BAM

Fis

herBrooklyn Academy of Music

Alan H. Fishman, Chairman of the Board

William I. Campbell, Vice Chairman of the Board

Adam E. Max, Vice Chairman of the Board

Katy Clark, President

Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer

Season Sponsor:

Programming in the BAM Fisher by New York City artists supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Support for dance at the BAM Fisher provided by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation. Leadership support for dance at BAM provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Harkness Foundation for Dance. Major support for dance at BAM provided by The SHS Foundation.

DATES: NOV 2—5 at 7:30pm LOCATION: BAM Fisher (Fishman Space)

RUN TIME: 55mins, no intermission

#KyleAbraham#BAMNextWave

Pavement

Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion

CHOREOGRAPHY Kyle Abraham in collaboration with Abraham.In.Motion

DRAMATURGE Charlotte Brathwaite

EDITING ADVISOR Alexandra Wells

COSTUME DESIGN Kyle Abraham

SCENIC AND LIGHTING DESIGN Dan Scully

PUBLIC PROGRAMS DEVELOPER Maritza Mosquera

SOUND EDITING Sam Crawford

PERFORMERS Kyle Abraham, Matthew Baker, Vinson Fraley Jr., Tamisha Guy, Thomas House, Chalvar Monteiro, Jeremy “Jae” Neal, Kevin Ricardo Tate

MUSIC: J.C. Bach, Jacques Brel, Benjamin Britten, Antonio Caldara, Sam Cooke, Colin Davis, Emmanuelle Haïm, Heather Harper, Donny Hathaway, Edward Howard, Concerto Köln, Philippe Jaroussky, Le Cercle de L’Harmonie, Alan Lomax, Ensemble Matheus, Fred McDowell, Hudson Mohawke, Alva Noto, Jérémie Rhorer, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Carl Sigman, Jean-Christophe Spinosi, and Antonio Vivaldi.

Video images courtesy of Chris Ivey

The creation and presentation of Pavement is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts in cooperation with the New England Foundation for the Arts though the National Dance Project. Major support for NDP is provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with additional support from the Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation. Support from the NEA provides funding for choreographers in the early stages of their careers.

Special thanks to Harlem Stage, the Lead Commissioner of Pavement through its WaterWorks program. Pavement had its world premiere at The Harlem Stage Gatehouse on November 2—3, 2012. WaterWorks is supported by Time Warner and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Developed in part during a Choreographic Fellowship at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University, Pavement was also created during a residency provided by The Joyce Theater Foundation, NYC, with major support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as well as during a residency provided by The Joyce Theater Foundation, New York City, with major support from The Rockefeller Foundation’s NYC Cultural Innovation Fund and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

The creation of Pavement was made possible, in part, by Danspace Project Commissioning Initiative with support from the Jerome Foundation. Pavement was developed, in part, during a creative residency at the Bates Dance Festival. Pavement is made possible, in part, by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space program.

ABOUTPavement

“Men call the shadow prejudice, and learnedly explain it as a natural defense of culture against barbarism, learning against ignorance, purity against crime, the ‘higher’ against the ‘lower’ races.”

—W.E.B. Du Bois

Director’s Note

In 1991, I was fourteen and entering the ninth grade at Schenley High School in the historic Hill District of Pittsburgh. That same year, John Singleton’s film Boyz N the Hood was released. For me, the film depicted an idealized “Gangsta Bohème” laying aim to the state of the Black American male at the end of the 20th century. Twenty years later and more than ten years into the 21st century, I am focused on investigating the state of Black America and a history therein.

Reimagined as a dance work and now set in Pittsburgh’s historically black neighborhoods, East Liberty, Homewood, and the Hill District, Pavement, aims to create a strong emotional chronology of a culture conflicted with a history plagued by discrimination, genocide, and a constant quest for a lottery ticket weighted in freedom.

Looking primarily at Homewood and the Hill District, their histories run parallel. Both experienced a cultural shift in the 1950’s when jazz legends like Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington performed at local theaters, and Billy Strayhorn spent most of his teenage years. A half a century later, those same theaters became dilapidated. The streets that once flourished on family run businesses and a thriving jazz scene now show the sad effects of gang violence and crack cocaine.

—Kyle Abraham

Pavement

KYLE ABRAHAMArtistic Director/Choreographer

Kyle Abraham, 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award Recipient and 2015 City Center Choreographer in Residence, is a 2013 MacArthur Fellow who began his dance training at the Civic Light Opera Academy and the Creative and Per-forming Arts High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He continued his dance studies in New York, receiving a BFA from SUNY Purchase and an MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and most recently, an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Washington Jefferson College in 2014.

In November 2012, Abraham was named the newly appointed New York Live Arts Resident Commissioned Artist for 2012—14. One month later, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater pre-miered his work Another Night, at New York’s City Center to rave reviews. Rebecca Bengal of Vogue writes, “What Abraham brings to Ailey is an avant-garde aesthetic, a 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.”

That same year, Abraham was named the 2012 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award recipient and 2012 USA Ford Fellow.

Abraham received a 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 US and abroad, most recently at On the Boards, South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center, REDCAT, Philly Live Arts, Portland’s Time Based Arts Festival, Jacob’s Pil-low Dance Festival, Danspace Project, Dance Theater Workshop, Bates Dance Festival, Harlem Stage, Fall for Dance Festival at New York’s City Center, as well as in Montreal, Germany, Jordan, Ecuador, Dublin’s Project Arts Center, the Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum (Japan), The Andy Warhol Museum, and the Kelly-Strayhorn The-ater in his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA.

In addition to performing and devel-oping new works for his company, Abraham.In.Motion (AIM), Abraham recently finished touring The Serpent and the Smoke, a new 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 cho-reographed for the upcoming feature-length film, The Book of Henry with renowned director Colin Trevorrow.Abraham is currently working on Dearest Home, an immersive interactive work for AIM set to premiere

Who’s Who

at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, May 2017, and Untitled America, a three-part commissioned work for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to premiere in December of 2016.

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

MATTHEW BAKER Dancer

Matthew Baker hails from Ann Arbor, MI, where he began movement explo-ration as a gymnast and soccer player. He crossed the state to receive his BFA in dance from Western Michigan University. Arriving in NYC he worked with Keith Thompson and as creative assistant to Mark Dendy before joining Keigwin + Company (K+C) in 2009. In 2012 he joined with Kyle Abraham/Abraham.in.Motion for Pavement and enjoyed creating and performing for both AIM & K+C through 2014 when he began working as choreographic associate to Kyle Abraham. Baker was the recipient of a distinguished alumni award from his alma mater in 2014. He continues to love performing with cherished colleagues and sends love to friends and family.

VINSON FRALEY JR. Dancer

Vinson Fraley, Jr., is from Atlanta, GA where he began his training at the age of 14 under the direction of Lynise and Denise Heard. He also was immersed in a wide range of art crafts while at-tending DeKalb School of the Arts. He is now enrolled in the dance program at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Fraley has been fortunate enough to work with many chore-ographers and instructors including Bill T. Jones, Rashaun Mitchell, Cora Bos Kroese, Gus Solomons jr, Cindy Salgado, Seán Curran, and many more. He is thrilled to be performing with Abraham.In.Motion.

TAMISHA GUY Dancer

Tamisha Guy, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, began her formal dance training at Ballet Tech, the New York City Public School for Dance under the direction of Eliot Feld. Later she attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, and SUNY Purchase College as a double major in dance and arts management. She has completed summer programs with Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Springboard Danse Montréal, and Nathan Trice and performed works by William Forsythe, Pam Tanowitz, Loni Landon, Mark Morris, and Martha Graham. In 2013 Guy graduated with honors from SUNY Purchase. She joined the Martha Graham Company shortly after, and in 2014 joined Kyle Abraham’s Abraham.In.Motion. In 2016 Guy was

selected as one of Dance Magazine’s Top 25 to Watch, and she also received the 2016 Princess Grace Award.

THOMAS HOUSE Dancer

Thomas House was born and raised in Virginia Beach, VA, where he trained in dance primarily with Denise Wall. He began his formal training at SUNY Purchase and graduated in 2014. While in school he performed works by Lar Lubovitch, Merce Cunningham, William Forsythe, Doug Varone, and Twyla Tharp, and had the opportunity to study dance abroad for four months in Taipei, Taiwan. House is currently based in Brooklyn, where he works as a freelance dance artist. He began working with Kyle Abraham in the fall of 2015. Along with touring with Abra-ham.In.Motion, he has most recently performed with companies Aszure Barton & Artists at the City Center Fall for Dance festival and with Kate Wallich + The YC at Jacob’s Pillow. House has also worked and performed with Loni Landon Dance Project, LoudHoundMovement, TOES for Dance and Zoe|Juniper. Last year he choreo-graphed and presented his own work to see. [arena] reaction to you in NYC.

CHALVAR MONTEIRO Dancer

Chalvar Monteiro began his formal dance training at Sharron Miller’s Academy for the Performing Arts and went on to study at The Ailey School. He received his BFA in dance from SUNY Purchase, where he performed

works by Merce Cunningham, Helen Pickett, Doug Varone, Paul Taylor, Kev-in Wynn, and Dianne McIntyre. Since graduating, Monteiro has worked with Sidra Bell Dance New York, Elisa Mon-te Dance, Keigwin + Company, BODY-TRAFFIC, and Abraham.In.Motion. He has assisted Kyle Abraham in setting and creating work for Barnard College, Princeton University, Emory University, Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and Wendy Whelan’s Restless Creature. Monteiro was a member of Ailey II and joined the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2015.

JEREMY “JAE” NEAL Dancer

Jeremy “Jae” Neal was born and raised in Michigan and received his training from Western Michigan University. There, he performed in professional works including Strict Love by Doug Varone, Temporal Trance by Frank Chavez, and Harrison McEldowney’s Dance Sport. Since relocating to New York Neal has had the privilege of working with SYREN Modern Dance, Christina Noel Reaves, Catapult Entertainment, Katherine Helen Fisher Dance, Nathan Trice, and currently Abraham.In.Motion. Neal would like to thank his family and friends for their consistent encouragement and support.

KEVIN RICARDO TATE Dancer/Alternate

Kevin Ricardo Tate was raised in Brooklyn, New York by way of Wash-ington, DC. He is an alumnus of the

University of North Carolina School of the Arts as well as the Professional Performing Arts High School of NYC. Training also includes Creative Outlet under the tutelage of Jamel Gaines. He appeared as Jackie Thibadeux in George C. Wolfe’s Caroline or Change at the Public Theater, which moved to Broadway in 2003, and also in ABC’s Manhattan Love Story. Recently Tate completed his first season with The Metropolitan Opera Ballet, an inter-national tour of Rock the Ballet with Rasta Thomas’s BAD BOYS of Dance, and debuted at the Joyce Theater as a guest artist for Complexions Contem-porary Ballet 20th Anniversary. He has guested with Wylliams-Henry Contem-porary Dance Company, Collage Dance Collective, and Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. Currently Tate is represented by MSA Talent Agency, NYC. This is his first season with AIM.

CHARLOTTE BRATHWAITE Dramaturge

A native of Toronto, Canada, Char-lotte Brathwaite is a freelance director whose works have been presented in New York and internationally. Her directing credits include: Woman Bomb (Baryshnikov Arts Center); The Coming... (Living Theater); American Schemes by Radha Blank (NYC Sum-merstage); Shakespeare’s A Mid-summer Night’s Dream, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams; Kleopatra (Kolkata, India); and Smile Orange (Trinidad, WI). She holds an MFA from Yale School of Drama, and is recipient of the Julian Milton Kaufman Prize and a Princess Grace Award. charlottebrathwaite.com

SAM CRAWFORD Sound editor

Sam Crawford completed both his BA in English and AS in audio technology at Indiana University in 2003. A move to New York City led him to Looking Glass Studios where he worked on film projects with Philip Glass and Björk. His recent sound designs and compositions have included works for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (Venice Biennale, 2010), Yin Mei Dance (Beijing, 2010), and David Dorfman Dance. He currently resides in Brooklyn where he works as a freelance composer, designer, and engineer. He also plays lap steel and banjo in various groups, including Corpus Christi (Rome).

MARITZA MOSQUERA Public programs developer

Maritza Mosquera, artist community-transformation partner, has developed, organized, and presented new prac-tices in arts education and artist-led community collaborations with several organizations including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Alabama Dance Council, Chicago Arts Partners in Edu-cation, Finding History in Ourselves, The Black and White Reunion, and The Andy Warhol Museum. She has taught in various schools and universities across the country including University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and Perspectives and Noble Acade-mies. Mosquera is based in Pittsburgh, PA, where she is currently developing community engagement programs for the Jewish Association on Aging, Hatch

Arts Collective, and her own Fracking: the body and Food Truck programs. Mosquera has recently received awards from the Mid-West Arts Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, the Na-tional Endowment for the Arts, and the Ford Foundation. The Multi-Cultural Arts Initiative has also supported her own artwork, which focuses on ideas of justice, health, intimacy, and com-munity. She received an MFA from University of Pennsylvania and a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art. She also studied at Skowhegan School of Painting in Maine.

DAN SCULLY Lighting and video design

Dan Scully is a New York-based light-ing and projection designer, and has been designing for Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion for over 10 years, including the full-length evening works Pavement, Live! The Realest M.C., and the Bessie Award-winning The Radio Show. Recent work includes Rocky (Broadway), Jedermann (Salzburger Festspeile), The Orchestra Rocks! (Carnegie Hall), and Another Night (Alvin Ailey). Regionally, his credits include Trinity Rep, GEVA, Asolo Rep, Cleveland Playhouse, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, and Two River Theater Company. He received his MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

DAN STEARNS Production manager

Dan Stearns is a lighting designer, sce-nic designer, and production manager

interested in the intersections of dance, theater, music, and video. In addition to Abraham.In.Motion, recent collabora-tions include Jane Comfort and Com-pany, Pavel Zuštiak/Palissimo, LeeSaar the Company, Scott Ebersold, Paul H. Bedard/Theater in Asylum, Tara Ahma-dinejad/Piehole, and Tami Stronach. He has worked in venues such as BAM, the Joyce, New York Live Arts, La MaMa, Abrons Arts Center, HERE, Dixon Place, and 3LD in New York, and internation-ally from France to Korea and many places in between. He is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

ALEXANDRA WELLS Editing advisor

As a principal dancer of the Ballet National de Nancy, Alexandra Wells toured the world and formed lasting partnerships with Rudolf Nureyev and Patrick Dupond. Following her performing career, she returned to the United States first as rehearsal direc-tor with Ballet Hispanico and then as faculty member of L’École Supérieure de Danse du Québec. In 2002 she co-founded Springboard Danse Montréal with Susan Alexander. The mission of this project is to connect emerging art-ists to job opportunities while providing professional companies with dancers. In 2009 Wells designed the Movement Invention Project in NYC, under the umbrella of NJDTE, with a focus on collaborative and improvisational skills.In 1998 Wells joined the full-time fac-ulty at The Juilliard School in New York City. In 2012 she was recognized for her entrepreneurial work with Spring-board Danse Montréal in the Juilliard Convocation.

Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.MotionThe mission of Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion (AIM) is to create an evocative interdisciplinary body of work. Born into hip-hop culture in the late 1970s and grounded in Abraham’s artistic upbringing in classical cello, piano, and the visual arts, the goal of the movement is to delve into identity in relation to a personal history. The work entwines a sensual and provocative vocabulary with a strong emphasis on sound, human behavior, and all things visual in an effort to create an avenue for personal investigation and exposing that on stage. AIM is a representation of dancers from various disciplines and diverse personal backgrounds. Combined together, these individualities create movement that is manipulated and molded into something fresh and unique.

Artistic Director: Kyle Abraham

Board of Directors: Stephen Simcock (chair), Kyle Abraham (Artistic Director, ex-officio), Cheryl Bergenfeld, Chris Calkins, Glenn Ligon, Bebe Neuwirth, Carrie Schneider, Eric Shiner, and Gilda Squire.

Staff:Executive Director: Joe StackellProduction Manager: Dan StearnsCompany Manager: Hillary KooistraFinance Manager: Lucy MallettChoreographic Associate: Matthew BakerRehearsal Director: Tamisha GuyRehearsal Assistant: Jeremy “Jae” NealEducation Assistant: Connie ShiauMarketing and Development Associate: Catherine Ellis KirkMarketing Assistant: Penda N’diaye

Generous support for Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion provided by The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The Howard Gilman Foundation, Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project with funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, New York Community Trust, Princess Grace Foundation-USA, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and The Samuel H. Scripps Foundation. Public funding provided by The National Endowment for the Arts and The New York State Council on the Arts with support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

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Abraham.In.Motion is a proud supporter of Dancers Responding to AIDS, which helps ensure that those most in need receive the care and comfort they would otherwise do without. Founded in 1991 by former Paul Taylor Dance Company members Denise Roberts Hurlin and Hernando Cortez, DRA relies on the extraordinary compassion and efforts of the performing arts community to fund a safety net of social services for those in need. Together, we can make a differ-ence for those less fortunate. Donate at dradance.org/donate.

Support the creation of new work and community outreach! Contributions may be made payable to: Kyle Abraham/Abra-ham.In.Motion, P.O.Box 986, New York, NY 10113. To donate online, visit abra-haminmotion.org. Abraham.In.Motion is a non-profit tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, and all donations are fully deductible to the extent allowed by law.

For worldwide booking information, contact Sophie Myrtil-McCourty, President, Lotus Arts Management at Tel: 1-347-721–8724Email: sophie@lotusartsmgmt.comWebsite: lotusartsmgmt.com

For more information, to get involved, or purchase your AIM merchandise, please visit abrahaminmotion.org.

Thanks!To our collaborators and supporters and the amazing staff of A.I.M., Danspace Project, Harlem Stage, Hobart and Wil-liam Smith Colleges, The Joyce Theater Foundation, MANCC and NDP, thank you for believing in this project and for all that you’ve done to get this show up and running!

Thank you to everyone who’s been a part of the creation of this work in all its iterations. Since its premiere, Pavement has been performed an amazing 100 times! Matthew Baker and Jeremy “Jae” Neal, thank you for being with me on this journey since its inception. I’m so deeply moved by the commitment you’ve shown to this work and to my creative vision. Lastly, thank you to everyone who ventured out to see this work at Harlem Stage during Hurricane Sandy…some of you by bus from Brooklyn! And thank you to those of you interested enough to spend your evening with us either for the first time or as someone who has supported or encouraged me throughout the years.

-Kyle Abraham