By Alaina Denean

The Selma Times-Journal

Kyle Abraham and his company Abraham.In.Motion will be taking the community by storm Jan. 13 at the Selma High School Auditorium.

But that’s not all they will be doing while making their debut in Selma.

Abraham and his company will be working with local dance students and visiting different schools showing kids what the arts are all about.

“I think it’s really important for students to have an opportunity to work with artists,” said Martha Lockett, ArtsRevive executive director.

“Artists have a different eye. They look at things differently. They see things differently, and it’s just an amazingly strong learning experience when students can work with an artist in the subject area.”

Abraham will be giving a lecture demo for Selma High School students, showing them video clips and allowing him the opportunity to talk about movement and the work the he and his crew do.

“There’s going to be a joint project from Selma High visual art’s students and Kyle and Charlie Lucas,” Lockett said. “Charlie is going to pair with Kyle and they’re going to do two days, two morning sessions, at Selma High School paring visual art and movement and the spoken word.”

Some of the members of Abraham.In.Motion will also go to the alternative school to work with those kids.

“They’re going to work at the alternative school, looking at choices and consequences of choices through movement,” Lockett said. “So they’re going to use movement to look at the choices they make and what the consequences of those choices could be. Which I think could be really exciting.”

While he is in town, Abraham will also speak at a Leadership Selma class reunion luncheon Thursday, Jan 8.

Abraham and his company will also be teaching a master class for the local dance students in the top of their class at the four local dance studios.

The class will be at the YMCA, a partnership Lockett said she is excited about.

“The master class in the afternoon is really important because that’s going to bring together kids from the private schools, from the county schools and from the city schools, into one learning environment,” Lockett said. “They may have a chance to meet kids that they would not ordinarily see or know.”

Students that attend the master class, by invitation of their instructors, will be provided free tickets to the public performance, compliments of the Selma City Schools.

Lockett said she is looking forward to Abraham and his company being in Selma, and she knows great things will come from it.

“I’m just grateful that Selma’s system is committed to making this available to their kids,” Lockett said. “You don’t let something like that go by.”