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Past Performing Arts | Dance
Artist Residency | Award Winning Project | Midwest Premiere
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Drawing on a variety of movement styles, this genre-bending, Wex-supported work tests its performers' limits as they confront histories warped by racist, sexist, and classist misinformation.
Using their experience practicing a variety of movement styles—from hip-hop, postmodern dance, and contemporary African forms to tap, synchronized swimming, and other sports—choreographer and Ohio State alumnus Abby Zbikowski and the dancers of the New Utility break physical and mental barriers, redefining expectations through demanding and confounding physicality. With Senegalese dance artist and Ohio State Assistant Professor Momar Ndiaye as dramaturge, the crew explores the gamut of contemporary, COVID-era living—chock full of cultural collisions, unlikely relationships, minor to major misunderstandings, a drive toward logic, and the hard-wired need to survive.
Radioactive Practice received significant commissioning support and several weeks of residency space as part of Zbikowski’s 2021 Wexner Center Artist Residency Award, allowing the work to premiere in May 2022 at New York Live Arts despite the challenge of creating during the pandemic.
IMAGE CAPTION Abby Z and the New Utility, Radioactive Practice, photo: Effy Falck.
Abby Zbikowski created her company, Abby Z and the New Utility, in 2012. Her work utilizes both the physical and psychological aspects of rigorously training in African and Afro-diasporic forms, as well as playing sports and performing other acts of manual labor. In 2017 she received the Juried Bessie Award for her “unique and utterly authentic movement vocabulary in complex and demanding structures.” Abby holds a BFA in dance from Temple University and an MFA in dance from Ohio State, where she is an associate professor in the Department of Dance. Learn more on the artist’s website.
Radioactive Practice was made with the support of a Wexner Center Artist Residency Award in performing arts.
PERFORMING ARTS PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY Greater Columbus Arts Council The Wexner Family National Endowment for the Arts Ohio Arts Council L Brands Foundation The Columbus Foundation Nationwide Foundation Institute of Museum and Library Services Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY Mike and Paige Crane Axium Packaging CampusParc Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams President Kristina M. Johnson and Mrs. Veronica Meinhard Nancy Kramer Larry and Donna James Lisa Barton Johanna DeStefano Jones Day Alex and Renée Shumate
Past Performing Arts
Abby Z and the New Utility
