Conversations on Dance with Kyle Abraham & Melissa Toogood

Kyle Abraham

KYLE ABRAHAM (Artistic Director, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham) and his choreography have been featured in Document Journal, Ebony, Kinfolk, O Magazine, Vogue, and Vogue UK, amongst other publications. Abraham is the proud recipient of a Dance Magazine Award (2022), Princess Grace Statue Award (2018), Doris Duke Award (2016), and MacArthur Fellowship (2013). He currently serves as the Claude and Alfred Mann Endowed Professor in Dance at The University of Southern California (USC) Glorya Kaufman School of Dance (2021-). Abraham also sits on the advisory board for Dance Magazine and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the ​​inaugural Black Genius Brain Trust, and the inaugural cohort of the Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab, a partnership between the Prada Group, Theaster Gates Studio, Dorchester Industries, and Rebuild Foundation.

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 [Cunningham] and Martha [Graham] as it is Eadweard Muybridge and Michael Jackson.”

His company, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, is widely considered “one of the most consistently excellent troupes working today” (The New York Times). Led by Abraham’s innovative vision, the work of A.I.M is galvanized by Black culture and history and grounded in a conglomeration of unique perspectives; described as a “post-modern gumbo” of movement exploration. The company’s recent works include An Untitled Love (2021), a thumping mixtape celebrating culture, family and community; Requiem: Fire in the Air and the Earth (2021), a reimagining of Mozart’s Requiem in D minor through abstracted themes of afterlife, reincarnation, mythology and folklore; and A.I.M’s Emmy-nominated film If We Were a Love Song (2021), a series of poetic vignettes set to the music of Nina Simone.

Abraham has been commissioned by a wide variety of dance companies including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, The National Ballet of Cuba, New York City Ballet, and The Royal Ballet. Highlights include Abraham’s collaborations with NYCB—When We Fell (2021), reviewed by The New York Times as “among the most beautiful dance films of the pandemic” and The Runaway (2018), recognized on the “Best Dance of 2018” list by The New York Times. Abraham was the final choreographer commissioned by Paul Taylor before his passing, creating Only The Lonely (2019) for Paul Taylor American Modern Dance. In addition to his work for A.I.M and other major dance companies, Abraham has choreographed for many of the leading dancers of our time including Misty Copeland, Calvin Royal III, and Wendy Whelan.

For more information please visit http://aimbykyleabraham.org.

Melissa Toogood

Melissa Toogood is a Sydney and New York based Dancer, Master Teacher, Stager, Coach, Contributor, Mother, and sometimes Choreographer. She is a New York and Performance Award (Bessie) winning Performer. Melissa is both Dancer and Rehearsal Director for Pam Tanowitz Dance. She has assisted Tanowitz on new creations for the Australian Ballet, L.A. Dance Project, Martha Graham Dance Company, Paul Taylor Dance Company, The Royal Ballet, and others. She was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, is a 2013 & 2015 Merce Cunningham fellow, has taught Cunningham Technique since 2007, and is a licensed Stager of Merce Cunningham’s work. She has performed with Kyle Abraham/A.I.M., Kimberly Bartosik/Daela, Rosie Herrera Dance Theater, Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Reiner, Stephen Petronio Company, Sally Silvers & Dancers, Christopher Williams, The Bang Group: Tap Lab, Bill Young and many others. Her own work has been commissioned by the Boston Ballet, New York Theater Ballet and the Vail International Dance Festival. This year marks Melissa’s 10th season with the Festival.