The scent of hair relaxer is unmistakable. It is a sharp, chemical sting that lingers in the back of the throat, a ritualistic sacrifice of comfort for the sake of a specific kind of sleekness. In the mid-1980s, that smell was the olfactory backdrop of a revolution. It was the era of the "big perm," a misnomer for the chemical straightening processes that defined Black masculinity and style for a fleeting, electric moment. To look at a photograph of that time is to see more than just hair; you see a community trying to figure out how much space it was allowed to take up.
Kyle Abraham remembers. He doesn't just remember the aesthetics; he remembers the vibration of the bass hitting the sidewalk. The choreographer, a MacArthur "Genius" Grant recipient, has spent his career translating the unspoken frequencies of Black life into movement. His latest work doesn't just reference the eighties; it exhumes them. It digs up the heavy plastic of the boombox and the shimmering, artificial texture of the Jheri curl to ask what we lost when we traded that analog grit for digital silence.
The Weight of the Box
Imagine a young man walking down a Pittsburgh street in 1985. He isn't wearing headphones. He isn't retreating into a private, curated algorithm. He is carrying a twelve-pound silver box on his shoulder like a heavy, musical cross. This is the boombox. It was a communal demand. To carry one was to say: You will hear what I hear. My joy is loud. My presence is non-negotiable.
There is a specific physics to carrying a radio that size. It changes the way you tilt your head. It shifts your center of gravity. Abraham’s choreography captures this physical burden—the way a body compensates for the weight of its own expression. In his work, the dancers don’t just move to the music; they move against the memory of the hardware. The boombox was a tether to the neighborhood. It was the original social media, a broadcast system that required physical strength and a surplus of D-cell batteries.
The transition from that collective roar to the isolation of the earbud represents a profound shift in the human experience. We went from sharing a frequency to living in a vacuum. Abraham’s stage is filled with the ghosts of those shared frequencies. He uses the visual language of the era—the neon accents, the denim, the sheer bravado—to remind us that culture used to be something you could feel vibrating in your sternum.
The Chemistry of Belonging
Then there was the hair. The "Big Perm" era was a period of intense grooming. It was an architectural feat. Achieving the perfect curl or the sharpest line required hours in a chair, a patience that bordered on the monastic. For Black men, the hair was a site of intense creativity and complicated politics. It was about softening the edges or sharpening them, depending on the day.
Abraham leans into the artifice. He understands that the "perm" wasn't just about vanity; it was about armor. When you spend that much time on your presentation, you are preparing yourself for a world that often refuses to see your humanity. You are making yourself undeniable. The dancers in his company embody this tension—the fluidity of the curls contrasted with the rigid, demanding social structures of the Reagan era.
Consider the choreography of the barbershop. It is a space of high-stakes intimacy. You trust a stranger with a razor at your throat. You talk about the Knicks, the police, the local legends, and the price of milk. Abraham translates these social rhythms into dance. The movements are jerky, then suddenly smooth, mimicking the transition from a street corner strut to the precision of a haircut. It is a language of survival disguised as a language of style.
The Invisible Stakes of Nostalgia
There is a danger in looking back. We often sanitize the past, stripping away the grit until only the neon remains. But Abraham refuses to let the eighties be just a costume party. He acknowledges the shadows: the looming specter of the crack epidemic, the systemic neglect of urban centers, and the quiet desperation that often fueled the loudest music.
The boombox wasn't just a party tool; it was a distraction. It was a way to drown out the sound of a crumbling infrastructure. When the music stopped, the silence was often deafening.
In one particular sequence, the movement slows to a crawl. The frantic energy of the breakbeat fades, leaving only the sound of breathing. It is a reminder that under the hairspray and the heavy jackets, there were bodies that were tired. There were people trying to outrun a future that felt increasingly narrow. By centering the human element, Abraham moves beyond the "standard" retrospective. He isn't interested in a history lesson. He is interested in the muscle memory of a generation.
The Analog Heartbeat
We live in a world of high-definition clarity, yet we have never felt more blurred. We have more access to music than any human in history, yet we rarely listen to the same song at the same time as our neighbors. The 1980s, for all their technical limitations, had a tactile reality that we are starving for.
Abraham’s work serves as a sensory bridge. He uses the specific, localized memories of his youth to tap into a universal longing for connection. You don't have to have lived through the big perm era to understand the desire to be seen and heard. You don't have to have carried a boombox to know what it feels like to want your heartbeat to match the rhythm of the street.
The dancers collide. They pull apart. They mirror each other’s gestures with a precision that feels almost digital, but the sweat is real. The effort is visible. This is the core of the work: the recognition that even in our most stylized moments, we are profoundly, messy humans.
Beyond the Frame
As the lights dim on a performance, the image that remains isn't the silver of the radio or the sheen of the hair. It is the silhouette of a body in motion, reaching for something it can’t quite touch. It is the realization that the "era" never really ended; it just changed its clothes. The struggles are the same. The need for joy is the same.
The big perm eventually fell out of fashion. The boomboxes were traded for Walkmans, then Discmans, then iPods, then ghosts in the cloud. But the vibration remains. It is tucked away in the way we walk, in the way we tilt our heads when a certain bassline kicks in, and in the quiet, chemical scent of a memory we didn't know we still held.
Kyle Abraham isn't just choreographing a dance. He is conducting a séance for a time when we were loud, together, and uncomfortably close.
The needle drops on a record. The static crackles for a second before the beat takes over. In that brief moment of noise, before the melody begins, you can hear everything we forgot to say.
