Ursula Eagly is a dance artist based in New York City. Her works are characterized by a “rabbit-hole logic” (NY Times), and her research considers phyiscal experiences that are not conventionally regarded as material for choreography.
Ursula has received commissions and presentations by The Chocolate Factory, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, Dance New Amsterdam, Mount Tremper Arts, Movement Research at the Judson Church, the New Museum for Contemporary Art, Aunts, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center, P.S. 122, CATCH, The Old American Can Factory, and Ur (New York); Laboratorio Arte Alameda (Mexico City); Albania Dance Meeting (Durres, Albania); NOT FESTIVAL (Copenhagen); Solo in Azione (Milan); Wherever Whenever Festival (Tokyo); Dramski Theatre, Locomotion Festival, and Makedonska Filharmonija (Skopje, Macedonia); and re:PLAY (Imphal, Manipur).
Her work has been honored with grants from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation’s USArtists International program, DTW's Suitcase Fund, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ Emergency Grant Program, the Japan Foundation’s Performing Arts JAPAN Program, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, and the Queens Council on the Arts, as well as with corporate support from GENELEC.
Ursula's work has been sustained through residencies including Movement Research Artist in Residence Program (2015-17), Explore the Metropolis Choreographer + Composer Residency, Gibney boo koo Residency, Gibney Dance-in-Process Residency, New Amsterdam Artist in Residence Program, DTW Studio Series Residency, DTW Fresh Tracks Residency, New Dance Alliance Lift Off, Topaz Arts Solo Flight, and Ur (NYC), Kaatsbaan International Dance Center (Tivoli, NY), International Interdisciplinary Artists Consortium (Earthdance, MA), AREAL/space for choroegraphic development (Bucharest, Romania), Bunker Production's Stara Elektrarna (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Station Service for Contemporary Dance's Magacin (Belgrade, Serbia), and Seoul Dance Center (Korea).
Ursula has sustained multi-year collaborations with the Tulum-based artist Martín Lanz Landazuri, the Kamakura-based composer Kohji Setoh, and the Skopje-based choreographer Iskra Sukarova. As a dancer, she has worked with Kathy Westwater (2006-2010) and Yoshiko Chuma (2006-2011), as well as Laurel Atwell, Rebecca Brooks, Rebecca Davis, Daria Faïn, Juliette Mapp, Julie Mayo, Maho Ogawa, and Christopher Williams.
Ursula investigates performance through writing. She has edited 53rd State Press Dance Pamphlet (inaugural edition) Movement Research Performance Journal (Editor-in-Chief, issues 41 and 42, Critical Correspondence (2010—2011), Danspace Project's e-book series and catalogues PLATFORM 2010: Back to New York City and PLATFORM 2011: Body Madness, and Arts International’s performing arts magazine. As a writer, she has contributed to magazines from Artforum to ARTnews and is a frequent presence in the Movement Research Performance Journal.
Ursula is a multi-faceted member of the New York experimental performance world. She has been on the staff of Danspace Project, Gibney Dance, and Movement Research. She was Artistic Advisor for New York Live Arts' Fresh Tracks program (2014-2017) and taught in Dance New Amsterdam's Choreographic Investigation Course and Guest Artist Series. She serves on panels and moderates discussions and things of that sort (Harvard University’s Carpenter Center, Danspace Project’s Living Room Conversations, Gibney Dance's Colleagues in Conversation, SHELTER, etc.)
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 thesis in dance. She lives in Jackson Heights with her husband, son, and coonhound.