As the new Artistic Director of Performance Space New York, I’m often asked how I plan to make my mark on the organization. To be honest, I am thinking about entirely different things. I consider my position to be rooted in service, driven by transparency, collectivity, and collaboration, rather than ego. Our upcoming fall season of programming at Performance Space epitomizes this ethos in so many ways, and was collaboratively envisioned by our whole team, especially our inaugural Keith Haring Curatorial Fellow X Arriaga, Associate Director Ana Bé Sepúlveda, Senior Director Pati Hertling, and in very small part by me.

Together, we say yes to artists again and again: artists like Black Quantum Futurism, who presented a concert at the end of 2023 and are invited back to Performance Space to create a year-long installation and accompanying program in Open Room, The Memory Vortex Inn; Open Movement workshop participant, Nile Harris, returns as our Organizational Strategic Consultant.

We create community gathering spaces through our monthly recurring First Monday’s program organized by Sarah Schulman; our weekly Open Movement program curated and facilitated by Monica Mirabile; and an evening of interdisciplinary performances with The Whitney Review that uplifts the unique importance of libraries as free public spaces at a moment when New York City’s public libraries have successfully advocated for the restoration of their budgets after months of tireless campaigning.

We recognize the interdisciplinary nature of performance through programs with Keioui Keijaun Thomas that incorporate video, installation, and performance, as well as countless community partnerships that pop up as need and interest arise that we remain flexible to be able to organize throughout the year.

We embrace artists’ personal biographies: Adán Vallecillo pays tribute to his sister and her community of Honduran care workers, and Hillary Taymour of Collina Strada revisits her childhood as a horse-girl.

We honor our ancestors through a day-long music program with Blank Forms celebrating the life and work of Catherine Christer Hennix, as well as a symposium and movement-based performance with Bintou Dembélé who explores ritual and corporeal memories of marronnage.

Join us as we say YES to artists, YES to community, YES to interdisciplinarity, YES to our personal histories, YES to our ancestors, YES to everybody.

xT