Students at Farmington High School created their own dances in a post-show workshop led by UMS Education Coordinator Terri Park. Learn more about how UMS engages the community and check out upcoming events you can attend here. 

UMS Education Coordinator Terri Park taking notes on how students felt about the Abraham.In.Motion School Day Performance.

After attending a school day dance performance by Abraham.In.Motion students talk out and share their thoughts! Did you attend a performance recently? Share your thoughts on UMS Lobby. 

Editor’s note: This post is a part of a series by U-M student and UMS intern Hillary Kooistra, who’s covering our free UMS Night School: Curious About Dance workshop series.

Moving Forward

This past Monday evening, our last Night School session of the year, we celebrated an enriching, inspiring, and fun-filled five weeks by reflecting on our past lessons and looking toward future engagement opportunities. The time has flown and I cannot believe how quickly Graduation Day arrived, but before we could break out the Pomp and Circumstance, we had a stunning weekend of dance to unpack! We began our session with an exercise and discussion around this past weekend’s Abraham.In.Motion performances, then transitioned to wrapping up the entire semester. Over the course of the evening, we moved from speaking specifically about one company’s work to thinking in general terms about dance we’ve seen this season and will see in the future; once again proving that though there are infinite ways to approach movement exploration and discussion, similar concepts appear and circulate among these seemingly different dance works.

We began our session a bit differently on Monday night. Instead of sharing and repeating gestures, laughing at one another’s creativity or manipulating the movement we perceived; we stood in our circle with closed eyes. Checking in with ourselves and becoming comfortable in the space, we freed our bodies and minds to think about this past weekend’s double bill. When we opened our eyes, we assumed a pose that reflected a particular moment of resonance from either Friday or Saturday night’s performance. Instead of teaching and repeating one another’s poses, we split into groups and created tableaus: placing our individual gestures into a larger, multi-layered, ensemble-based story.

Left: Group 1’s tableau: “Evolution” aka “Static and Moving” aka “The Descent of Man (and Rise of Woman” aka “Past, Present, and Future” Right: Group 2 and Group 3’s tableau: “Gather and Cast Away” aka “Fronts and Backs” aka “Claws”

This exercise proved to be just as much about those observing as it was about those posing the tableaus. As we examined one another’s work, we shared our interpretations by thinking of possible captions or titles for each image. We discovered numerous ways to view and manipulate the tableaus–experimenting with movement and stillness, placing together two figures that were created separately to create one large image, crafting a sound score to accompany the posing bodies–and witnessed the infinite layers of perception we craft as we discover the infinite ways to shape a single idea. (Most importantly, we discovered that Jim has quite a fierce relevé.)

Group 3’s moving tableau: “Motion and Stillness” aka “Offering aka “Centrifugal People” aka “Soup Pot” (…? Thanks for that one, Jim. Go practice your relevé.)

The discussion of The Watershed and When the Wolves Came In that followed our art gallery visit demonstrated how Kyle, as a choreographer, takes a similar approach to develop complexities within his work. We questioned the motion of stillness, layers of rhythm, and pliancy of movement in each work, and recognized the historical and present-day contexts accompanying these more conceptual ideas. Though we might not be able to pinpoint the exact starting point of each specific work, we can see there are multiple ways to enter and navigate his dances, just as there were for the tableaus we created.

During our final post-performance group discussion of the semester, I couldn’t help but smile as I recognized how much we have grown over the past five weeks. With over a month of dance exploration under our belts, we can offer intelligent, informed, and inquisitive thoughts about any movement exercise or performance reflection we engage in. We have also developed a rich collections of dance experiences to pull from as we allow past dances we saw or lessons we learned to inform our perceptions of new works. And from learning labanotation to telling secrets through gesture, from watching a pas de deux of plastic bags to contemplating the historical imagery within a dance work that explores the enigma of freedom, we have certainly experienced more than a taste of everything offered, not only in this diverse UMS dance season but in the dance world as a whole.

We took all of these thoughts with us as we transitioned to the “graduation” component of Monday’s Night School session. The celebration began with some refreshments and prizes! A special congratulations to Fred, Harvey, Rebecca, Carol Rose, and Lisa, who were recognized for their perfect attendance, and to Susan for winning the Door Prize Raffle. Enjoy some pizza for all of us! Or better yet, take us with you! Though the cupcakes were delicious as always, I think the real treat was the peek inside the next UMS dance season, which looks absolutely incredible. The companies that visit us will certainly feed our growing curiosity and reveal even more ways to think about movement. There will be the same engagement opportunities that we know and love: You Can Dance Classes, Post-show Q&As (led by Clare, no doubt), and Sunday post-performance Brunch Tune-Ins. Next year’s Night School will focus on the UMS Renegade Series, which you should definitely attend if you want to know more about the outside-the-box, forward-moving performances that UMS presents.

Congrats, Grads!

So get ready to buy your tickets, which will go on sale after the official UMS Season Launch party, taking place on April 24th (right before the opening performance of Lyon Opera Ballet’s Cinderella) on the fourth floor of Rackham. It’s free and open to the public, so grab a friend, head to Rackham, and then go enjoy our last dance performance of the season! Though we won’t be convening in the Alumni Center to discuss, hopefully you will be able to share your impressions over coffee, dinner, or gestural movement after the show.

And that’s all, folks! Now that this semester of Night School is complete, please don’t be a stranger–to UMS, the Department of Dance, or movement in general (definitely not to movement in general…moving is important). There are plenty of opportunities to watch and engage in performance left this year: in addition to the UMS performance of Lyon Opera Ballet, the Department of Dance has a number of upcoming shows (including my senior BFA concert and Charles’s graduate choreography work!), that we would love for you to attend. In the meantime, tell your friends about all of the wonderful dance you’ve experienced, and hopefully we will see you in the Alumni Center next season! Thank you all for your wonderful questions, insights, and energy over the past five weeks!

Left: Much love from your Department of Dance Night School reps! Right: Our crazy, kooky, intelligent band of Night School folks. Performing gestures, of course.

Kyle Abraham (left) and UMS intern Sophia Deery (center) pictured during one of many Abraham.In.Motion residency workshops, masterclasses, and Q&As. More photos from the past week on our Facebook page! Learn more about our Education and Community Engagement Programs: ums.org/learn

Editor’s note: This post is a part of a series of by U-M student and UMS intern Hillary Kooistra, who’s covering our free UMS Night School: Curious About Dance workshop series.

Anything You Do Will Be Perfect

Welcome back, Night Schoolers! I hope everyone enjoyed their time off! The sun has been shining all week and it was certainly shining in the Alumni Center on Monday night. We were joined by Kyle Abraham, Founder/Artistic Director of Abraham.In.Motion (AIM): the company that will grace the Power Center stage this coming Friday and Saturday. Also with us was Matthew Baker, AIM choreographic associate/dancer, graduate of Western Michigan University, and Ann Arbor native. These two incredible artists invited us into the world of Abraham.In.Motion by demonstrating and talking about the company’s work, as well as allowing us to embody a bit of their choreographic process. Kyle, a MacArthur Award recipient and fascinating thinker/speaker/mover, confirmed an idea we have returned to each Night School session: dance is a thoughtful, collaborative and process-driven art form.

Kyle kicked off our session by showing us video clips of some of his work: Live! The Realest MC, Pavement, and the two works that his company will perform on Friday and Saturday: The Watershed and When the Wolves Came In. As we watched these intersections between stunning movement and innovative stage design, Kyle described the thought, research and collaboration behind the dances. We were then able to make informed, conceptual observations about each work while enjoying some incredible aesthetics. No wonder this man won a genius grant!

Kyle Abraham talks about his process before showing us clips of some of his dances.

After giving us a chance to see and hear about his dances, Kyle introduced us to the way he works with his company and let us experience his choreographic process with our own bodies. He led us through a few creative activities he uses to establish movement and choreography in collaboration with his dancers. Kyle is not one to simply enter a rehearsal with set material for his company to learn and replicate; his process-driven approach to choreography pays careful attention to the potential contributions of each individual body and mind in the room.

Kyle explains some of the intentions behind his process to a curious Night School cohort.

With these ideas in mind, we plunged into some AIM-motivated movement invention and exploration. First, we learned and practiced a simple arm gesture phrase (from The Quiet Dance, another work in his company’s repertoire).We executed this upper body sequence as we learned it, while letting our legs do whatever they wanted. We also explored a way to compose our own phrases by responding to “Action Words.” As Kyle (and fellow Night School Student Fred) prompted us to slice, jump, slide, squish, wiggle, and dive, we travelled across the room with our own sequences of movements and rhythms.

Night School students experience Kyle’s choreographic process: creating our own leg movements to accompany a set of arm gestures and travelling across the room in response to Action Words.

Kyle explained that the movement he and his dancers generate out of such tasks often becomes the starting point for phrases in his repertory works. In a third exercise dubbed “Catch What You Can,” he and Matthew demonstrated how one seed idea can blossom into a longer, lasting sequence. Kyle grooved to some music while Matthew followed behind him, trying to grasp as much movement as he could. Then Kyle instructed Matthew with prompts such as “left arm and leg chug back,” and “figure eight to the right,” as well as names of moves that seemed to have a significance within the company, such as “Classic.” Regardless of the prompt’s origin, Matthew remained on the same page as Kyle the entire time, and breezed about the floor as he constructed his phrase. The result was amazing. From Kyle’s few moments of visual and verbal cues, Matthew danced an entire phrase of movement without stopping to think once: leaving us asking, “Did that just happen?”

Abraham.In.Motion dancer Matthew Baker develops a sequence of movement by “catching what he can” of Kyle’s visual and verbal cues

Once we picked our jaws off the ground and Matthew got a chance to catch his breath, we sat back down for a conversation with the two artists. Kyle provided generous answers to our questions about his company and process, sharing insights about the shifting roles of dancers and choreographers, the value of time in choreographic development and honesty in performance, and the approach to working with new bodies while creating work on others. I must be getting early onset nostalgia as we approach our final Night School next week, because I could not help but recall all the lessons we’ve learned this semester as I heard Kyle speak about his work. Remember the exercise we did with Martine a couple of weeks back, where we had to remember our partner’s gestures as they told us “something nobody knew”? I thought of that session throughout Kyle’s “Catch What You Can.” How Charles helped us alter gestures so they would fit the two-dimensionality required by labanotation? Very similar to how Kyle revealed he will develop a gesture until it has traces of its origin but breathes a new life.

If there’s one thing I think we’ve all learned through Night School this year, it’s that there are many, many entryways into making, viewing, and discussing dance. We’ve had the privilege of unfolding these multiple layers throughout the weeks: questioning why plastic bags float in the air, how people walk on walls, or where Kyle Abraham finds his musical inspiration. But more time for reflection next week. This week, we have a marathon of events related to Kyle’s residency to look forward to! Remember, Friday and Saturday will showcase two different programs, so why not buy two sets of tickets and camp out at the Power Center this weekend? You can even stay an extra night and be fed bagels on Sunday at the first ever  UMS Brunch Download Conversation. Hope to see everyone this weekend, and at our LAST session/graduation next Monday night! In addition to thinking about the UMS dance season still to come, we will be celebrating with our Adventure Card raffle drawing, Perfect Attendance Awards, and of course, some food and drinks. So don’t miss out! No cap and gown necessary, just your presence and energy.

Upcoming Events:

Abraham.In.Motion Performances, Mar. 13-14, 8pm, Power Center (TICKET REQUIRED)

Related:

Mar. 13: Opening Night Q&A: Abraham.In.Motion, Power Center, post-performance (TICKET REQUIRED)

Mar. 14: You Can Dance: Abraham.In.Motion, Ann Arbor YMCA, 1:30-3pm (FREE – SIGN-UP REQUIRED, BEGINS AT 12:45PM, FIRST COME FIRST SERVE)

Mar. 14: Closing Night Q&A: Abraham.In.Motion, Power Center, post-performance (TICKET REQUIRED)

Mar. 15: Brunch Download with Kyle Abraham, U-M Alumni Center, 11am (FREE)

Session 4 Resources:

Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion, Live! The Realest MC Promotional Video

Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion, Pavement Promotional Video

Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion, The Gettin’ Promotional Video

Listen to a funny outtake of Kyle talking about childhood road trips to Detroit & Jerry Curls. Check out his upcoming performances on March 13th and 14th: http://bit.ly/1iinyG7 

Editor’s note: During the summer of 2014, UMS launched a new 21st Century Artist Internships program. Four students interned for a minimum of five weeks with a dance, theater, or music ensemble that is part of our 2014-2015 season. Sophia Deery is one of these students. She spent the summer in New York with Kyle Abraham and his company Abraham.In.Motion and recounts her experiences below. Abraham.In.Motion brings their innovative choreography to UMS on March 13-14. 

Tamisha Guy rehearses “When The Wolves Came In,” which partially draws inspiration from a tragic accident involving wild African dogs at the Pittsburgh Zoo in 2012.

“Sister Sophia!” Sister Sophia – that’s me. “Sister Sophia, could you come here and film this run?” That’s Kyle Abraham, founder, choreographer, and dancer of Abraham.In.Motion, the NYC based-dance company which emerged on the scene in 2006, and became one of the hottest tickets in the city this season with its critically acclaimed two-night program at New York Live Arts in September. I was able to intern with Kyle and the company from July through August of this past summer under the auspices of the newly created 21st Century Artist Internship through the University of Michigan’s University Musical Society. This was a fascinating time to be with the company, not only because it immediately preceded their NYC premiere of The Watershed, and When the Wolves Came In, and would involve helping to plan a major European tour, but because it was – and still is – a time when the company itself was undergoing a major internal transformation.

I came to AIM as they were nearing the end of their two-year residency at New York Live Arts. The residency is a valuable one. It allots a space and funding for a given artist to develop and perform new works in a beautiful building in Chelsea which houses a full theater, offices, and several state of the art studios. For those not familiar with New York Live Arts, it is a non-profit organization that was the result of a 2011 merger between the renowned Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and Dance Theatre Workshop. In addition to this residency, Kyle had received a MacArthur “Genius” fellowship in 2013, and the company was changing shape from a pick-up model where dancers would work on a project-by-project basis, to a resident company. The difficulty is if you want dancers to make your company their priority, you have to enable them to support themselves. I had the invaluable opportunity to sit in on many meetings about budgets, the hiring of new dancers and staff members, ideas for social media campaigns, and the scheduling of performances that seemed incredibly far into the future. My own administrative tasks included writing up and sharing weekly rehearsal schedules and booking locations for the rehearsals at various dance spaces all over the city… all the while staying in budget.  What I witnessed on the administrative side of the internship was, in essence, the growing pains and excitements of a small dance company, moving up to take its place as a major player in the dance landscape.

Hopeful feet. Two dancers audition for Kyle at Gina Gibney Studios.

“I hope it’s good.” Kyle says to me, stretching out across the marley floor, sock-feet splayed, eating the chicken salad I had picked up for him. Rookie-intern that I am, I had made the mistake of forgetting a fork, necessitating a second trip down 6 floors and across the street, back to the deli where the cashier already thought I was crazy for spending 15 minutes trying to decide if I should get regular chicken salad, because they didn’t have the curried kind he had asked for. (The regular was fine, it turned out). I have learned a lot of things about Kyle from working as his intern.  He is a very picky eater, enjoys Auntie Anne’s pretzels (original salted) and lemonade, and hates cheese. “I hope it’s good” was not referring to the chicken salad, however, but to the two programs he was rehearsing that day for their upcoming premiere. His openness and self-deprecation leave me wondering if he really cannot see the power of the piece that has left me breathless even after the tenth run. I have learned that it can be hard directing a company of dancers, now no longer all people with whom you graduated from college, but a new, younger group who look to you as a leader. He navigates a fine line between knowing when to adhere to divisions of authority structure that divide dancer and choreographer or artistic director, and when relaxing these divisions and goofing around is essential to group cohesion. I have learned that Kyle likes to send emails ending in a inscrutable “…” which leaves the recipient slightly panicked, wondering exactly what that last implied piece of information was…

Long-time company member, and newly appointed company liaison Matthew Baker (an Ann Arbor native!) leads auditioning dancers through choreography.

“Sister Penda!” Kyle calls in a laid-back drawl, as dancer Penda N’diaye makes her way over. Kyle’s speech alternates between a familiar, affectionate, urban drawl tinged with the occasional “y’all,” which he uses with his dancers, and rapid, academic articulation when he talks about his ideas, inspirations, and influences. These are many, and indicate a cultural and artistic literacy that is wide as it is deep. Born and raised in Pittsburgh and immersed in urban youth street culture, educated at SUNY Purchase where he studied classical and modern dance, then to NYU where he received an M.F.A., a former classical cellist and briefly an employee at the Andy Warhol museum, Kyle’s education, much like his choreography, follows no conventional pattern. Additionally, he is a black, homosexual man, at a time in our country’s history where we are still deciding exactly what it means to be both. It is no doubt because of this unconventional path that Kyle’s choreography incorporates such a variety of styles (ballet, hip hop, contemporary, Graham, etc.), subject matter (Emancipation Proclamation, identity, modern sexuality, apartheid, protest), music (Max Roach, Robert Glasper, Drake, Italian Opera) – and despite the incredible breadth of its spectrum, it always rings true. Every piece comes off like a first person account of a real life experience. Like his speech, they are unaffected, but very effective.

New A.I.M. dancer, statuesque Penda N’diaye, practices on the side during a rehearsal at Gina Gibney Studios.

Kyle expects this same malleability and authenticity from his dancers. His auditions, which I was fortunate enough to witness rather than experience, are a grueling process. When I asked Kyle what he looks for in a dancer, hoping honestly to get some inside-scoop for when I’m back in New York, he said that he looks for someone with dance ability and/or training across several techniques like Graham, Limon, classical ballet, Horton, hip hop, etc. As he ticked off historic dance makers and various techniques, I thought of how broad a dancer’s education has to be nowadays in order to remain competitive and successful in the field. They have to take direction which morphs technical terms like “a la second leap and then lateral T” immediately followed by “hood rat, booty poppin’, gum chewing” into “soldier walks.” This is not a one-trick pony company; indeed fewer and fewer are. Ballet company seasons are increasingly including works by Paul Taylor and Twyla Tharp, making dancers’ versatility vie with their perfect 32-count fouettés among their most marketable skills. Our conversation made me wonder what type of education provides this – how does the modern professional dancer train? I spoke with the company dancers about their various backgrounds and training, and found that many of them had pursued degrees in dance following high school, while others had immediately begun professional careers. Varying backgrounds aside, the common denominator for all of Kyle’s dancers is their intellect. The versatility he demands extends beyond the physical. As evidenced by the myriad sources from which he draws his inspiration, this is a company in which intelligence, and an understanding of the concept of each piece is essential to being able to perform it with integrity.

Tamisha Guy strikes a pose during rehearsal for “The Watershed” at Gina Gibney Studios.

Two men lunge and shoot their arms up in a high V, fingers in a gesture suggestive of an old time cowboy at a gun show, or perhaps a gang member throwing up his allegiance, but the hands don’t stop there and move immediately into a high fifth position which then travels down the body to first position while their torsos synchronize in a liquid body roll. In my favorite piece, a trio called Hallowed, gospel music fills your ears as you watch three dancers alternate between a slow strut, lazily waving their arms with deadened eyes – and the rapid, aggressive arm gestures of a dance-off, eyes alive with anger or indignation. The first conjures images of paper fans, of hard church benches, of heat, and perhaps a more sinister oppression. The contrast between the two styles of movement seems to me a dramatization of the tension existent between resignation and protest.

These few examples show some of what makes Kyle Abraham unique as a choreographer: there is a story – told in recognizable pedestrian movements which are generic only in the sense that they are universal and recall things the audience has experienced, wished, or feared. Sketched situations of human existence, they allow us to do some coloring in. Seamless transitions from the pedestrian, to modern dance vocabulary, to hip hop and social dance, give the impression that Kyle is not so much juxtaposing contrasting styles of movement, or worlds for that matter, but rather elegantly weaving them together in a new type of concert dance. This is not schoolyard hip hop, nor a purist’s classical dance. While it incorporates elements of both, it also has roots in the real, the commonplace, the grit and injustice, problems we have faced in the past, and those we are grappling with now, and yet simultaneously it transcends them. At once personal and universal, and never more timely, the pair of The Watershed and When the Wolves Came In is like a diary entry written in the curves of spines, the bends of elbows and shifting patterns of light.

To view more of Sophia’s photography, see the gallery below.

Editor’s note: This post is a part of a series of by U-M student Sarah Squillante, who’s covering our free UMS Night School: Bodies in Motion series. Learn along side with them.

UMS Night School’s 8th session welcomed the largest crowd yet. That’s not too surprising, given the notoriety and accolades of its special guest: award-winning choreographer and dancer Kyle Abraham, winner of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship and numerous other awards. His work – a dynamic fusion of hip-hop and modern – is often laden with questions of gender, race, poverty, and politics. He is working on creating new works for his company, Abraham.In.Motion, in addition to previous works like Pavement and The Radio Show (excerpts below).

We’re excited to announce that Abraham’s company will be making its UMS debut during our 2014-2015 season (we’ll reveal the details when we launch our 2014-2015 season on April 13, 2014). After quick introductions, the entire session was dedicated to a talk and short discussion detailing Abraham’s personal dance history, influences, and recent works.

Check out some of Abraham’s previous work in the following videos, which were shown during his talk:

U-M Dance Sophomore Elizabeth Benedict (on left in photos below) was encouraged by a professor to attend on Monday night. “I liked the talk because I saw a lot of how I move in his movements [in the videos]. I was inspired because I haven’t been dancing since I was three, and he hasn’t been dancing since he was three either. It was really validating,” she said. “He was really humble about everything.”

Abraham also attracted those less familiar with modern dance. “I didn’t grow up understanding dance, really,” said second-time attendee and ballroom dancer, Tom (above, on right). “I do a lot of social ballroom dancing, but I come from a music family with lots of visual art and music exposure – never dance.”

Night School is coming to a close! Join us for a recap of the semester and graduation next week, March 31, in the U-M Alumni Center at 7 PM.

Share questions, comments, or suggestions in the comments below.