Performa (performance festival)

Performa is a non-profit arts organization well known for the Performa Biennial, a festival of performance art that happens in various venues and institutions in New York city every other year. Performa was founded by RoseLee Goldberg, historian and curator of contemporary performance art. The organization also commissions new works, tours performances premiered at the biennial, and manages the work of choreographer and filmmaker, Yvonne Rainer.

Performa Biennial

In 2005 Performa hosted the first Performa Biennial, a series of performance events at venues and institutions across New York City. Founding curator and director, RoseLee Goldberg is quoted as saying her objective in creating the festival was "to produce new work that I'd never seen before and have the miracle of working with artists who would make things of wonder. The second was to deal with this history." The festival presents new works by artists working in performance, first performance works by artists working in other mediums, and re-staging of seminal performance works from history.

For the 2005 Biennial the Solomon R. Guggenheim presented Marina Abramović's Seven Easy Pieces, in which Abramović re-performed several works from the canon of early performance works, including two of her own. Performances included works by Gina Pane, Vito Acconci, Valie Export, Bruce Nauman, and Joseph Beuys.

Other featured artists included Shirin Neshat, Clifford Owens, Jesper Just, Tamy Ben-Tor, Francis Alÿs, Laurie Simmons, Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz, Coco Fusco, and Christin Marclay.

Performa 05 Commissions

Jesper Just: True Love Is Yet To Come?, 2005 at Stephan Weiss Studio, 711 Greenwich Street, New York

Francis Alÿs: Rehearsal II at The Slipper Room, 2005 at 167 Orchard Street at Stanton Street

Performa Radio, 2005, on WFMU (91.1FM-NY) and WKCR (89.9FM-NY)

Performa 07 Commissions

Japanther, Japanther in (3-D), 2007 at Performance Space 122

Nathalie Djurberg, Untitled (Working Title Kids & Dogs), 2007 at the Zipper Theater

Carlos Amorales, Spider Galaxy, 2007 at 590 Madison Avenue (The Atrium)

Sanford Biggers, The Somethin' Suite, 2007 at The Box

Isaac Julien & Russell Maliphant, Cast No Shadow, 2007 at BAM Harvey Theater

Daria Martin, Harpstrings & Lava, 2007 at Tribeca Grand Hotel Screening Room

Kelly Nipper, Floyd on the Floor, 2007 at Judson Memorial Church

Adam Pendleton, The Revival, 2007 at Stephan Weiss Studio

Yvonne Rainer, RoS Indexical, 2007 at The Hudson Theatre at Millennium Broadway Hotel

Francesco Vezzoli, Cosi’ e (se vi pare) Right You Are (If You Think You Are), 2007 at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Performa 11 Commissions

Elmgreen & Dragset, Happy Days in the Art World, 2011 at Skirball Center for the Performing Arts

Mika Rottenberg and Jon Kessler, Seven, 2011

Frances Stark, Put a Song in Your Thing, 2011 at Abrons Art Center

Gerard Byrne, In Repertory, 2011 at Abrons Art Center

Tarek Atoui, Visiting Tarab, 2011 at SIR Stage

Simon Fujiwara, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, 2011 at Abrons Art Center

Ming Wong, Persona Performa, 2011 at Museum of the Moving Image

Shirin Neshat, OverRuled, 2011 at Cedar Lake

Laurel Nakadate and James Franco, Three Performances in Search of Tennessee, 2011 at Abrons Art Center

Liz Magic Laser, I Feel Your Pain, 2011 at SVA Theater

Iona Rozeal Brown, battle of yestermore, 2011 at Skylight West

Guy Maddin, Tales from the Gimli Hospital: Reframed, 2011 at Walter Reade Theater

Ragnar Kjartansson, Bliss, 2011 at Abrons Art Center

Performa 13 Commissions

Paweł Althamer, Biba Performa, 2013, and Queen Mother of Reality Inauguration, 2013 at Socrates Sculpture Park

Rashid Johnson, Dutchman, 2013 at 10th Street Bath House, 268 East 10th Street

Ryan McNamara, MEƎM: A STORY BALLET ABOUT THE INTERNET, 2013 at Connelly Theater

Subodh Gupta, Celebration, 2013 at The Old Bowery Station, 168 Bowery

Florian Heckter, C.D. – A Script for Synthesis, 2013 at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Alexandre Singh, The Humans, 2013 at BAM Fisher

Rosa Barba, Subconscious Society - LIve, 2013 at Anthology Film Archives, 32 2nd Avenue

Eddie Peake, Endymion, 2013 at Swiss Institute

Shana Lutker, The Nose, The Cane, The Broken Left Arm, 2013 at Theatre 80, 80 St Marks Place

Marianne Vitale, The MIssing Book of Spurs, 2013 at 5-01 46th Road, Long Island City

Raqs Media Collective, The Last International, 2013 at Connelly Theater

Tori Wrånes, Yes Nix, 2013 at SIR Stage 37, 508 West 37th Street

Performa 15 Commissions

Ryan Gander, Earnest Hawker, 2015

Francesco Vezzoli and David Hallberg, Fortuna Desperata, 2015 at St. Bart's Church, 325 Park Avenue

Pauline Curnier Jardin, The Resurrection Plot, 2015 at Pioneer Works

Wyatt Kahn, Work, 2015 at Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre

Jérôme Bel, Ballet (New York), 2015 at Marian Goodman Gallery; Martha Graham Studio Theater; and El Museo del Barrio

Robin Rhode, Arnold Schönberg's Erwartung - A Performance by Robin Rhode, 2015 at Times Square

Zheng Mahler, New York Post- et Préfiguratif (Before and After New York), 2015

Erika Vogt, Artist Theater Program, 2015 at Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave.

Jesper Just and FOS, in the shadow/ of a spectacle/ is the view of the crowd, 2015

Juliana Huxtable, There Are Certain Facts that Cannot Be Disputed, 2015 at Museum of Modern Art

Oscar Murillo, Lucky dip, 2015 at Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House

Laura Lima, Gala Chickens and Ball, 2015

Agatha Gothe-Snape, Rhetorical Chorus (LW), 2015 at New York Society for Ethical Culture

Edgar Arceneaux ,Until, Until, Until..., 2015