Show Category: Performance

Penny Arcade is the undisputed queen of downtown performance, and Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! is her biggest hit. A freedom of speech rallying cry, the raucous sex and censorship show premiered at Performance Space 122 in 1990 during the height of the culture wars, when ultra-conservative politicians pressured the National Endowment for the Arts into defunding artists who made work that was considered “offensive to the average person.” Deeply invested in the political role of art, Arcade sees a need to reassess the subject matter of censorship now—especially the “self-censorship coming from the left in the form of political correctness in today’s culture.”
 

Sarah Michelson has been a defining presence at Performance Space 122 through the years, first as a dancer in the 1990s, then showing her own early work in peer-curated programs like Hothouse, followed by the evening-length pieces Group Experience (2001), Shadowmann Part II (2003), and Daylight (2005), which established her as one of the most original voices of her generation. After a 13-year hiatus, Michelson returns to Performance Space New York with a new piece that considers her own history with the organization, the building, and the community from which her work emanates.
 
Photo by Dona Ann McAdams.
 

Harnessing a combination of thrift store finds and individual customizations, the DIY look that originated from downtown NYC was first broadcast by MTV in 1981, and quickly influenced how young people were dressing all around the world. As youth culture is now instantly co-opted as marketable fashion, the idiosyncratic designs of multifarious fashion-oriented project, Women’s History Museum, present a counter cultural form of self-expression that resists mainstreaming. Founded by Amanda K McGowan and Mattie Rivkah Barringer in 2014, the collective stages an extended theatrical runway presentation of their latest collection.
 
The show will include musical performances by Riichpsycho and Just The Right Height
 

Organized by Tina Satter with works by Jess Barbagallo with Lauren Bakst & Shana Fletcher, Ariana Reines, Jim Fletcher, I.U.D., Ser Brandon-Castro Serpas, Jeremy O. Harris with Jesse Rasmussen, Anne Waldman with Erika Hodges & Janice Lowe, Tina Satter with Emily Davis & Amber Gray, and Diamond Stingily
 
Kathy Acker: “In the beginning there was a young girl…” brings together a group of artists, writers, and performers whose practices and output at times recall the spirit of Kathy Acker and her work, but are also very different. Their collision with her writing and life offers us a necessary live communion with what Acker gave and what is still to come.
 

Jupiter’s Lifeless Moons is a surreal, sexual, cinematic romp through nocturnal America.

Dane is excited about spending a quiet Autumn in Pepper Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio near the lake. He is a guest in a friend’s home. Her fake plants are mixed in with her real plants. Everyone is waiting for the snow. Upon getting a late-season job at the rough-and-tumble under-dog Pepper Heights Zoo, Dane becomes entangled in a strange plot involving the zoo’s premiere attraction, Zoe The Zebra. Something has been sleeping under Pepper Heights, caged in the dark rock for millions of years, under neat lawns edged by high wild grasses.

Written, composed, performed by Dane Terry. Directed by and developed with Ellie Heyman. Singers: Avery Leigh Draut, Morgan Meadows, Saretta Wesley. 2016 Ethyl Eichelberger Award Winner + participant in Performance Space 122’s Ramp Residency Program.