Abby Zbikowski: Abandoned Playground

Inside the intimate stadium setup of abandoned playground (2017), 9 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.”
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