Our Summer 2026 programming at Performance Space New York celebrates the exploratory power of process, recognizing the importance of artistic discovery through practice and play. With an emphasis on inventiveness and inquiry, we open our studios for invited artists, resource-sharing events, showcases of works-in-progress, and teach-ins supporting our expanding web of interdisciplinary artists. 

Weaving the threads of our international artistic tapestry, Paris-bred artist/producer/DJ, Christelle Oyiri (who DJs under the moniker CRYSTALLMESS) hosts and organizes the U.S. debut of EDGING at Performance Space New York, in conjunction with and in celebration of her first solo exhibition, Belief May Vary, at Amant. Oyiri’s EDGING is a performance and musical laboratory with DJ sets and live performances, a high energy collision of experimental electronics, regional club forms, rap, and techno, bringing dancers to a sonic edge.

Our 2025/2026 OPEN ROOM residents, Forge Project, close their year-long installation, a story, a river, a mirror, a map . Across the residency period, Forge Project has transformed our community space into a site for respite, contemplation, and community connection. (DATE TBD)

To celebrate our season closing on Saturday, June 27th, the return of Art Workers Are Artists Too – a program performed, run, and designed by technicians, designers, front of house, and other art workers who work at Performance Space New York. The program is a “thank you” to those who help shape the performances and events we present each season. Now in its 5th year, we invite performers to reflect on their time at Performance Space New York and share work that speaks to both sides of their practice—as artists and as art workers.

RECURRING PROGRAMS 

Our We The Youth – Keith Haring Lecture Series, which invites children and their friends and families to meet luminaries who talk about ideas and social issues that are often left off of school curriculums, returns on Saturday, June 6th, hosted and organized by artist and Ballroom icon, Kia Labeija. Kia’s lecture, titled Make Art, Cure AIDS, Eat Breakfast, will explore how art, text, and images can be used to start movements and inspire action. 

Open Movement, curated and organized by Monica Mirable, continues every Sunday in May with free workshops by Frank Leasing and Jo Shane, and a WIP FEEDBACK FRONT by Tess Dworman on May 17th. Open Movement for the 2025/2026 season concludes on June 7 with an open-mic of 5 minute works-in-progress featuring special showcases from a number of different artists across performance backgrounds!

RESIDENCIES

Across the summer, we invite artists to use our space for a deeper exploration of the artist process as a workshop for future projects. Throughout the month of July, artists Holland Andrews, yuniya edi kwon, and Symara Sarai will have full access to our studios. 

Following their performance earlier this season as part of by Will Rawls, Holland Andrews returns to PSNY with their collaborator, yuniya edi kwon, in preparation for a performance of How does it feel to look at nothing, an opera co-created and co-directed by the artists, exploring on the forces and conditions that compel life’s emergence and the meanings we make within periods of decay. Movement artist, Symara Sarai, will be using this time to examine their experiences of love as they are formed through risk, trust, memory, and cultural inheritance. Drawing from lived encounters and personal histories, their research considers how intimacy can manifest in unconventional, high-stakes, and spiritually resonant forms through dance, live action, and visual documentation. Their work reflects on love as a series of embodied negotiations shaped by vulnerability, autonomy, and relational exchange.