Radioactive Practice

Abby Z and the New Utility’s Radioactive Practice will make its much-anticipated European premiere at this year’s Dance Umbrella Festival. For anyone unable to attend the live dates at Sadler’s Wells, we are offering a filmed version available with this year’s Digital Pass.

Hurtling onto the stage with explosive physicality, six performers challenge their physical and mental limits in a genre-bending new work.

Drawing influences from street dance, synchronised swimming, post-modern dance, tap, football, martial arts and contemporary African forms; Radioactive Practice from award-winning American choreographer Abby Zbikowski and crew, shatters movement expectations and explores our instincts for survival.

This powerful piece was recontextualised from the stage for film by director Jeremy Jacob to interrogate the complexities of contemporary living.

Gallery

Digital Event

Venue: Online
Date: 9 - 31 October 2024

Admission: Watch with a Digital Pass (Pay What You Can)
Duration: 32 minutes
Access: Captioned (English)

Dance Umbrella Festival 2024 Across London & Online
9-31 October

Adapting Radioactive Practice for film | Go deeper with Abby Zbikowski

About Abby Zbikowski

Abby Zbikowski wearing a black top and ripped blue jeans, crouching low with her arms rested on her knees. She is in a park.

Credit Maddie McGarvey

Choreographer Abby Zbikowski creates dance works that pay homage to the effort of living and tactics of survival. She founded Abby Z and the New Utility in 2012 with founding members Fiona Lundie and Jennifer Meckley to explore the potential of bodies pushed beyond perceived limits. In 2017 the company premiered abandoned playground to sold-out audiences at Abrons Arts Center in NYC, earning Zbikowski a Juried Bessie Award. They have been presented at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, New York Live Arts, ICA Boston, American Dance Festival and Walker Arts Center. In 2020 Abby was the recipient of an United States Artists Fellowship and is a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow for choreography.

About the company +

Choreographer Abby Zbikowski created Abby Z and the New Utility in 2012 with dancers Fiona Lundie and Jennifer Meckley to experiment with the potential and choreographic possibility of the body being pushed beyond perceived limits, creating a new movement lexicon that triangulates dancing/moving bodies across multiple cultural value systems simultaneously.

In 2016, Abby expanded the company to nine performer/collaborators for her first evening-length commission. abandoned playground premiered to a sold-out run at the Abrons Arts Center in New York in April 2017, leading to Zbikowski being honored with the Juried Bessie Award, and was awarded the inaugural Caroline Hearst Artist in Residence at Princeton University, along with commissions from national and international organisations.

Abby Z and the New Utility have been presented at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, the Boston ICA, 92nd St Y, Movement Research at Danspace Project, Gibney Dance Center, Bard College, New York Live Arts, and the Fusebox Festival in Austin, Texas, among others. In 2021 the company was granted residency support at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio to rebuild work following a year long pandemic shutdown. Currently, they are working out of Columbus and New York City with collaborators locally, nationally, and internationally.

abbyznewutility.org

Cast & Creative +

Abby Zbikowski
Choreographer / Director
Jeremy Jacobs
Director
Daniel Rampulla
Director of Photography
Momar Ndiaye
Dramaturg
Alex Gossen, Kashia Kancey, Fiona Lundie, Jennifer Meckley, Benjamin Roach, Jinsei Sato
Performers / Collaborators
Raphael Xavier
Original Music

Credits +

A Doll’s House Pictures

Commissioned by Dance Umbrella as part of the Four by Four commissioning project and produced with grant support from the Nathan M. Clark Foundation and the MidAtlantic Arts Foundation.