Over the last 4 decades, Performance Space New York (formerly Performance Space 122) has been propelling cultural, theoretical, and political discourse forward. Founded in 1980, Performance Space became a haven for many queer and radical voices shut out by a repressive, monocultural mainstream and conservative government whose neglect exacerbated the emerging AIDS epidemicâs devastation. Carrying forward the multitudinous visions of these artists who wielded the political momentum of self-expression amidst the intensifying American culture wars, Performance Space is one of the birthplaces of contemporary performance as it is known today. Together with our artists and communities, we have been presenting interdisciplinary works that dissolve the borders of performance art, dance, theater, music, visual art, poetry and prose, ritual, nightlife, food, film, and technology. We are committed to centering those who have been historically excluded from spaces like ours.
This season at Performance Space New York, we continue to listen to our artistsâ evolving questions instead of searching for fixed answersâwe open up artistsâ processes to our community, provide space for work to develop in private, and invite a broader performance ecosystem into our spaces to share resources, and collaborate. Across commissions, presentations, and community partnerships, artists perform, improvise, host conversations, gather community, and test new ideas as they fuse and embrace nonlinearity beyond form, genre, and medium.
Through each of these performances, exhibitions, residencies, public programs, and community partnerships, we ask: how are we crafting unfinished thoughts together? How do we keep ourselves open to new ways of working and artistsâ evolving needs? How can the performance ecosystem de-emphasize competition and perfection while remaining interconnected, rhizomatic, and collective? More.
Cavernous Shoal
Climate Week: Assembly
Memorial for Charles Dennis
QUEER|ART x PSNY OFFICE HOURS
HOUSE PARTY: âYES ANDâĶâ
Playing Safe: Queering the Indigenous Performance Archive
Queer|Art Summit: Becoming What We Practice
Art Workers Are Artists Too / Performance Space New Yorkâs Annual Holiday Party
Chain Reaction
MontaÃąa de Raiz
PERFORMANCE GIRL NEW YORK
Dark Fringe
Developmental Residency
EMOTES
First Mondays: Readings of New Works In Progress
Open Movement – Fall 2026
We The Youth – Keith Haring Lecture SeriesOrganized and curated by Sarah Schulman, First Mondays prioritizes one of the great advantages of living in New York City: hearing new ideas as they are being created, long before they are published and on the shelves. Our new season brings a wide range of exciting writers presenting new, unpublished work-in-progress to an appreciative and sophisticated New York audience at Performance Space New York. More.
Season Opening â THE LESBIAN BODY by Monique WittigThrough community partnerships across the year, we commit to responding to the wants and needs of the artists, art workers, organizers, activists, audience members, staff, and others in our immediate community as we find hope, resistance, and common-ground in diaspora, education, conversation, partying, and shared communal space. Stay tuned for more!
