Creator: Kyle Abraham in collaboration with A.I.M Choreographer
The drinks are out the lights are dimmed – the rugs fluffed and the sofa inviting, despite its plastic wrap. The only thing left to do is pick out the tracks. D’Angelo’s 1995 album Brown Sugar should do the trick.
This welcoming aura and sound score lay the foundational work for Kyle Abraham’s An Untitled Love, a piece of dance and performance where we, the audience, feel like the neighbours across the way; not cool enough to be invited to the part but desperate to know the details. It’s warm and glistening with tightly chosen tunes and a tactile and intimate sense of movement. But, perhaps, too inviting. Too easy-going. Too effortless.
A core motivation behind Abraham’s talent is the desire to illuminate black culture and history. An Untitled Love is a sliver of the African American lifestyle which may have specificities inside the US but is otherwise universal in message and tone and is significantly motivated by a desire to illustrate and familiarise culture for audiences. A living RomCom unfolds before the audience as couples’ bicker, fall in love, fall out of love, and generally just live. It’s the fluidity and ease of movement however which works to demonstrate the immense capability of the performers but also infuses a sense of comfort which may distract audiences as their minds wander.
Saccharine limbed and flowing, there’s an elemental nature of movement which carries Abraham’s intimacy across the storytelling of this irresistible groove. An Untitled Love continues American choreographer Kyle Abraham’s panache for fusing an assortment of movement forms from classical to more contemporary forms of street and hip-hop. Human interaction is the crux of Abraham’s choreography here, yet still able to form communication to and from the dancers across the stage with silken motions, culminating in a stillness as the production’s rare moments of darkness creep into frame.
It isn’t solely the movement which furnishes itself with an array of techniques – as An Untitled Love benefits from the gradual warmth and altering palette of Joe Buckingham’s visual artistry against Dan Scully’s lighting design.
Intriguing to witness the emergence of stage domesticity, where emotion and humbleness take a central focal point than narrative arcs or disruptions. But the enjoyment of An Untitled Love comes from this sense of simplicity, yet technical prowess in movement. There is no thundering finale, no reprisal or heavy group number. It simply fades, ready for us to move on with our lives, but in doing so, perhaps drips out of memory quicker than it ought to have.
The Reviews Hub Score
Humble but fading
