Upcoming events
$10-$30 sliding scale entrance fee; members enter FREE
STARDUST CLUSTERS: MEETINGS WITH MEANING
Every other Friday SEPTEMBER 12 - NOVEMBER 21, 2025
STARDUST CLUSTER — MEETINGS WITH MEANING
Featuring live new works by Rafael Sanchez, Guerrilla Theater, Jaguar Mary X, Kledia Spiro, Queen Amor, Nima Nikakhlagh, Kalisolaite ‘Uhila and Asia Stewart
Gathering forces, gathering knowledge, gathering wisdom, gathering hearts. Grace Exhibition Space now starts a series of local, national and international performance art evenings, dinners and talks delving into questions and reflections on our connections with Nature. In this can be culture, agriculture, embodied culture, connection to animals, plants, trees, bodies and the likes. Humans are part of the deep collaboration, but we have a long tradition of abusing, consuming and ruining our connection. How can we connect through our human way of living today? What changes can we make? What life rituals could be different? We gather performance artists with different backgrounds, a mix of indigenous, native, nature people and city dwellers, reflecting on their connection and belonging to the natural world, land and to each other.
GES Members Event
Grace Exhibition Space is thrilled to invite you to a free evening event to celebrate the launch of our FY25 Membership Program! What is this Membership program?? Well, it's for those who want to support GES in special ways! Come find out how you can help us even more, plus you can hear about this year's perks.
Already a Member? That's great! Please come and share with others how you have supported Grace and get to know other members.
Details
Join us on Friday, September 19th, from 6–8 pm for light refreshments, great company, and a chance to connect with fellow performance art enthusiasts.
Highlights of the Evening
– An exceptional interactive musical performance by Ryan Maloney
– An introduction to our upcoming season’s programming from Artistic Director Jill McDermid
– A first look at membership benefits and ways to get involved
Whether you're a longtime supporter or new to our community, we’d love to see you there.
Grace Exhibition Space
182 Avenue C, New York, NY 10009
🕕 September 19, 6-8pm
🎟 Free and open to all
MEMBERSHIP EVENT
Grace Exhibition Space is thrilled to invite you to a free evening event to celebrate the launch of our FY25 Membership Program! What is this Membership program?? Well, it's for those who want to support GES in special ways! Come find out how you can help us even more, plus you can hear about this year's perks.
Already a Member? That's great! Please come and share with others how you have supported Grace and get to know other members.
STARDUST CLUSTERS: MEETINGS WITH MEANING
Every other Friday SEPTEMBER 12 - NOVEMBER 21, 2025
STARDUST CLUSTER — MEETINGS WITH MEANING
Featuring live new works by Rafael Sanchez, Guerrilla Theater, Jaguar Mary X, Kledia Spiro, Queen Amor, Nima Nikakhlagh, Kalisolaite ‘Uhila and Asia Stewart
Gathering forces, gathering knowledge, gathering wisdom, gathering hearts. Grace Exhibition Space now starts a series of local, national and international performance art evenings, dinners and talks delving into questions and reflections on our connections with Nature. In this can be culture, agriculture, embodied culture, connection to animals, plants, trees, bodies and the likes. Humans are part of the deep collaboration, but we have a long tradition of abusing, consuming and ruining our connection. How can we connect through our human way of living today? What changes can we make? What life rituals could be different? We gather performance artists with different backgrounds, a mix of indigenous, native, nature people and city dwellers, reflecting on their connection and belonging to the natural world, land and to each other.
Stardust Clusters: Rafael Sanchez
NTU the Stage, Part III: Dream Seance for Universal Love
On Friday, September 26, 2025, from 7 to 10 PM, Rafael Sanchez will complete a polyptych performance ritual to honor the timeless connection between the breath, the body, and the cosmos. Each thirty-minute action will invite the audience to enhance their awareness of their sensual/spiritual connection to nature through breathwork, movement, and communal gestures that channel a gratitude and grace that live inside all sentient beings.
Here’s the rundown:
7:00-7:30— “Coltrane Coldtrance (Happy 99th Birthday, John Coltrane)”
7:30-8:00— “Vagus Nerve Stimulation Ritual #3”
8:00-8:30— “‘Tone, Bone, [Drone]’ (Happy Belated Birthday Arthur Russell)”
8:30-9:00— “Lace Me in Water and Light (Agape Seance #1)”
9:00-9:30— “Peace and Love, Yana Evans (A Belated Birthday Performance for Ayana Evans)”
9:30-10:00— “Do the Intergalactic Thing (Cosmic Dance Party)”
RAFAEL SANCHEZ
“Art enters into the person and the person enters into the work of art, no?”
— Joseph Beuys
On a Friday in March of 1995 during English class, viscerally enamored with Nine Inch Nails’ “March of the Pigs,” Rafael Sanchez writhed and grunted before his classmates, haranguing the United States for its long history of violence against indigenous and African people. Even then, at 16—without having read Flash of the Spirit or Black Skin White Mask, he understood that art can become a sacred language through which the ancestors commune with the living. He knew, to quote Lyn Hejinian, that “words [were] not equal to the world,” and the medium called performance art could empower him to find a release from this matrix of illusions called reality. Over the last thirty years, his deep reverence for the cosmic, nurturing energy of creative expression has beckoned him to chase MTA and NJ Transit buses bound for Africa, honor the brackish waters of the Hudson River by covering himself in honey and salt, uncontrollably shiver in a bathtub of ice while holding the Cuban flag, and honor the brilliant spirits of Arthur Russell, Audre Lorde, Ghazala Javed, and James Baldwin with simple and cathartic bodily gestures that channel each artist’s ethos. Because of the mimetically wondrous nature of the creative process, Rafael Sanchez believes that his art is solely a reflection of everyone and everything that he has encountered during his 47 years of life. He asks that the audience make a psychoeducational commitment to understanding his work.
Gathering forces, gathering knowledge, gathering wisdom, gathering hearts. Grace Exhibition Space now starts a series of local, national and international performance art evenings, dinners and talks delving into questions and reflections on our connections with Nature. In this can be culture, agriculture, embodied culture, connection to animals, plants, trees, bodies and the likes. Humans are part of the deep collaboration, but we have a long tradition of abusing, consuming and ruining our connection. How can we connect through our human way of living today? What changes can we make? What life rituals could be different? We gather performance artists with different backgrounds, a mix of indigenous, native, nature people and city dwellers, reflecting on their connection and belonging to the natural world, land and to each other.
The goal is to create soulful and self-searching performance art that blows our minds, conversations that can trigger our inner marrow and meetings that are deep and meaningful. Our mode of communication is Performance Art, a form that is in movement, space and time, that can involve all art forms, including actions and everyday objects, sharing complicated and deep thoughts and ideas.
We will revolve around the loss of the third wall, an imaginary boundary, allowing the artists and the audience-participants to create a direct dialogue between one another. We will be questioning the boundaries that separate us, how the natural world has no walls, while many of the societies that man has created are limiting. Building societies that are collaborative, but include destruction and violence, while emulating a cohesive order and balance. We are encouraging sharing communities that help one another through music, listening, healing, feeding and giving.
Grace Exhibition Space opened in 2006 as a home for International Performance Art. GES has hosted numerous performance artists, participating in multiple international festivals and art fairs. Our hope is to create the appropriate environment and means for collaborative research between the multicultural neighborhoods of metropolitan New York. We work to establish an environment that promotes our mission, as we seek to bring together local and international artists who will be interested in open exploration and collaboration with the members of our community.
Stardust Clusters: Guerrilla Theater
Guerrilla Theater is a collective of experimental performance artists and musicians based in NYC. They mostly do ecstatic multi-media improvised group performances in the streets of New York. They support independence from all oppression and a freedom to pursue self expression. They create public disturbances in order to wake up the sleeping giant. Public performance is a way to reach the masses and disrupt the status quo and losing barrier between artist audience. They practice improvised non-hierarchical collective action in the public space in the hopes that people will be inspired to create a new culture. One that embraces the chaos of humanity giving everybody the freedom to participate and express in whatever creative way they can imagine.
STARDUST CLUSTERS: MEETINGS WITH MEANING
Every other Friday SEPTEMBER 12 - NOVEMBER 21, 2025
STARDUST CLUSTER — MEETINGS WITH MEANING
Featuring live new works by Rafael Sanchez, Guerrilla Theater, Jaguar Mary X, Kledia Spiro, Queen Amor, Nima Nikakhlagh, Kalisolaite ‘Uhila and Asia Stewart
Gathering forces, gathering knowledge, gathering wisdom, gathering hearts. Grace Exhibition Space now starts a series of local, national and international performance art evenings, dinners and talks delving into questions and reflections on our connections with Nature. In this can be culture, agriculture, embodied culture, connection to animals, plants, trees, bodies and the likes. Humans are part of the deep collaboration, but we have a long tradition of abusing, consuming and ruining our connection. How can we connect through our human way of living today? What changes can we make? What life rituals could be different? We gather performance artists with different backgrounds, a mix of indigenous, native, nature people and city dwellers, reflecting on their connection and belonging to the natural world, land and to each other.
Stardust Clusters: Jaguar Mary X, Kledia Spiro, Qween Amor
STARDUST CLUSTERS: MEETINGS WITH MEANING
new live works by Jaguar Mary X, Kledia Spiro, Qween Amor
Gathering forces, gathering knowledge, gathering wisdom, gathering hearts. Grace Exhibition Space now starts a series of local, national and international performance art evenings, dinners and talks delving into questions and reflections on our connections with Nature. In this can be culture, agriculture, embodied culture, connection to animals, plants, trees, bodies and the likes. Humans are part of the deep collaboration, but we have a long tradition of abusing, consuming and ruining our connection. How can we connect through our human way of living today? What changes can we make? What life rituals could be different? We gather performance artists with different backgrounds, a mix of indigenous, native, nature people and city dwellers, reflecting on their connection and belonging to the natural world, land and to each other.
The goal is to create soulful and self-searching performance art that blows our minds, conversations that can trigger our inner marrow and meetings that are deep and meaningful. Our mode of communication is Performance Art, a form that is in movement, space and time, that can involve all art forms, including actions and everyday objects, sharing complicated and deep thoughts and ideas.
We will revolve around the loss of the third wall, an imaginary boundary, allowing the artists and the audience-participants to create a direct dialogue between one another. We will be questioning the boundaries that separate us, how the natural world has no walls, while many of the societies that man has created are limiting. Building societies that are collaborative, but include destruction and violence, while emulating a cohesive order and balance. We are encouraging sharing communities that help one another through music, listening, healing, feeding and giving.
Grace Exhibition Space opened in 2006 as a home for International Performance Art. GES has hosted numerous performance artists, participating in multiple international festivals and art fairs. Our hope is to create the appropriate environment and means for collaborative research between the multicultural neighborhoods of metropolitan New York. We work to establish an environment that promotes our mission, as we seek to bring together local and international artists who will be interested in open exploration and collaboration with the members of our community.
STARDUST CLUSTERS: MEETINGS WITH MEANING
Every other Friday SEPTEMBER 12 - NOVEMBER 21, 2025
STARDUST CLUSTER — MEETINGS WITH MEANING
Featuring live new works by Rafael Sanchez, Guerrilla Theater, Jaguar Mary X, Kledia Spiro, Queen Amor, Nima Nikakhlagh, Kalisolaite ‘Uhila and Asia Stewart
Gathering forces, gathering knowledge, gathering wisdom, gathering hearts. Grace Exhibition Space now starts a series of local, national and international performance art evenings, dinners and talks delving into questions and reflections on our connections with Nature. In this can be culture, agriculture, embodied culture, connection to animals, plants, trees, bodies and the likes. Humans are part of the deep collaboration, but we have a long tradition of abusing, consuming and ruining our connection. How can we connect through our human way of living today? What changes can we make? What life rituals could be different? We gather performance artists with different backgrounds, a mix of indigenous, native, nature people and city dwellers, reflecting on their connection and belonging to the natural world, land and to each other.
Stardust Clusters: Nima Nikakhlagh
NIMA NIKAKHLAGH
Violence and melancholy permeate the experience of his work. Nima Nikakhlagh, who arrived in the United States from Iran in 2014, is a multidisciplinary artist based in New York and Massachusetts working with performance art, photography, video, and poetry. Nima’s practice concerns itself with socio-political power dynamics and political resistance approached in a poetic manner. Most of his works are performance-based, and he perceives performance art as not only a form of visual art, but much more, a social-political art form and a social-political art practice. His work frequently uses situation orchestration and some provocation—interruption of daily life—as mechanisms of audience internalization of his concepts; the real action takes place within the consciousness of the viewer. In his words, “the togetherness that street performance art establishes is something truly necessary.” Nima’s works have appeared/been performed in Iran, Europe, Canada, and the United States. He has published two literary-performative books: Bodies, Languages, Truths and This Is Not a Book. Nima received the Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art 2023-2024 award and currently, is a gallery director and lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
STARDUST CLUSTERS: MEETINGS WITH MEANING, Curated by Marita Isobel Solberg and Jill McDermid
Gathering forces, gathering knowledge, gathering wisdom, gathering hearts. Grace Exhibition Space now starts a series of local, national and international performance art evenings, dinners and talks delving into questions and reflections on our connections with Nature. In this can be culture, agriculture, embodied culture, connection to animals, plants, trees, bodies and the likes. Humans are part of the deep collaboration, but we have a long tradition of abusing, consuming and ruining our connection. How can we connect through our human way of living today? What changes can we make? What life rituals could be different? We gather performance artists with different backgrounds, a mix of indigenous, native, nature people and city dwellers, reflecting on their connection and belonging to the natural world, land and to each other.
The goal is to create soulful and self-searching performance art that blows our minds, conversations that can trigger our inner marrow and meetings that are deep and meaningful. Our mode of communication is Performance Art, a form that is in movement, space and time, that can involve all art forms, including actions and everyday objects, sharing complicated and deep thoughts and ideas.
We will revolve around the loss of the third wall, an imaginary boundary, allowing the artists and the audience-participants to create a direct dialogue between one another. We will be questioning the boundaries that separate us, how the natural world has no walls, while many of the societies that man has created are limiting. Building societies that are collaborative, but include destruction and violence, while emulating a cohesive order and balance. We are encouraging sharing communities that help one another through music, listening, healing, feeding and giving.
Grace Exhibition Space opened in 2006 as a home for International Performance Art. GES has hosted numerous performance artists, participating in multiple international festivals and art fairs. Our hope is to create the appropriate environment and means for collaborative research between the multicultural neighborhoods of metropolitan New York. We work to establish an environment that promotes our mission, as we seek to bring together local and international artists who will be interested in open exploration and collaboration with the members of our community.
STARDUST CLUSTERS: MEETINGS WITH MEANING (Copy)
Every other Friday SEPTEMBER 12 - NOVEMBER 21, 2025
STARDUST CLUSTER — MEETINGS WITH MEANING
Featuring live new works by Rafael Sanchez, Guerrilla Theater, Jaguar Mary X, Kledia Spiro, Queen Amor, Nima Nikakhlagh, Kalisolaite ‘Uhila and Asia Stewart
Gathering forces, gathering knowledge, gathering wisdom, gathering hearts. Grace Exhibition Space now starts a series of local, national and international performance art evenings, dinners and talks delving into questions and reflections on our connections with Nature. In this can be culture, agriculture, embodied culture, connection to animals, plants, trees, bodies and the likes. Humans are part of the deep collaboration, but we have a long tradition of abusing, consuming and ruining our connection. How can we connect through our human way of living today? What changes can we make? What life rituals could be different? We gather performance artists with different backgrounds, a mix of indigenous, native, nature people and city dwellers, reflecting on their connection and belonging to the natural world, land and to each other.
Stardust Clusters: Kalisolaite 'Uhila and Asia Stewart
KALISOLAITE ‘UHILA
Kalisolaite ‘Uhila is a New Zealnd-based performance artist, coming to New York City for Stardust Clusters: Meetings and Meangs
ASIA STEWART
Asia Stewart is a performance artist whose conceptual work centers her body as a living archive. Based in the United States, she devises rituals that reflect the way she weathers life in a deeply extractive society. Many of her performances unfold as social experiments that negotiate terms of agency and power with audiences. Stewart’s performances have been supported by organizations that include The Bronx Museum, The Shed, Franklin Furnace, A.I.R. Gallery, Marc Straus Gallery, Marble House Project, GALLIM, The Watermill Center, and the Brooklyn Arts Council.
Stewart routinely questions how live art can be documented and represented across multiple mediums. Her photographs and videos have been exhibited at venues across the United States, including the Mercury Store, Untitled Space, NARS Foundation, Goodyear Arts, A.I.R. Gallery, Kellen Gallery, and Anthology Film Archives. Her first series of prints is also held in the permanent collection of the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC.
STARDUST CLUSTER: MEETINGS WITH MEANING
Co-Curators, Marita Isobel Solberg and Jill McDermid
Gathering forces, gathering knowledge, gathering wisdom, gathering hearts. Grace Exhibition Space now starts a series of local, national and international performance art evenings, dinners and talks delving into questions and reflections on our connections with Nature. In this can be culture, agriculture, embodied culture, connection to animals, plants, trees, bodies and the likes. Humans are part of the deep collaboration, but we have a long tradition of abusing, consuming and ruining our connection. How can we connect through our human way of living today? What changes can we make? What life rituals could be different? We gather performance artists with different backgrounds, a mix of indigenous, native, nature people and city dwellers, reflecting on their connection and belonging to the natural world, land and to each other.
The goal is to create soulful and self-searching performance art that blows our minds, conversations that can trigger our inner marrow and meetings that are deep and meaningful. Our mode of communication is Performance Art, a form that is in movement, space and time, that can involve all art forms, including actions and everyday objects, sharing complicated and deep thoughts and ideas.
We will revolve around the loss of the third wall, an imaginary boundary, allowing the artists and the audience-participants to create a direct dialogue between one another. We will be questioning the boundaries that separate us, how the natural world has no walls, while many of the societies that man has created are limiting. Building societies that are collaborative, but include destruction and violence, while emulating a cohesive order and balance. We are encouraging sharing communities that help one another through music, listening, healing, feeding and giving.
Grace Exhibition Space opened in 2006 as a home for International Performance Art. GES has hosted numerous performance artists, participating in multiple international festivals and art fairs. Our hope is to create the appropriate environment and means for collaborative research between the multicultural neighborhoods of metropolitan New York. We work to establish an environment that promotes our mission, as we seek to bring together local and international artists who will be interested in open exploration and collaboration with the members of our community.
1st Annual Indigenous New York Fashion Week
Inaugural Indigenous New York Fashion Week Produced by Relative Arts Will Reshape Native American Representation in Fashion Lenapehoking (New York, NY)
STARDUST CLUSTERS: MEETINGS WITH MEANING
Every other Friday SEPTEMBER 12 - NOVEMBER 21, 2025
STARDUST CLUSTER — MEETINGS WITH MEANING
Featuring live new works by Rafael Sanchez, Guerrilla Theater, Jaguar Mary X, Kledia Spiro, Queen Amor, Nima Nikakhlagh, Kalisolaite ‘Uhila and Asia Stewart
Gathering forces, gathering knowledge, gathering wisdom, gathering hearts. Grace Exhibition Space now starts a series of local, national and international performance art evenings, dinners and talks delving into questions and reflections on our connections with Nature. In this can be culture, agriculture, embodied culture, connection to animals, plants, trees, bodies and the likes. Humans are part of the deep collaboration, but we have a long tradition of abusing, consuming and ruining our connection. How can we connect through our human way of living today? What changes can we make? What life rituals could be different? We gather performance artists with different backgrounds, a mix of indigenous, native, nature people and city dwellers, reflecting on their connection and belonging to the natural world, land and to each other.
//PIXELMOUTH presents: The Enfleshment
One night only: a fusion of music, performance art, and installations woven together through narrative.
Travestis del Infierno
PachaQueer presents “Travestis Del Infierno” at GES
Presented in collaboration with the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Arts Exchange.
GES Spring Season
The 18th GES Spring Season - Closing Night
Preach R. Sun
Joseph Ravens
Meadow L’Elle
Cities Unexpected Field
Miao Jiaxin
Doors at 7:00 for members, 7:30 for the general public
GES Spring Season
The 18th GES Spring Season - Night Five
Featuring Performances By:
Neuroflora
Straw Pipes
Cass Yao x Qiujiang Levi Lu
Doors at 7:00 for members, 7:30 for the general public
GES Spring Season
The 18th GES Spring Season - Night Four
Featuring Performances By:
Alex Romania X Stacy Lynn Smith
Mangodog
AMYGDALA
Doors at 7:00 for members, 7:30 for the general public
Member’S Event! The VR archive for performance art
Performance art is ephemeral. To preserve it and make it accessible to a wide audience, we have documented performance art in Virtual Reality from 2016 to 2025. With VR headsets, anyone can now (re)experience the works as if they were there in person.
The VR Archive has visited festivals from Canada to Cameroon, as a pocketsized performance art festival for an international performance art audience. We have also created new recordings at many of the festivals we visited. The archive contains around 100 international works.
At Grace, April 18th, we are looking forward to presenting 8 artists with new works.
GES Spring Season
The 18th GES Spring Season - Night Three
Featuring Performances By:
Smiling Beth
Erica Enriquez
Stuart B Meyers
Danny Tantrum
Doors at 7:00 for members, 7:30 for the general public
GES Spring Season
The 18th GES Spring Season - Night Two
Featuring Performances By:
Bri Frei
SIELU MA
Yasunao Tone
Doors at 7:00 for members, 7:30 for the general public
GES Spring Season
The 18th GES Spring Season - Opening Night
Featuring performances by
GOOD.W.Y.N.
Pink Tacos
Crackhead Barney x Rabbistravinksy
The Sirens Are Calling - Project 2025
The Sirens are Calling is a 25-hour community action and education marathon focused on Project 2025.
The reading will go on for 25 hours, broken up into 1-2 hour sessions covering specific sections of the 900+ pages of the plan.
//PIXELMOUTH SHARE.nyc Takeover
SHARE.nyc returns to takeover the Cult of Consumption //PIXELMOUTH residency!
CENTRAL Performance Festival - curated by Pancho López
Performances by Susanna Gonzalez-Revilla, Illimani De Los Andes, Milko Delgado, and Alicia Grullón.
CENTRAL Performance Festival - September, October, November 2024 - presented at Grace Exhibition Space, a space for creative experimentation that has been dedicated to performance for more than a decade. In this festival, attendees will be able to see twenty performances and works by artists who work from immateriality and the creation of ephemeral experiences from the body; exploring themes such as violence, migration, diaspora, the abuse of power, identity and other problems intrinsic to the human being.
Curated by the Mexican artist Pancho Lopez, this festival seeks to build a bridge between the Central American region, some Caribbean islands and one of the most important global stages in the world in terms of art and culture: New York City.
CENTRAL Performance Festival - curated by Pancho López
Performances by Manuel Tzoc, Elia Arce, Vanessa Hernández Gracia, and Nicolas Dumit Estévez.
CENTRAL Performance Festival - September, October, November 2024 - presented at Grace Exhibition Space, a space for creative experimentation that has been dedicated to performance for more than a decade. In this festival, attendees will be able to see twenty performances and works by artists who work from immateriality and the creation of ephemeral experiences from the body; exploring themes such as violence, migration, diaspora, the abuse of power, identity and other problems intrinsic to the human being.
Curated by the Mexican artist Pancho Lopez, this festival seeks to build a bridge between the Central American region, some Caribbean islands and one of the most important global stages in the world in terms of art and culture: New York City.
CENTRAL Performance Festival - Curated by Pancho López
Performances by Alejandro De La Guerra, Crack Rodríguez, Valeria Cobos, and Natalia Domínguez.
CENTRAL Performance Festival - September, October, November 2024 - presented at Grace Exhibition Space, a space for creative experimentation that has been dedicated to performance for more than a decade. In this festival, attendees will be able to see twenty performances and works by artists who work from immateriality and the creation of ephemeral experiences from the body; exploring themes such as violence, migration, diaspora, the abuse of power, identity and other problems intrinsic to the human being.
Curated by the Mexican artist Pancho Lopez, this festival seeks to build a bridge between the Central American region, some Caribbean islands and one of the most important global stages in the world in terms of art and culture: New York City.
CENTRAL Performance Festival - CURATED by Pancho López
Performances by Blanca Van Hoorde, Kevin Quiles Bonilla, Pável Aguilar, and Paulina Velázquez Solís.
CENTRAL Performance Festival - September, October, November 2024 - presented at Grace Exhibition Space, a space for creative experimentation that has been dedicated to performance for more than a decade. In this festival, attendees will be able to see twenty performances and works by artists who work from immateriality and the creation of ephemeral experiences from the body; exploring themes such as violence, migration, diaspora, the abuse of power, identity and other problems intrinsic to the human being.
Curated by the Mexican artist Pancho Lopez, this festival seeks to build a bridge between the Central American region, some Caribbean islands and one of the most important global stages in the world in terms of art and culture: New York City.
CENTRAL Performance Festival - CURATED by Pancho López
Performances by Leonardo González, Marton Robinson, Humberto Vélez, and Carlos Manuel Rivera.
CENTRAL Performance Festival - September, October, November 2024 - presented at Grace Exhibition Space, a space for creative experimentation that has been dedicated to performance for more than a decade. In this festival, attendees will be able to see twenty performances and works by artists who work from immateriality and the creation of ephemeral experiences from the body; exploring themes such as violence, migration, diaspora, the abuse of power, identity and other problems intrinsic to the human being.
Curated by the Mexican artist Pancho Lopez, this festival seeks to build a bridge between the Central American region, some Caribbean islands and one of the most important global stages in the world in terms of art and culture: New York City.
Membership Night
This free event introduces audience members and Grace Exhibitions Space supporters to our FY25 programs. We hope you can come and enjoy light refreshments and mingle with friends and performance art lovers. This night we will have a special conversation with Jill McDermid-Hokanson, our Chief Curator, and Pancho Lopez who is curating the Fall Season: Central Performance Festival featuring artists from Central America and The Caribbean.
CENTRAL Performance Festival - CURATED by Pancho López
Performances by Quintin Rivera Toro, Alexia Miranda, Regina José Galindo, and Maricio Esquivel.
CENTRAL Performance Festival - September, October, November 2024 - presented at Grace Exhibition Space, a space for creative experimentation that has been dedicated to performance for more than a decade. In this festival, attendees will be able to see twenty performances and works by artists who work from immateriality and the creation of ephemeral experiences from the body; exploring themes such as violence, migration, diaspora, the abuse of power, identity and other problems intrinsic to the human being.
Curated by the Mexican artist Pancho Lopez, this festival seeks to build a bridge between the Central American region, some Caribbean islands and one of the most important global stages in the world in terms of art and culture: New York City.
GARDENS OF MEDIUMS AND ENDEAVORS
Wasif Sami in performance
Doors 7:30 PM / Performances 8:00 PM
Admission: $10
Join us for an electrifying evening on May 17th!
This is our final performance event for the spring season. At the core of these performances lies a deep exploration of human experience and expression. Each artist brings a unique perspective, weaving together identity, belonging, and transformative themes.
Featuring:
Open Call Artists:
Alexa Wilson (New Zealand)
Lena Deutsch
V
Wasif Sami
International Guest Artist:
Mehdi-George Lahlou (Morocco/Belgium)
MEHDI-GEORGES LAHLOU [BELGIUM] @mehdigeorgeslahlou
Mehdi-Georges Lahlou, born in 1983 in Sables d’Olonne, is a French-Moroccan artist who lives and works between Paris, Brussels, and Casablanca. He was trained at the École supérieure des beaux-arts de Nantes Saint-Nazaire and earned a Ph.D from AVANS University in the Netherlands in 2010. In 2014, Lahlou participated in the first session of Les réalisateurs, a postgraduate program in Art and Business, co-directed by Fabrice Hyber. From 2017 to 2020, he served as associate artist at CDN Normandie-Rouen and was an artist in residence at the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht from 2019 to 2020. His solo exhibitions include notable venues such as SPACES Art Center in Cleveland, Centrale for Contemporary Art in Brussels, and the Kent State Museum in Ohio. Mehdi-Georges Lahlou has also shown his work in numerous international exhibitions and biennials worldwide.
A Botanical Conversation
In "A Botanical Conversation," a performance directed by Mehdi-Georges Lahlou, the artists delve into themes of the palm tree, cultural migrations, and queer ecology. With contributions from Diwe Augustin-Glave, CHIMI, and Dr Lady J, this artistic experience offers a deep dive into the relationships between humanity and nature.
"A Botanical Conversation" invites the murmurs born under the dome of the Cleveland Botanical Garden to escape, as if the essence of this place were transported to a new audience. These murmurs become stories, real dialogues, in a poetic and immersive experience for the spectators.
A Botanical Conversation
Featuring Diwe Augustin-Glave, CHIMI, Dr Lady J. Musical collaboration by Nature. Text collaboration by Simon Njami, Arianne Foks, Ghita Serraj and Dr Lady J
Alexa Wilson [NYC/NZ]
Alexa Wilson is an interdisciplinary artist; dance/performance, video, and text artist from New Zealand . She has presented within NZ, NY, Europe, UK, Canada, Australia, India and China in theatre, film and gallery spaces: Berlin at Sophiensaele, Uferstudios, Ackerstadtpalast, Acud, Month of Performance Art Berlin, Kule, Meinblau, Tanzfabrik, Gr_nd Gallery, Agora Collective, at Brussels Volksroom, Vienna’s Improper Walls Gallery and Impuls Tanz, London’s Ugly Duck Gallery, Glasgow’s Buzzcut festival, NYC’s Center for Performance Research, Dixon Place, Mothership residency, Vancouver’s Space to Fail residency hosted by the Dance Centre, Beijing’s Red Gate residency, Melbourne’s Dancehouse, and India’s Morni Hill’s performance Biennale. She has curated Morni Hills Performance Residency in India (2017) and is Artistic Director/founder of Experimental Dance Festival Aotearoa/NZ. She published Theatre of Ocean in 2022, has written articles in several publications and has a First Class Master of Philosophy. She has danced for many NZ choreographers.
V [NYC]
@tostones_ennyc
V Tineo (V) is a versatile and talented interdisciplinary artist hailing from New York but with ancestral ties to the Dominican Republic. Their artistic endeavors encompass a wide range of mediums, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, printmaking, and installations. Through these diverse forms of expression, V seeks to convey various ideas, touching upon themes such as home, family, body, and society. Their artwork acts as a language, communicating powerful narratives that emphasize the significance of these concepts.
WASIF SAMI [NJ]
@wasif.sami
Wasif Sami is a theater director and performance artist invested in moving and doing otherwise. His improvisational dance practice has followed him from his bedroom in New Jersey to the streets of Wisconsin and Bangalore. He is obsessed with intimacy and becoming, and studies anthropology, theater, and gender & sexuality studies at Princeton University.
LENA GARDEN OF HEDON [NYC] @garden_of_hedon
Lena, Garden of Hedon (they/babe), is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary Performance Artist, curator, and event producer from New York City. Their dramatic and ritualistic movement flows from their post-modern dance and gymnastics background. Lena uses technology, water, darkwave, noise, dirt, and gore to explore the properties of water: its borderless transcendence through sanctity and essentiality.
Since graduating from Hampshire College in 2018 Lena founded @disembodied_affair, a virtual performance art series produced in 2020 that featured artists around the world. They then cofounded MOMENTA @momentanyc an experimental dance and performance art series homed at Trans Pecos in December 2022. Lena has performed at Trans Pecos, Chinatown Soup Gallery, Purgatory, Honey's, and DIY spaces across the city. They are currently pursuing their MS in Sustainability at Columbia University.
LIVE PERFORMANCES: Innermost Beings, Escaping Identity
MARA | Bruno Rodriguez for Gangere at Insomnia
Friday, May 3
Doors 7:00 / Performances 7:30-10:30
$10
Join us to view four newly commissioned performance art pieces featuring:
MARA [Norway] Supported by the OCA: Office for Contemporary Art Norway.
Brendan Bunny Elephante [NYC]
Fanny [NYC]
Carolina Muñoz Awad [NYC]
MARA [NORWAY]
MARA is a visual artist, chanter and musician who works with numerous artistic directions that includes performance art, sculpture, ceramics, soundart and installation art. A common denominator especially, for her performance art projects, is the profound intention to challenge the audience - and herself, by reaching into the innermost being of the spectator, creating deep vibrations through sound, materials and the human connection, that which can transform our senses. Her artistic themes circle around a central core containing the intuitive presence, togetherness, spiritual technologies, connections and reflections around wholeness.
SUPPORTED BY THE OCA: OFFICE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART NORWAY
CAROLINA MUÑOZ AWAD [NYC]
@carolinamunoza
Carolina Muñoz Awad is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY, and Santiago, Chile. She has a background in architecture and received her MFA from Parsons School of Design in 2022. Her practice is a constant experimentation of her own body in space, trying to respond to questions regarding presence in healing, absurdity, and intuition. Carolina works through performance, installation, and the interaction of both in endurance pieces. She has exhibited her work in Santiago, Albany, and New York. She has attended the Arts Letters & Numbers Residency in upstate NY, and the Belgrade Art Studio online. Her most recent work, Monas Cigotas (2023), was included in the South American Performance Art cycle in New York at Grace Exhibition Space.
commune-cater is a performance involving bodies. Bodies wearing handcrafted pieces that may influence movement and interaction. What if we could only touch through protuberances and sensorless extrusions on ourselves? Would we hold tight to others, or just to ourselves? To soothe, dance, and care. Curiosity and scale, obsession and repetition, are some of the topics the artist is interested in with this work. Collaborators: AJ Johnson, Sal Chen and Michael Jay 108.
BRENDAN BUNNY ELEFANTE [NYC]
Brendan Bunny Elefante is a Brooklyn-based new media and performance artist who has presented work in the US, Russia, and Indonesia. In his work he explores the escape from identity through transcendental states and alter egos.
FANNY [NYC]
@fannnsystem
Fanny is a visual and movement creator and facilitator. She is an instructor of practices to reach altered states and connect to the divine such as Ritual Body Postures and Sacred Whirling. She has been invited to perform and work with local and international artists and organizations such as West Chelsea Festival of Art, International LitFest, NOoSPHERE Arts, Center for Remembering and Sharing, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, The Brooklyn Nomads, Stanley Love Performance Group, Culture Push, Dance to the People, Harlem Dance Club, Gaia NoMaya, Nancy Azara, Katie Cercone, Universidad Iberoamericana (MEX), Colectivo Tarantula (MEX), El Otro Mono (MEX), Sinestesia (MEX), Laura Ríos (MEX), among others.
Collaborators:
AJ Johnson is an experimental video artist and professional Video Jockey
Sal Chen is a writer, educator, and multidisciplinary artist
Michael Jay 108 is a facilitator of Sage Academy of Sound Energy retreats and trainings
LIVE PERFORMANCES: Investigating pathways and concepts for gesturing strange rituals
Local NYC performance artists and invited internatiobnal artists will be creating magic for this amazing evening.
Transitions on Spring: Featuring Viviana Druga | Molly Ross | Julia Hsia, Hsiao-Chu Hsia | Amelia Marzec
Friday, April 5
Doors 7pm
Performances 8-10 pm
$10 | Purchase Tickets
Featuring: Viviana Druga [Transylvania/Berlin] | Molly Ross [NYC] | Julia Hsia, Hsiao-Chu Hsia [NYC/Taiwan] | Amelia Marzec [NYC/Poland]
Bagpipe by Andrew Forbes 7-8 pm
VIVIANA DRUGA is a Romanian visual artist based in Berlin. The interplay between the free mountain nature and the Christian Orthodox mysticism on her mother's side deeply influenced her during this time.
HSIAO-CHU HSIA is a multidisciplinary artist from Taiwan, now based in New York, USA. Hsia’s practice focuses on performance art and dance improvisation, addressing the theme of ”relationship.”
MOLLY ROSS is an artist based in Brooklyn NY. She engages with choreography, performance, and collage practices. Her work has been presented at PAGEANT, Essex Flowers, FourOneOne (curated by Moriah Evans), the Wild Project (curated by Kyla Gordan) and DIY spaces throughout NYC.
AMELIA MARZEC is an American artist focused on rebuilding and engaging with local communications infrastructure to prepare for an uncertain future. Her work has been exhibited at SIGGRAPH, MIT, ISEA (Canada) and is part of the Rhizome ArtBase.
kyle b. co. Critical Race Therapy: (Treatment 1/The Rhythm Treatment)
Critical Race Therapy :Treatment 1 Intensive is now at Grace Exhibition Space
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Grace Exhibition Space presents a soft opening with kyle b. Co, hosting a series of interviews by artist kyle b. co. entitled Critical Race Therapy: (Treatment 1/The Rhythm Treatment).
Critical Race Therapy was developed by kyle b. co. to provide a space for people to have conversations around race that are not punitive or prompted by a traumatic event (i.e. following the death of a black body, after the misstep of an institution, etc.). The process invites folks to vocalize their understanding of race and in so doing, respond or acknowledge where they are at in their practical understanding and comfort with race.
Signup for a 1:1 experience at https://calendly.com/crth/ges
Hours 1:00 - 6:00 pm
Spring Season
INTIMATE CONSUMER ZONES
Open Call: lele dai, Glenn Potter-Takata / International: Arai Shin-Ichi [Japan], Jessica Fairfax-Hirst [Dominican Republic]
MARCH 22 // Doors 7:00 PM / Performances 8:00 PM | $10
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
lele dai was born in Hangzhou, China, and moved to Sydney, Australia, at age 18. In 2013, lele visited New York City by accident and has stayed there ever since. lele lives in Brooklyn with their best friend and two lovely but strange cats. lele is currently studying in the MFA program at Hunter College.
Their visual work and performances have been exhibited or shown at The Glove, Greene-Naftali Gallery, Children’s Museum of the Arts, Downtown Music Gallery, David Zwirner Gallery, Shift 411 Kent, Hauser & Wirth Gallery, Secret Project Robot, NYU, Sunview Luncheonette, Columbus Theater (Providence), Microscope Gallery, Knitting Factory, Essex flowers Gallery, Tufts University, SUNY at Purchase, Here Theater, Knockdown Center, Elsewhere, TransPecos, the Abasement series at Max Fish, The Synesthesia, and various other venues.
Glenn Potter-Takata is a Japanese-American media designer and artist working in performance. His work has been presented in dance and gallery contexts around NYC as part of programs with Center for Performance Research, Abrons Art Center, Movement Research at Judson Church, Mabou Mines, New Dance Alliance’s Performance Mix, Pioneers Go East’s Crossroads Series, Amanda + James’ Summer Happenings Series, Triskelion Arts, Mizuma & Kips Wada Art, and Trotter&Sholer. His first solo gallery exhibition opened at Rogers Studio Gallery in Las Vegas in January of 2023. Glenn is a recipient of the 2023 Bronx Cultural Visions Award, 2022 MAP Fund Award, 2022 Bronx Dance Fund Award, and has been awarded residencies through Movement Research, Rogers Art Loft, Gibney Dance Center, and CUNY Dance Initiative/Lehman College. Glenn received his MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, where he is currently a teacher of media design for live performance.
Arai Shin-Ichi [Japan]
ARAI lives and works in Tokyo. He studied his B.A. in Chinese modern literature at Tokyo Metropolitan University under Mr.llKURA Shohei. Later he majored in printmaking (Intaglio/Copper printing) from 1981 to 1987 under ex Mr.YOSHIDA Katsuro (Mono-ha group.) He also began experimenting with sound, voice, and language performance actions since 1982. As a Japan Overseas Cooperative Volunteer, he taught at Nyumba ya Sanaa Art School in Zanzibar, Tanzania 1992-94 where he experienced various insights into the relationship between culture and politics in contemporary society. This led to his radical social-political performances today. In his raw and direct style, ARAI's body appears as a site of social tension presented with humor yet biting criticism. Often exposing the conservative and xenophobic cultural tendencies and contradictions in global and local situations. Besides performing regularly in Japan, ARAI has also presented his works internationally, especially in China such as Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Xian, Chengdu, Changchun, and Beijing.
Jessica Fairfax-Hirst [Dominican Republic]
Jessica makes performances, videos, installations, and texts, sometimes all in the same project. Jessica creates metaphoric crumple zones, the parts of a car’s body designed to absorb the massive energy caused by the impact of a crash. Like the engineering of a crumple zone, Jessica’s works seek to create a space to observe controlled deformation, rather than merely succumb to chaotic destruction. They explore ways to redirect and absorb the forces that threaten to crush us.
Spring SEASON - FEATURING LIVE PERFORMANCES Every other Friday
Grace Exhibition Space is proud to announce a series of dynamic performances set to take place every other Friday. Curated from a diverse group of artists, including local NYC artists chosen from our Open Call last summer, as well as esteemed international artists who have presented at Grace in the past, this series promises to be an electrifying exploration of contemporary performance art.
GRACE UNDERGROUND: ACTION ON ACTIONS
ACTION ON ACTIONS #4
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18th, 2023
4:00 – 6:00 PM Free + snacks & beverages provided
ACTION ON ACTIONS is an opportunity for conversations on performance art that move beyond our Friday nights’ to a more expanded discussion, featuring various guest artists with presentations, workshops and in-progress short performances.
AGENDA:
4:00 Meet performance artists participating in the Immersive Festival/NYC
4:30-5:30 Short Performances
5:30 Presentation by Jill McDermid
Our question is: “What is Performance art?”