When The Wolves Came In (2014)

Created during Kyle Abraham's tenure as a Resident Commissioned Artist at New York Live Arts from 2012-2014, When The Wolves Came In draws inspiration from jazz legend Max Roach’s seminal album, We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite. This album, originally intended to be released in 1963 to mark the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, was released in the fall of 1960 due to the severity sparked by the sit-ins in Greensboro, NC, and the urgency of the growing civil rights movement in the US and South Africa.

From Kyle Abraham: "As overarching commentary, I keep going back to Roach’s response when asked about the song, 'Freedom Day:' 'Freedom itself was so hard to grasp...we don’t really understand what it really is to be free.' At this point in my life, I am very well aware of the freedoms I possess. But as a Black Gay American man, I am equally aware of my limitations and those that exist for so many in a poly-phobic society of our current times."

Abraham began working on When the Wolves Came In after a visit to the Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto, South Africa. While there, he became fixated on the power of perception, and the ways that the 13-year-old Pieterson’s death in an anti-Apartheid protest shines a spotlight on questions of personal choice and collective rights in the struggle for freedom.

When the Wolves Came In was commissioned and produced by New York Live Arts through its Resident Commissioned Artist Program, with lead support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. When the Wolves Came In is supported, in part, by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The work was developed, in part, through a production residency at On the Boards with support from the National Dance Project, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Support was also provided to New York Live Arts for the commissioning of this work by MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Sets for When the Wolves Came In were donated by Glenn Ligon.