Founded as Performance Space 122, in 1980, from an explosion of radical self-expression amidst the intensifying American culture wars, Performance Space New York is the birthplace of contemporary performance as it is known today.

We’re happy to welcome back the public to our theater spaces. In an effort to keep our audience safe and in compliance with New York City’s vaccine mandate, all visitors 12 years of age and older must show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination to join us here at Performance Space New York. Accepted proof of vaccination includes NYC COVID Safe app, New York State Excelsior Pass, CDC Vaccination Card (or photo), or NYC Vaccination Record.

Please take a look at our safety guidelines to help you prepare for your visit. More

Over the past year, Performance Space New York has dedicated itself to studying its internal structures, talking to its communities, and rethinking absolutely everything–how we operate internally, how we elevate and support experimental art and art practices, and how we can best function as a space that says:

YES to Artists
YES to Risks
YES to Community
YES to Every Body
YES to ___________*

*What else should we say YES to? Share your ideas with us here.
 
To learn more about our Mission Statement and our commitments, please read this letter from our board president, Roxane Gay.

Octopus continues Performance Space’s legacy of artist-centric programming and creating space for the exploration of ideas free from expectations. More

A space for community members to meet, rest, and work. More

Knowledge of Wounds focuses on the intersections of Indigeneity, gender, sexuality, and the body. This virtual iteration creates new spaces for knowledge exchange between First Nations communities across the world. More

First Mondays: Readings of New Works in Progress is an ongoing series which shares accomplished writers’ processes as they are happening and gives us an intimate insight into their new work in-progress, long before publication or performances. More

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For the year of 2020 a group of NYC-based artists and collectives has been given the mandate to run the organization together with our staff, board, and leadership. More

From September to January artists propose new platforms that transgress the black box, by decentering critique in favor of ritual and community. More

From January through May artists and activists locate power and creativity in refusal. More

The Posthuman Series envisions an alternative space for theater by challenging the very idea it is based on—the human. More

The inaugural East Village Series asks what kind of art organization we need to become in light of this ever-more exclusionary social and political context. More