Abby Z and the New Utility

http://www.abbyznewutility.org/ // @abbyzandthenewutility

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 to a group of nine performer/collaborators for Zbikowski’s 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. 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, The Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, and the Fusebox Festival in Austin,TX, among others. From diverse training and cultural backgrounds, Abby Z and the New Utility works collaboratively to build a hybrid form that welcomes audiences from a range of understandings of dance/movement and reflects a wider contemporary cultural conversation.

Fiona Lundie (she/her) is a movement artist and cognitive scientist interested in what is vital about how and why we move, what form that movement takes, and how it shapes our perspective. She grew up dancing from age 3 and synchronized swimming from age 8 to 16, achieving seven national titles. She explores movement in different media:land, air, fluid water, and frozen water by training and teaching dance, flying trapeze, swimming,springboard diving, skiing, and snowboarding. Lundie holds a BA in Cognitive Science from Dartmouth College and an MFA in Dance from The Ohio State University. She is a founding member of Abby Z and the New Utility, became Rehearsal Director in 2016, and Company Manager in 2017 as the company has grown. She enjoys supporting this amazing work through these multiple roles from the business side to the collaborative choreographic process to the individual movement investigation. Her performance highlights include Jacob’s Pillow,The American Dance Festival, and the Boston ICA with Abby Z and the New Utility and performing with the STREB Extreme Action Company in NYC’s Fall for Dance Festival.

Jennifer Meckley (she/they) has made it her goal to emphasize the benefits of training in African American vernacular dance techniques and decenter white dance forms in academia as a performer, teacher, choreographer, and practitioner of hip-hop, street dance, club dance, and contemporary dance forms. Her concert dance choreography explores the fusion of movement from breaking, house dance, waacking, vogue, and contemporary dance while attempting to incorporate other live elements such as DJing and graffiti. Moreover, her identity as a gay gender non-conforming person motivates the content for her work. In 2010, Meckley obtained a BA in Dance from Slippery Rock University and an MFA in Dance in 2013 from The Ohio State University. She has served as a faculty member at West Chester University, Cuyahoga Community College, Northampton Community College, and the University of Dayton. Meckley currently serves as anAssistant Professor of Dance at Ball State University and actively pushes the boundaries of physicality through performance as a founding member of Abby Z and the New Utility.

Fusebox Performances

Radioactive Practice (Fusebox 2024)
abandoned playground (Fusebox 2018)
Artist Talk: Tania El Khoury, Abby Zbikowski, + Sanchita Sharma (Fusebox 2024)