A Selective Guide to the Arts in Los Angeles

Kyle Abraham and Abraham.In.Motion bring “Dearest Home” to UCLA. / Photo by Carrie Schneider

Returning to UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance at the Freud Playhouse, MacArthur Genius and current Visiting Professor in Residence in the university’s Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance Kyle Abraham brings his six-member company, Abraham.In.Motion, to perform “Dearest Home” in Westwood.

With four performances spread out over three days, Thursday through Saturday, April 5, 6 and 7, at 8 p.m. and a matinee at 3 p.m. on Saturday, this latest creation has had almost a full year of fine tuning since its premiere — dancers getting deep into the juicy meat of the material. Described in promotional information as “an immersive interactive chamber piece,” “Dearest Home” is staged in the round with the audience encircling the ferocious movers.

The evening-length work is a collection of solos and duets exploring ideas about love, loss and longing. Developed through workshops and conversations with individuals and community groups across the country, the resulting sensual and provocative movement vocabulary drawn from these intergenerational interchanges reveals what The New York Times calls “an intimate work about the difficulty of intimacy.”

Viewers have a choice to watch the dancing in silence or to don wireless headphones and hear the score composed by Jerome Begin.

Originally from Pittsburgh, Abraham grew up playing cello and piano and making visual art. A graduate of SUNY Purchase’s Dance Program, he is the recipient of numerous awards and citations, including the aforementioned MacArthur Genius Award and Bessie, Princess Grace and Jacob’s Pillow Dance awards. He is a USA Ford Fellow and a Creative Capital grantee. The company of explosive dancers comes from various disciplines and diverse personal backgrounds. They, too, are very fine.

—Benn Widdey, Culture Spot LA

LOCATION: Freud Playhouse, UCLA campus, 405 Hilgard Ave., LA 90095

TICKETS: $29–$59

https://www.ticketmaster.com/venueartist/90218/1638162/&brand=capucla&camefrom=cfc_ucla_abrahamEDP

INFORMATION:

https://cap.ucla.edu/calendar/details/kyle_abraham_sat

https://www.abrahaminmotion.org