Dear Friends,
For the past 11 years, it has been my privilege to be the Artistic Director of Performance Space 122 (PS122).
As the organization prepares to move back into our spaces at 150 First Avenue, I’ve decided it’s the right time to step down and allow new leadership to take PS122 into the next phase of its history. I feel strongly that the ribbon on these beautifully renovated spaces should be cut by a new leader, one who has the ideas, energy, and passion to take the organization forward in the long term and continue to build Performance Space 122’s role as an essential anchor of New York City’s cultural life.
Leadership change is essential for contemporary organisations to remain vital and responsive to their communities. For PS122, it is time for some new blood.
I will not leave until the new leadership is fully embedded into PS122, which I estimate to be towards the end of 2016. I’m making this announcement now in order to provide adequate time for a robust search for the new Executive Artistic Director as well as a meaningful hand-off period. PS122 is in great health, with big ideas in the pipeline for the new facilities and sites beyond. We have a phenomenal staff and board, all of whom are chomping at the bit to move back in, ready to succeed beyond measure in the new spaces.
I want to thank the current and past teams whom I’ve been privileged to work with over the last decade or so. I am so very proud of what they and the artists we’ve worked with have achieved. We’ve constantly sought to put our audience’s experience at the core of our thinking, and have been equally as steadfast in advocating for improved industry standards and providing robust resources and support to our artists.
We’ve commissioned and presented countless new ambitious ideas, invented a little festival called COIL, toured New York artists around the world through our GLOBAL program and presented work in locations all over the city. We’ve thrived through a massive renovation of the beautiful building in the East Village that we share with some fantastic co-tenants, and we are getting ready to move back in.
I’m excited to see what fresh eyes and a fresh brain can bring to a Performance Space 122 that is ever more critical in a New York City in constant flux, whose dynamic and generative culture needs our spaces, energy, and community to thrive.
Thank you to all of you for making this work possible – for making things with us and being a part of the glorious community that makes Performance Space 122 so very special.
Cheers,
Vallejo
