Our 2021 Season of music, opera, contemporary circus and processional arts benefited from PS21’s unique open-air Pavilion Theater and breathtaking 100-acre campus, unmatched physical and environmental assets that ensure safe spaces for audiences. More than 45 events, conceived and staged for safe social distancing, in PS21’s theater and Dance Barn, in our fields, and along our trails, featuring a roster of dancers and choreographers, musicians and singers, actors, directors, and international contemporary circus artists who are breathing new life into traditional genres and fashioning new ones.  

May 29–30, 2021. The Extinctionist (Modern Opera Fest) HeartBeat Opera’s first original work, from composer Daniel Schlosberg with a libretto by Amanda Quaid, based on her one-act play. A dark comedy about a young couple grappling with the prospect of bringing a child into a world threatened with environmental collapse, directed by Louise Proske and music director Jacob Ashworth, The Extinctionist was developed in residency at PS21. Residency, May 1-29.

June 8, 2021. Escher String Quartet Recipients of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the quartet played Bartók’s Quartet No. 6 for Strings, BB 119 and the Quartet in D minor for Strings, Op. 56, “Voces intimae” by Jean Sibelius.

June 17–20, 2021. The Dark Master From writer/director Kuro Tanino and his company Niwa Gekidan Penino, a disturbing contemporary vision of thought control and the manipulation of desire through visual storytelling augmented by VR. U.S. premiere. Copresented with Japan Society NYC. 

July 2–3, 2021. Paul Taylor Dance Company performing three works from its repertory of modern classics, Company B, Esplanade, and Aureole, rehearsed in residency at PS21.

July 5, 2021. House Blend Concert I Miranda Cuckson (violin), Matt Haimovitz (cello), Matthew Gold (percussion), and Geoffrey Burleson (piano) perform the music of Shapey, Layton, Donatoni, Sanford, and Kancheli.

July 16, 2021. Pan PS21 Modern Opera Fest Flutist Claire Chase, a 2012 MacArthur Fellow, in an opera with chorus, directed by visual artist Doug Fitch. Pan transforms artist worship into collective, grassroots action through the lens of the myth of the rustic god of shepherds and inventor of the reed pipe.

July 24, 2021. Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, with percussionist Britton-René Collins and special guests from Caleb Teicher & Company performs Villa-Lobos, Rosauro, and Sitkovetsky.

August 7, 2021. Paul Taylor Dance Company performed their new staging of Kurt Jooss’s masterwork The Green Table (1932), an interwar vision of the futility of armed conflict that bears comparison to the dance of death. Developed in residency at PS21.

August 7, 2021. Branché by Cirque Barcode and Acting for Climate Montréal. Plus community workshops, part of PATHWAYS/ Crellin Community Park Day.

August 8, 2021. PS21 HOUSE BLEND series  Steven Beck and Susan Grace, the celebrated piano duo “Quattro Mani,” and violinist Siwoo Kim playing works by Bach, Biber, Nancarrow, and Wolpe.

August 9–15, 2021. The Wooster Group Summer Institute. A free weeklong performance intensive for Columbia County public school students. Wooster Group founder Kate Valk, director Adriana Smart Truman, and guest artists introduced the young participants to techniques of movement, writing, voice training, and video. Concluding with public performances in the Dance Barn August 14–15.

August 12–14, 2021. SHE/HER Celebrated actor, director, writer, and founder of Actors Rising, Nicole Ansari directs local actors in interconnected monologues, a series of meditative vignettes addressing identity, heritage, and personhood.

August 17, 2021. International Contemporary Circus. North American Premiere of  Instable by Les Hommes Penchés 

August 12–13, 2021.  Fraiseau and Les Hommes Penchés led workshops for aspiring young circus artists at PS21, including participants in the Wooster Group Summer Institute.

August 19, 2021. PS21 HOUSE BLEND series Ariadne Greif (soprano), Leelanee Sterrett (horn), Miranda Cuckson (violin), and Eric Huebner (piano) perform the music of Copland, Dallapicolla, and Ligeti.

August 26, 2021. PS21 HOUSE BLEND series Emily Daggett Smith (violin), Andrea Casarrubios (cello), Blair McMillen (piano), and Charmaine Lee (vocals) in a program of Pärt, Ravel, Schoenfield, and Lee’s own composition, Solo.

September 4, 2021. PS21 Modern Opera Fest: Ipsa Dixit, composed by Kate Soper and directed by Ashley Tata, a theatrical chamber opera for soprano, flute, violin, viola, and percussion situated at the intersection of music, language, and meaning. Blending monodrama, Greek theater, and screwball comedy, the opera skewers the treachery of language and question the  authenticity of artistic expression. With Kate Soper (soprano) and the Wet Ink Ensemble: Josh Modney (violin and viola), Erin Lesser (flute), and Ian Antonio (percussion).

September 9, 2021. PS21 Modern Opera Fest:  Savage Winter, Composed by Douglas J. Cuomo and staged by tenor Tony Boutté, the fiercely contemporary chamber opera reimagines Wilhelm Müller’s poetry cycle Winterreise as a delirious fever dream. 

September 17, 2021. End of Summer Celebration Ecstatic Dances, free-form expressive dance with DJ Joro-Boro (sound artist, music producer, DJ & video artist) and Mary Keena Frisbee (architectural designer, sound artist, and instrumentalist), James Casabere’s Solo Pavilion for Two or Three (art installation and reception with the artist), and You Are Here (aka The Maze) by Art Duo Trouble.