Pavel Zuštiak and Palissimo Company

Born in the communist Czechoslovakia, Pavel Zuštiak is a NYC-based director, choreographer, and performer who trained at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam. His work, described as both human and humane, merges the abstract aspects of dance with nonlinear qualities of theatre of images into multidisciplinary works that are rich in evocative imagery and piercing emotional resonance. Presenting spectators with totalizing multi-sensory theatrical experiences, Zuštiak’s work for stage and public spaces draws towards the darker side of the human condition and finds the human body to be the ideal vehicle to convey it.
Zuštiak established Palissimo Company in 2004 as an interdisciplinary platform for the research, development and production of live art works, with a mission to attain artistic liberty and to inspire and impact audiences and the art field. Palissimo Company facilitates diverse artistic collaborations—notably with lighting designer Joe Levasseur, musicians Christian Frederickson, Ryan Rumery and Bobby McElver, visual artist Robert Flynt and video designers Tal Yarden and Keith Skretch.

Zuštiak is a 2015-17 Princeton Arts Fellow, a recipient of 2013 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council President’s Award for Excellence in Artistic Practice, 2012 New England Foundation for the Arts/National Dance Project Production and Residency Grants, 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2010 MANCC Fellowship and 2014, 2009 and 2007 Princess Grace Awards. His five-hour trilogy, The Painted Bird, received a 2013 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award nomination for Outstanding Production.

Zuštiak was an artist in residence at Vermont Performance Lab, LMCC, Movement Research, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, Abrons Arts Center, Czech Center NY and Grotowski Institute. His work has been commissioned and presented by Wexner Center for the Arts, PS122, COIL Festival, Abrons Art Center, BAC, La MaMa and 92nd Street Y, among others, and additionally toured to Legion Arts (IA), Performance Art Dance Lab West (CA), New Hazlett Theater (PA), Archa Theatre, Akcent Festival (Czech Republic), Bratislava in Movement, KIOSK Festival, Slovak National Theatre, State Theatre Kosice (Slovakia) and Bytom Inernational Dance Festival (Poland).