�鶹AV

The �鶹AV Performing Arts Series will present Abby Z and the New Utility’s abandoned playground, Friday-Saturday, Dec. 7-8, at 8 p.m. in the Hepburn Teaching Theater in Goodhart Hall. 

Inside the intimate stadium setup of this work, nine dancers rip through the space performing complex sequences of hyper-physical dance that push their understandings of their own capabilities and endurance. Recognized with the 2017 Juried Bessie Award for her “unique and utterly authentic movement vocabulary in complex and demanding structures,” Abby Zbikowski generates her bold, high-intensity, precisely rhythmic choreography from her background of hip-hop, tap, West African, and postmodern dance styles, deeply-rooted punk aesthetic, and close collaboration with her dancers who bring their specific bodies, psychologies, and training histories to the work. In this evening length work Zbikowski highlights each of her dancers' unique strengths and simultaneously forges an intense ensemble connection in that through vocalizations and the channeling of communal energy the dancers invigorate each other to overcome the physical and mental exhaustion of performing such extreme and virtuosic movement at the relentless pace required. Like life, no overstated purpose is given, but as The New York Times dance critic Siobhan Burke surmises "the effort justifies itself."

Choreography by Abby Zbikowski
Original music by Raphael Xavier
Lighting Design by Jon Harper
Costume Design by Abby Zbikowski and Karen Zbikowski

Performed and created in collaboration with; Alexa Bender, Shaela Davis, Justin Faircloth, Ali Herring, Jen Lu, Fiona Lundie, Jennifer Meckley, Evelyn Sanchez Narvaez, and Jessie Young.

Event Schedule and Ticket Information

Abby Z and the New Utility
abandoned playground
Friday-Saturday, Dec 7-8, 8 p.m.
Hepburn Teaching Theater, Goodhart Hall

Hepburn Teaching Theater, �鶹AV 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 philadelphiadance.org, and $5 for children under 12. Tickets are available online through . To purchase by phone or for subscriptions, group sales and more information, please call 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 �鶹AV 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 �鶹AV 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 �鶹AV 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 �鶹AV 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
— abandoned playground (Dec. 7-8)