Season at a glance

Ellen Robbins’ Dances by Very Young Choreographers, a showcase of young talent dancers, has become one of New York Live Arts’ most beloved community programs, inspiring children by exposing them to live performances created and performed by their peers. Alumni Concert An evening concert of work by Alumni who...

Alexandra Chasin and Zishan Ugurlu’s Fragments, Lists & Lacunae is a multi-media production focusing on three college students who are grappling with their own blind spots as well as the (resonant) concepts in a course entitled “Fragments, Lists, & Lacunae.” In each...

Bill T. Jones talks with Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director of New York’s Public Theater, who has nurtured one game-changing hit after another for the Public, including the award-winning musical Hamilton. Oskar Eustis has served as the Artistic Director of The Public Theater since 2005. In the last three...

Developed by Bill T. Jones with Associate Artistic Director Janet Wong, Analogy Trilogy is based on oral histories and inspired by W.G. Sebald’s award-winning novel The Emigrants. Part One, Analogy/Dora: Tramontane, recounts the story of Dora Amelan, a French Jewish nurse, social worker, and World War II survivor. Part Two Analogy/Lance:...

A co-presentation with Lumberyard Center for Film & Performing Arts In her latest evening-length work Rambler, Worlds Worlds A Part choreographer Kathy Westwater extends her exploration, which began over twenty years ago, of pain and the body, including the pain of others. Here Westwater invites the dance artists in the work...

2019 SEASON IN COLLABORATION WITH UNIVERSITY OF UTAH DANCE Be prepared for a blast of fresh air when Michele Wiles’ BalletNext returns to New York Live Arts, February 19-23. Look out for the debut of a crop of new dancers hand-picked from the University of Utah’s professional ballet program, where Wiles...

Whether you’re from Down Under, the Cradle of Civilization, the Motherland, or just Below the Border, you’re welcome to attend our newest and most illustrious dance performance ever! Hop “over the pond” to the magnificent New York Live Arts theatre and prepare to be amazed by a host of incredibly talented...

Through a sequence of fabric and sound manipulations designed to obscure and reorganize how the Black body is witnessed and expressed in confined environments, Chameleon (The Chelsea Installments) examine the shapeshifting, illegible, and fugitive realities of Black diasporan people. The work explores how minoritarian communities record &...

The Ballet Academy East 2019 Winter Performance presents the talented dancers of the BAE Pre-Professional Division in a diverse program, which promises to delight and inspire audience members. The joyful and exciting program includes two ballets by George Balanchine, Valse-Fantaisie, staged by Darla Hoover and Elégie, staged by Deborah Wingert, as well as...

Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith present the New York City premiere of Body Comes Apart, an intimate duet based on a dynamic improvisational score. Lieber and Smith, who were nominated for a 2013 Bessie Award for Emerging...

Live Arts celebrates Women’s History Month with Dinner Party: 1960s-2000s which interprets themes present in second wave feminism including women at work, porn and the erotic, sex positivity, and more. Nostalgic cuisine and custom place settings recombine modern developments in domestic technology and industrial efficiencies. Utilizing...

NYC Premiere Highly acclaimed for her “fierce choreographic imagination” (New York Times), Netta Yerushalmy presents the New York premiere of the complete six-part encyclopedic series, Paramodernities, a multidisciplinary work that involves lectures, performances, and conversations.  The six installments rethink the canon of modern...

Open Company Classes with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company is rooted in the style of the Company as developed by Bill T. Jones and Janet Wong. Progressing from somatic floor work to standing exercises, technical and creative challenges culminate in lush, expressive phrase work.  

Presented as part of Women’s History Month Live Arts continues its Open Spectrum Community Dialogues, curated by culture creator Brian Tate of The Tate Group, providing space for reflection on the most vital issues facing communities today.

Developed by Bill T. Jones with Associate Artistic Director Janet Wong, Analogy Trilogy is based on oral histories and inspired by W.G. Sebald’s award-winning novel The Emigrants. Part One, Analogy/Dora: Tramontane, recounts the story of Dora Amelan, a French Jewish nurse, social worker, and World War II survivor. Part Two Analogy/Lance:...

World Premiere Darkness Odyssey Part 3, the final installment of Yamazaki’s Darkness Odyssey series, is a non-operatic celebration of the act of “becoming otherself.” Inspired by writings of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and butoh pioneer Tatsumi Hijikata’s notion of “dance of darkness,” the series explores the...

A Letter to My Nephew, Bill T. Jones’ latest dance theater work, is an intimate, impressionistic collage for nine dancers, setting a portrait of Jones’s beloved nephew Lance T. Briggs—a talented dancer who struggled with illness and addiction—against the political landscape of the present. Composed like a series of postcards...

The Cotillion is a multi-channel audio and video installation with live performance that explores ceremonial entrances into society. From re-entry into society after prison, to ‘entering society’ in debutante balls, to rituals of welcoming ancestors back to communities, this new work by Kaneza Schaal is as a companion piece to...

Last Audience is the newest work by the Bessie-award-winning collaborative group, a canary torsi. It is an immersive performance installation where audience members incarnate the work at each performance. The piece utilizes the structure of a traditional requiem mass as the inspiration to develop scores for the audience. Greetings, processions,...

Sassafrazz is a new evening-length dance inspired by the word sassafras: A dried root used for flavoring, early character based dance styles and flavor in Breaking and the privilege of maturing as a dancer in this form. With an original, improvisationally structured composition for 3 Breakers and 3...

Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, The New School, Arts , “home to one of the more progressive collegiate dance departments in New York” (New York Times), offers a unique undergraduate dance curriculum centered on recent developments in the field. These performances highlight new...

Radioactive Practice is the newest work by Juried Bessie award winning Illinois-based choreographer Abby Zbikowski, commissioned by New York Live Arts and set to premiere during their 2019-20 Season. This genre-bending dance for ten performers breaks down the physicality, socio-cultural functions and psychological states...

Bill T. Jones talks with Claudia Rankine, poet, essayist, playwright, and the editor of several anthologies, and Tracy K. Smith, poet and educator, who is currently serving as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States, an office she assumed in 2017. Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections...

Live Arts’ Fresh Tracks performance and residency program continues its commitment to bringing new voices to the forefront. Fresh Tracks artists present excerpts of new work in development. Featuring works from Dolores (Lola) Sanchez, Liana Conyers, J. Bouey, Emma Rose Brown, and Collin Ranf.

Crossroads is an evening-length work that explores forging into unchartered waters and that tumultuous process of self-discovery. Inspired by the work of Margritte and Escher, Selwyn and scenic & costume designer, Anna-Alisa Belous will shape a surrealistic landscape that highlights these lingering moments at the crossroads, choosing one path or...

New York Live Arts’ daylong performance party celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall uprising and World Pride. Queer nightlife and art scene come together under one roof to serve up the city’s most colorful and fierce performance, music, and more for a multi-space, back-to-back party for the...