A.I.M By Kyle Abraham Makes Ted Shawn Theatre Debut, July 31

A.I.M by Kyle Abraham makes its Ted Shawn Theatre debut at Jacob's Pillow, July 31-August 4. A Jacob's Pillow Dance Award winner, Doris Duke Artist Award winner, and MacArthur "Genius" Fellow, Kyle Abraham's "skill as a dancer is a fact" (The New York Times). A.I.M's mixed repertory program demonstrates the company's diverse range of styles and Abraham's own artistry as a performer with INDY, his first major solo in nearly a decade; Andrea Miller's all-female state; as well as Show Pony, The Quiet Dance, and Drive, marked by Abraham's "urgent and expressive choreography" (The New York Times).

"For me, Kyle Abraham's movement vocabulary has always been so deeply affecting, human, and full of insight," says Jacob's Pillow Director Pamela Tatge. "I'm proud to present this program of incredibly dynamic works that push the limits of what we perceive to be modern dance, both by him and his contemporary, Andrea Miller."

Born into hip-hop culture of the late 1970s and incorporating an artistic upbringing of classical cello, piano, and the visual arts into his work, Abraham's choreography is "a glimpse at a more interdisciplinary future for modern dance in America" (The Post and Courier). Abraham is one of today's most in-demand choreographers; he was recently commissioned by New York City Ballet as one of their first black choreographers in more than a decade.

Choreographed in 2018 in collaboration with composer/pianist Jerome Begin, INDY is Abraham's first solo work in nearly a decade. Abraham's relationship with Begin's score becomes "immediately canonical and deeply personal," (The Dance Enthusiast). Costumed in a black fringed tunic and pants designed by Karen Young, the expressive work contains "vivid moments of physical poetry," (The New York Times) as Abraham morphs into various personas. The program continues with state, a work for three women dressed in earth tones choreographed by Gallim's groundbreaking Andrea Miller. The work was choreographed in 2018 and is set to a hypnotic electronic score by Reggie Wilkins, praised as a "lush, atmospheric trio for women" (Arts Air).

The energetic Show Pony is the second solo of the program, and shows the "pleasure in the dancer's state of being alive" (Fjord Review). The Quiet Dance, choreographed in 2011 and the oldest work of the program, is set to Bill Evan's transcription of Leonard Bernstein's Some Other Time. As dancers group and re-group throughout the space around a soloist, they are "accentuating the simultaneous power and vulnerability of taking up space alone" (Fjord Review). The final work in the program is described as a "slipstream of genre blending and bending" (The Dance Enthusiast