Ursula Eagly makes bizarre performances full of darkness, humor, and other contradictions. She is especially interested in manipulating the viewing experience.
Ursula’s work has been commissioned by Danspace Project, Dance Theater Workshop, Dance New Amsterdam, Mount Tremper Arts, and the Howl Fesitval. It has been presented by The Brooklyn Museum of Art, CATCH, The Chocolate Factory, Dance New Amsterdam (A.I.R. Splice), Dance Theater Workshop (main stage, Studio Series, Fresh Tracks), Danspace Project (main stage, DraftWork), Movement Research at the Judson Church, the New Museum, The Old American Can Factory, 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center, P.S. 122 (Avantgardearamathon, Howl Festival, Schoolhouse Roxx), and Ur. Her work has toured internationally to Albania, Italy, and Macedonia and nationally to DiverseWorks in Houston, Texas and The Gilded Pony Festival in Troy, New York.
Ursula has been honored with grant awards from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation’s USArtists International program, Dance Theater Workshop’s Suitcase Fund, and the Queens Council on the Arts (two individual artist grants and one Individual Artist Initiative award). She has been an artist in residency at Dance New Amsterdam, Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, Topaz Arts, and Ur, your neighborhood dance palace. In July 2011, she was selected by Movement Research to perform in the Solo in Azione Festival in Milan, Italy.
Ursula is also dedicated to her work as a performer. Since 2006, she has been a core performer in Yoshiko Chuma’s A Page Out of Order series, a project with which she’s toured throughout Albania, Macedonia, Japan, and Romania, collaborating with extraordinary local musicians and performers. They’ve performed on proscenium stages like Japan Society in New York and the National Theater of Albania in Tirana; on a long, narrow red carpet at Lincoln Center Out of Doors; in living rooms in Japan; and, for two seven-hour-long endurance performances, at Issue Project Room’s indoor/outdoor space on Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal. From 2006-2010, Ursula collaborated with choreographer Kathy Westwater, delving into a process-oriented somatic investigation of the pelvis. She has also worked with Rebecca Brooks, Rebecca Davis, Daria Fain, and Christopher Williams.
Ursula is deeply invested in cross-boarder exchange in the arts. She was introduced to this work through Yoshiko Chuma and has since launched her own exchange projects. She is currently involved in an on-going collaboration with the Macedonian choreographer Iskra Sukarova. Their work together has been supported by Dance Theater Workshop’s Suitcase Fund and the New Dance Alliance’s Performance Mix Festival.
Ursula also investigates performance through writing. She will succeed Trajal Harrell as Editor-in-Chief of the Movement Research Performance Journal beginning with the Fall 2012 issue. In 2010-2011, she was the first Critical Correspondence Guest Editor. She also edited Danspace Project’s catalogues for PLATFORM 2010: Back to New York City and PLATFORM 2011: Body Madness. She has also written for various magazines, including Artforum, and previously edited Arts International’s magazine (ai) performance for the planet.
Ursula is a multi-faceted member of the New York experimental performance world. She currently serves on the Advisory Board of Gibney Dance Center. She is also dedicated to furthering the field through administration and worked in development at Danspace Project from February 2003 through February 2009 and September 2010 through September 2011. She has also taught at Dance New Amsterdam as part of the Guest Artist Series. She frequently serves on panels and moderates discussions and things of that sort, most recently at Harvard University’s Carpenter Center and Danspace Project’s LIVING ROOM CONVERSATIONS.
Ursula grew up in Indiana and graduated from Princeton in 1999 with the Francis LeMoyne Page Theater Award for Excellence in Dance and the Class of 1955 Grant for her senior thesis in dance. She now lives in Jackson Heights with her husband and son.
photograph by Rai Shizuno