About the Organizers

Arika are a political arts organization led by Bryony McIntyre and Barry Esson, based in Scotland, UK, who organize live spaces that seek to explore the inseparable, intertwined nature of aesthetics and social life. They see their role in this unfolding relationship as celebrating and supporting connections between art and social change. When they say art, they mean the ways we sing and dance together, the ways we listen and want to be heard, how we look and hope to be seen, how we think of our bodies and how we move through space, how we feel and want to be felt. Since 2001, Arika has staged over 40 major projects with some of the leading arts institutions in the UK. Internationally, Arika participated in the 2012 Whitney Biennial, and has since collaborated regularly on projects in New York with members of the Arbert Santana Freedom and Free School from within the House|Ballroom community, and sex worker-led groups in the city, with partners including: MoMA PS1, Performance Space New York, The New School, Artists Space and Union Theological Seminary amongst others. In 2020, Arika were awarded a Turner Prize Bursary, that year’s pandemic-affected version of the Turner Prize, one of the most prestigious art prizes globally.

Amalle Dublon’s writing has appeared in Art in America, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Artpapers, and TDR: The Drama Review, among other publications. Their artwork, made collaboratively with friends and loved ones, has been exhibited at Artists Space (New York), Museum MMK für Moderne Kunst (Frankfurt), ARGOS Arts (Brussels), and Dazibao (Montreal). Amalle has a PhD in Literature from Duke University, and teaches at the New School.

Jerron Herman is a dancer and writer who is compelled to create images of freedom. Premiere venues include The Whitney Museum, Abrons Arts Center, Performance Space New York, Creative Time, and The Kennedy Center/REACH. Jerron has served on the Board of Trustees at Dance/USA since 2017, most recently as Vice Chair. As a curator, Jerron facilitated the series Access Check 2.0: Mapping Accessibility for the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation. In 2021 he developed a speaking series for the Joyce Theater called Discourse: Disabled Artists at the Joyce, bringing together NYC-based disabled artists to showcase their work across three distinct conversations. Jerron has been published in the US and internationally and his play, 3 Bodies, appears in Theater Magazine’s May/June 2022 issue. Jerron has modeled for Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, Chromat, and FFORA campaigns. Awards include a 2020 Grants to Artist Award from The Foundation for Contemporary Art, a 2020 Disability Futures Fellowship, and the Jerome Hill Artist Award in 2021. Jerron was the Artist/Scholar in Residence at Georgetown and holds a degree from The King’s College (NYC)

Carolyn Lazard is an artist and writer based in New York and Philadelphia. Recent solo exhibitions include The Walker Art Center and Kunstverein Braunschweig. Their work was included in the 2022 Venice Biennale and the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Lazard holds a BA from Bard College and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania.

Park McArthur experiments with personal and social meanings of debility, delay, and dependency under the guidance and instruction of disability. McArthur teaches at Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts. Most recent solo exhibitions include Kunsthalle Bern and Essex Street, both 2020.

Alice Sheppard is an internationally recognized dancer, choreographer, and founder of the disability arts ensemble Kinetic Light. She studied ballet and modern dance with Kitty Lunn and started her career performing with Infinity Dance Theater and AXIS Dance Company. In 2016, Alice founded Kinetic Light, a disability arts ensemble featuring herself, Jerron Herman, Laurel Lawson and Michael Maag. Working in the disciplines of art, technology, design, and dance, Kinetic Light creates, performs, and teaches at the nexus of access, queerness, disability, dance, and race. In the company’s work, intersectional disability is an aesthetic, a culture, and an essential element of artistry. In addition to solo performance and commissioned choreography, Sheppard is a consultant and speaker who has lectured on topics related to disability arts, race, design, and dance. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, academic journals, and the anthology Disability Visibility, edited by Alice Wong.  She is delighted to have been recognized with a Bessie and as United States Artists, Creative Capital grantee, AXIS Choreo Lab, and Disability Futures Fellow.

Constantina Zavitsanos works in medium based time.

Performance Space New York

Over the last 40 years Performance Space has been propelling cultural, theoretical, and political discourse forward. Futurity and world-building connect the interdisciplinary works presented here—works that have dissolved the borders of performance art, dance, theater, music, visual art, poetry and prose, ritual, night life, food, film, and technology, shattering artistic and social norms alike. Founded in 1980, Performance Space New York (formerly Performance Space 122) 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 epidemic’s 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. As the New York performing arts world has become increasingly institutionalized, and the shortcomings within our industry were further revealed during the ravages and transformations of 2020, our focus has been not just on presenting boundary-breaking work but on restructuring our own organization towards prioritizing equity and access. We seek to build deeper relationships with our artists and communities by creating new access points. Through community programs, annual town halls, guest-curated programs such as Octopus and First Mondays, we welcome the public to actively shape our future and help us hold ourselves accountable. Programs like the revived Open Movement and the new Open Room invite the community in and reclaim the institution as a rare indoor public space in the ever-more expensive East Village.