Hyperphysical: A Dance Double Bill – Irish Modern Dance Theatre

This thrilling dance double bill will include a new piece by up-to-the-minute US choreographer Abby Zbikowski and a revised version of John Scott's duet, Actions (NOW).

The future is on the way is a new highly physical work for 6 dancers from varying movement trainings and ethnic backgrounds that currently call Ireland home. Irish Modern Dance Theatre commissioned Abby Z to come to Dublin to develop a new, ambitious dance work to not only support the development of Irish based dancers but to develop a deeper appreciation of dance.

The future is on the way will be Abby Z’s latest work on a ten year trajectory of creating highly physical, collaborative dance works that force audiences and dancers to reckon with the collision of cultures that vibrate throughout the practice of dance in this contemporary moment, and manifest a path towards equity that supports the necessary evolution of the world via the practice of dance. Throughout the process of creation Abby Z physically challenges assumed conventions of form and work towards re-imagining known outcomes as a way to challenge the systems we cling to for understanding.

Actions (NOW) is a dynamic, humorous, and touching dialogue in which two individuals navigate space with lifts, falls, text, and sound, seamlessly melding and diverging into raw, expressive movements.

WARNING: Loud noises, sudden movement, and potential profanity

The future is on the way

Choreography Abby Zbikowski

Dancers Inez Berdychowska, Roberta Ceginskaite, Boris Charrion, Rosie Mullin, Adam O'Reilly

Actions (NOW)

Choreography John Scott

Dancers Boris Charrion, Adam O'Reilly

With thanks to the Arts Council of Ireland, Dublin City Council, Dance Cork Firkin Crane and Dance Ireland.

Abby Zbikowski, creates experimental dance works that pay homage to the effort of living, tactics of survival, and the aesthetics produced as a result. She founded Abby Z and the New Utility in 2012 with founding members Fiona Lundie and Jennifer Meckley to create works utilising the physical aspects and psyche-emotional experience of her rigorous training in African and Diasporic forms, playing sports, and performing manual labor.

In 2017 Abby received the Juried Bessie Award for her “unique and utterly authentic movement vocabulary [employed] in complex and demanding structures to create works of great energy, intensity, surprise, and danger” and a United States Artists Fellowship in 2020. She was an inaugural Caroline Hearst Choreographer-In-Residence at the Lewis Center at Princeton University, with past residencies at New York Live Arts, Bates Dance Festival, American Dance Festival, STREB, and the Wexner Center. She is an Associate Professor of Dance at The Ohio State University, previously on faculty at University of Illinois, American Dance Festival, and Bates Dance Festival. Abby has studied at Germaine Acogny’s L’École de Sables in Senegal, taught at the Academy of Culture in Riga, Latvia and Festival Un Pas Vers L’Avant in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. She is a 2024 recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and her company will make its European debut at Sadler's Wells as part of Dance Umbrella Uk's Festival in October of this year.

John Scott is a Dublin born choreographer, dancer, singer, Aosdána member and founder of Irish Modern Dance Theatre (IMDT). Choreographic works include Othello-maybe a dance, Cloud Study, Lear, Fall and Recover, and Actions. He is the founder and curator of Dancer from the Dance Festival of Irish Choreography in New York and Dublin.

Founded in 1991 by John Scott, Irish Modern Dance Theatre is one of the most responsive dance companies working in Ireland today.