educational programming, and community-based workshops. The mission of A.I.M by Kyle Abraham is to create a body of dance-based work that is galvanized by Black culture and history. The work, informed by and made in conjunction with artists across a range of disciplines, entwines a sensual and provocative vocabulary with a strong emphasis on music, text, video, and visual art. While grounded in choreographer Kyle Abraham’s artistic vision, A.I.M draws inspiration from a multitude of sources and movement styles.

Since A.I.M’s founding, Artistic Director Kyle Abraham has made more than 15 original works for and with the company. In 2018, A.I.M began commissioning new works and performing existing works by outside choreographers to expand its repertoire and offer a breadth of dance work to both the dancers and audiences. The repertory now includes works by Trisha Brown, Andrea Miller, Bebe Miller, Doug Varone, and A.I.M dancer and early-career choreographer Keerati Jinakunwiphat.

A.I.M’s audience base is as diverse as A.I.M’s movement vocabulary, which ranges from hip-hop to formal ballet technique. As Abraham says, “I’m interested in a really wide range of folks from the brother who owns the corner store to the woman who has never even heard of a corner store. I want those people to interact, and I want them to be sitting next to each other sensing the other person’s experience. And then, I want them to stick around for the post-performance discussion and hear the other person’s perspective and learn more about each other. That’s what is most exciting for me.”

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.