“Where will you be in five years?” This is the opening line of choreographer Kyle Abraham’s program note for his new evening-length work Dear Lord, Make Me Beautiful, having its world premiere today (Dec. 3) at the Park Avenue Armory. Those words might suggest the shudder of an awkward job interview, but to Abraham, they are so much more than that. Since 2021, when he began creating the large-scale commission in earnest, that question has haunted him, whispering its myriad meanings—ranging from the personal to the political to the universal—in his ear. It hurled him into the Afrofuturist work of Octavia Butler and brought him to Richard Powers’ cautionary novel The Overstory. It left him pondering the aging body and mind, the anxiety of possible futures, the miracle of trees and nature and humanity and empathy and the fragile uncertainty of life.

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While much has changed during the creation of Dear Lord, Make Me Beautiful, most notably the cast of dancers, those original musings and themes have remained the same. The resulting dance-based performance, which includes a commissioned live score by a sextet chamber ensemble and stunning nature-based video projections, promises to hold space for all those things and more.

Abraham is a sought-after American choreographer (and MacArthur Fellow) known for his uniquely cool blend of modern dance techniques, from ballet to hip hop. He has created work for world-class dance companies such as the New York City Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and The Royal Ballet, and he is the Artistic Director of A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, which he founded in 2006.

Though this is Abraham’s first time making a work for the cavernous Wade Thompson Drill Hall in the Park Avenue Armory, he has many evening-length works under his belt. His creative process, he told Observer, always begins in the same way. “It usually starts with me sitting down and writing out what it is that I want to say and do. It’s somewhat like a scientist writing a hypothesis. I’m bringing these different things together, and then I plan on experimenting and seeing if something sticks or seems valid.”

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He then shares this narrative with his dancers and artistic collaborators so that everyone understands the roots of the work in progress. His choreography grows from those words,........

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