Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series presents Abby Z and the New Utility
The Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series will present Abby Z and the New Utility’s abandoned playground, Friday and Saturday, Dec. 7-8, at 8:00 p.m. in the Hepburn Teaching Theater in Goodhart Hall. Praised by The New York Times as "an onslaught of thwacking arms, emphatic kicks, dizzying spins, swift somersaults, perilous balances and slippery contortions,” this evening-length piece brings nine dancers to rip through a work of great energy, intensity, surprise, and danger. Choreographer Abby Zbikowski draws together influences of hip-hop, tap, and West African dance with a punk aesthetic to create her own movement lexicon, layered with original music from Raphael Xavier. As the dancers push the boundaries of their endurance performing complex sequences of hyper-physical dance, they forge an intense ensemble connection through vocalizations and the channeling of communal energy.
EVENT SCHEDULE AND TICKET INFORMATION
Abby Z and the New Utility
abandoned playground
Friday-Saturday, 25-26, 8 p.m.
Hepburn Teaching Theater, Goodhart Hall
Hepburn Teaching Theater, Bryn Mawr College is located at 150 N. Merion Avenue in Bryn Mawr, PA. Flex subscriptions of five tickets to the remaining series events are $90 each, $75 for seniors. Tickets to individual events are $20, $18 for seniors, $10 for students and members of dancephiladelphia.org, and $5 for children under 12. Tickets, subscriptions, group sales and more information are available online through Brown Paper Tickets, at https://www.brynmawr.edu/brynmawr.edu/arts/series.html or by calling 610-526-5210.
ABOUT ABBY ZBIKOWSKI
Abby Zbikowski is a Juried Bessie Award-winning choreographer, a Caroline Hearst Choreographer-in-Residence at Princeton University, and artistic director of her company, Abby Z and the New Utility. She is assistant professor of dance at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and faculty member at the American Dance Festival. Her choreographic work with her company, Abby Z and the New Utility, has been presented by the Gibney Dance Center, Movement Research at Danspace Project, and the Abrons Arts Center, where the company had a sold out run of its evening-length piece, abandoned playground. Zbikowski has been an Artist-in-Residence as part of the nEW Festival in Philadelphia, the American Dance Festival, and the Bates Dance Festival. She has studied intensively at Germaine Acogny’s L’École de Sables in Senegal and holds a B.F.A. in dance from Temple University and an M.F.A. in dance from Ohio State University, where she worked closely with mentors Bebe Miller and Vickie Blaine. As a performer, Zbikowski has worked with Charles O. Anderson/Dance Theater X, Vincent Mantsoe, and the Baker & Tarpaga Dance Project. She has been on faculty at Ohio State University and has taught technique and creative process abroad at the Academy of Culture in Riga, Latvia, as part of Global Practice Sharing, sponsored by Movement Research.
ABOUT BRYN MAWR COLLEGE PERFORMING ARTS SERIES
2018-2019 Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series Upcoming Performance Schedule
Wintry Mix/Performance Festival
Fri.-Sat., Jan. 25-26, 8 p.m.
Hepburn Teaching Theater, Goodhart Hall
Sara Davis Buechner, Solo Piano Recital
Sat., March 2, 8 p.m.
McPherson Auditorium, Goodhart Hall
Ranky Tanky
Sat., March 23, 8 p.m.
McPherson Auditorium, Goodhart Hall
The 2018-2019 Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
Since 1984 the Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series has presented great artists and performances to audiences in the Philadelphia area, creating an environment in which the value of the arts is recognized and celebrated. Providing talks and workshops free to the public to help develop arts awareness and literacy, the Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series has partnered in recent seasons with such organizations as the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, the Barnes Museum, the Pennsylvania Ballet, and FringeArts. The Series has presented performances by such diverse luminaries and visionaries as the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Meredith Monk, John Waters, Il Fondamento, the Khmer Arts Ensemble of Cambodia, and Okwui Okpokwasili.
MEDIA KIT
Abby Z and the New Utility— abandoned playground (Dec. 7-8)