Abigail Sebaly: Esprit de tour

About

This event is co-presented by Danspace Project, the Merce Cunningham Trust, and the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP) at Wesleyan University.

In 1964, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company embarked on a 6-month world tour throughout Europe and Asia, a series of events that fundamentally altered both the company and the many artistic communities whom they encountered during their journey. A half-century later, researcher Abigail Sebaly is pursuing the first comprehensive retracing of the original itinerary, crossing the globe to map the diverse artistic and cultural contexts that characterized each port of call, and collecting unique firsthand accounts from many who interacted with the company.

This ongoing project was conceived by Sebaly, whose longtime affiliation with Cunningham includes serving as a staff member for the Cunningham Dance Foundation (2003-2008) and, more recently, as a research consultant to the Merce Cunningham Trust. She initially developed the foundations of her project while completing the Graduate Certificate Program at Wesleyan University’s Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (2013).

Sebaly will present project updates as she shares her travelogue-in-progress and moderates a conversation with special guests: David Vaughan, Lewis Lloyd, and Petr Kotik.