Kyle Abraham, Lewis Center for the Arts

Guest Artist

Photo credit: Carrie Schneider

About

Kyle Abraham (Founder and Artistic Director, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham; He/Him) has premiered his work to international audiences and acclaim since 2006. Abraham has been profiled in Document Journal, Vanity Fair, Ebony, Harper’s Bazaar, Kinfolk, O Magazine, Paper, Surface, Vogue & Vogue UK, W Magazine, among many other publications. He was recently nominated for an Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production (2025 – An Untitled Love at Sadler’s Wells); Rose Prize for International Dance nominee (2025 – An Untitled Love); the proud recipient of a National Dance Critics Award for Choreography (2024 – Are You in Your Feelings / Alvin Ailey Dance Theater); Dance Magazine Award (2022); Princess Grace Statue Award (2018); Doris Duke Award (2016) and The MacArthur Fellowship (2013). In addition to performing and developing new works for his company, Abraham has been commissioned by a wide variety of dance companies, including American Ballet Theatre, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, The National Ballet of Cuba, New York City Ballet, Paul Taylor American Modern Dance, and The Royal Ballet. In 2024, Abraham premiered three new works to much acclaim, the evening-length work, Cassette Vol. 1 in Hamburg, Germany; Mercurial Son for American Ballet Theatre in October and in December, Dear Lord, Make Me Beautiful at the Park Avenue Armory, which Jennifer Homans of The New Yorker called an “Extraordinary Dance Memoir.”

Abraham has led and curated several performance series including the Danspace Project (2024 / 50th anniversary season) and Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City (2023, 2022), among others. In 2020, Abraham was the first ever guest editor for Dance Magazine.

He serves as the Claude and Alfred Mann Endowed Professor in Dance at The University of Southern California Glorya Kaufman School of Dance (2021-). Abraham 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.