Park Avenue Armory, New York, NY.
December 14, 2024.
Pricey 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 solid and danced in his personal work within the first time in practically a decade. His inclusion within the work added the esoteric component we not often see in dance: a seasoned choreographer performing their very own work years after many individuals cease dancing. The result’s one thing we should always see extra of, as a result of the impression was vital.
Dance is basically an adolescent’s pursuit, shifting by center age into instructing and choreographing for a lot of. The unusual prevalence of somebody like Abraham placing himself onstage is of non-public 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 way of life put these experiences into the steps on stage. Pricey Lord, Make Me Lovely proved my principle right.
The huge house of the Armory hosted a stage with a sloped backdrop, awash in projection of verdant leaves, shifting 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 changing into one with the neighborhood he created. Vignettes develop from the massive group and we see dancers coming out and in of various points of life. No dancer is similar, however all of them share a command of approach that enables the concepts Abraham seeks to discover blossom.
The dance morphs by way of concepts of the passage of time and the nervousness 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 completely different occasions 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 communicate for the Lord, the work is actually 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.
