Fox Tactics: Artists at Work in Trying Times

A NOTE FROM CURATOR TAVIA NYONG’O Happy New Year and welcome to the first public program of the 2026 season. For Fox Tactics: Artists at Work in Trying Times, the Armory is partnering with Under the Radar Festival, founded in 2003 to showcase experimental international performance. Growing from its origins at the Public Theater into the largest theater festival in the US, Under the Radar was suspended in 2023 due to financial constraints, then revived in 2024 as a citywide collaboration across multiple venues. Now operating under a curatorial leadership model, the festival continues its two-decade commitment to presenting formally adventurous work from the “global downtown.” Our participation in this collaboration exemplifies the interdependence we value—now more than ever—in the arts and civic culture. This year also marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Cultural institutions across the nation will be commemorating this milestone in diverse ways, but Nobel laureate Toni Morrison taught us that the measure of a nation is not in its monuments, but in the stories it has the courage to face. To reckon

with the 250th anniversary is to reckon with freedom declared in words long before it was lived in practice—and to grapple with a history that has constantly faced erasure. In the face of forces that daunt the spirit, Morrison once said: “This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair.” In the spirit of her charge, we approach this year as a summons to artists, thinkers, and communities to illuminate what remains unfinished. Today’s conversation asks a vital question: How do artists create in times and places of real risk of reprisal? Led by Artistic Director of Performance Space NY Taja Cheek, this Sunday salon gathers artists of international calibre—including Jennifer Kidwell, Narcissister, and Lumi Tan—making daring work and forging vital connections with audiences across borders. Together, they invite us to collectively imagine what comes next. 250 and change! —Tavia Nyong’o, Curator of Public Programing

MAKING SPACE AT THE ARMORY FOX TACTICS: ARTISTS AT WORK IN TRYING TIMES sunday, january 11, 2025 at 3pm veterans room Artistic Director of Performance Space NY Taja Cheek

with Obie Award-winning performance artist and co-founder of JACK performance space Jennifer Kidwell, multi-hyphenate artist and activist Narcissister, and interdisciplinary curator and writer Lumi Tan Presented as part of the Under The Radar Festival

PUBLIC SUPPORT

Making Space at the Armory is made possible with support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF). Leadership support for the Armory’s artistic programming has been generously provided by the Anita K. Hersh Philanthropic Fund, Charina Endowment Fund, Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, Pinkerton Foundation, the Starr Foundation, the Thompson Family Foundation, and Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels. Major support was also provided by the the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Foundation, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Marc Haas Foundation, the Emily Davie and Joseph S. Kornfeld Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, the SHS Foundation, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, and Wescustogo Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Armory’s Artistic Council. Public support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature as well as the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council under the leadership of Speaker Adrienne Adams. Cover image by Stephanie Berger Photography.

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS TAJA CHEEK

NARCISSISTER

Taja Cheek is a Brooklyn-born curator and musician based in New York City. Currently, Cheek is a guest curator for the 2024 Whitney Biennial and the Artistic Director of Performance Space New York, a radical interdisciplinary performance institution in the East Village, founded in 1980 as PS122. Prior to Performance Space, Cheek was BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn’s inaugural Artist Curator and also worked as a Performance Curator at Luna Luna. She led performance programs at MoMA PS1, including Warm Up, a summer outdoor music series that the museum has hosted in its courtyard since 1998, and Sunday Sessions, an interdisciplinary performance series. Throughout her six year tenure at MoMA PS1, she championed the creation of new performance works and co-founded an annual music festival and record fair celebrating the legacy of the beloved, now defunct, music store Other Music. In addition, Cheek worked closely with artists for many years and in various capacities to realize projects at institutions including Creative Time, The High Line, and Weeksville Heritage Center. In 2017, she co-founded a DIY rehearsal and performance space in her neighborhood in Brooklyn that primarily supports experimental music and performance. In addition to her curatorial and programming work, Cheek is also a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who frequently records and performs under the name L’Rain.

Narcissister is a Brooklyn-based artist and performer. Masked and merkin-ed, she works at the intersection of dance, art, and activism in a range of media including live performance, film, video, collage, and sculpture. She presents work worldwide at festivals, nightclubs, museums, and galleries. She won “Best Use of a Sex Toy” at Good Vibrations Erotic Film Festival, a Bessie nomination for the theatrical performance Organ Player, and Creative Capital and United States Artists Awards. Her first feature film Narcissister Organ Player premiered at Sundance 2018. Her activist short film Narcissister Breast Work premiered at Sundance 2020 and won a Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Short at Outfest 2021. Voyage Into Infinity, a Pioneer Works commission, had its world premiere in 2024. Narcissister is a 2025 recipient of a Sir Peter Shaffer Charitable Foundation commission to develop a new theatrical piece at Playwrights Horizons.

JENN KIDWELL Jenn Kidwell is a performing artist. Currently touring: we come to collect: a flirtation, with capitalism (2025 premiere at The Flea Theater with support from Under the Radar). Most recently seen in: Glitter in the Glass (Theatre Exile), The Welkin (Atlantic Theater Company). Soon to be seen in: untitled clown show (Geoff Sobelle), tropical depression (Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre). Grateful to/for: 2013 TCG/ Fox Resident Actor Fellowship, 2015, 2021 Leeway Foundation Art & Change Grant, 2016 Pew Fellow, 2017 Independence Fellowship, 2020 Ruthie Award & Hodder Fund Grant, 2023 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grantee, 2025 Helen Merrill Award.

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LUMI TAN Lumi Tan is a curator and writer based in New York City, specializing in interdisciplinary exhibitions and performances. Current and upcoming projects include those with DOOSAN Gallery, Seoul; Performance Space New York; Frieze New York; and the 2026 Converge45 city-wide exhibition in Portland, Oregon. From 2022 to 2024, she was the Curatorial Director of Luna Luna, a revival of the world’s first art amusement park created by André Heller in 1987. Previously, Tan was Senior Curator at The Kitchen, New York, where over a twelve-year tenure, she organized over 100 exhibitions, performances, and live programs with artists across disciplines and generations.

PRODUCTION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Performance Space New York JACK Tommy Kriegsmann/ArKtype

Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street

ABOUT PUBLIC PROGRAMMING AT THE ARMORY Park Avenue Armory’s Public Programming series brings diverse artists and cultural thought-leaders together for discussion and performance around the important issues of our time viewed through an artistic lens. Launched in 2017, the series encompasses a variety of programs including large-scale community events; multi-day symposia; intimate salons featuring performances, panels, and discussions; Artist Talks in relation to the Armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall programming; and other creative interventions. Highlights from the Public Programming series include: Carrie Mae Weems’ 2017 event The Shape of Things and 2021 convening and concert series Land of Broken Dreams; a daylong Lenape Pow Wow and Standing Ground Symposium held in the Wade Thompson Drill Hall, the first congregation of Lenape Elders on Manhattan Island since the 1700s; “A New Vision for Justice in America” conversation series in collaboration with Common Justice, exploring new coalitions, insights, and ways of understanding question of justice and injustice; Culture in a Changing America Symposia exploring the role of art, creativity, and imagination in the social and political issues in American society today; the 2019 Black Artists Retreat hosted by Theaster Gates; 100 Years | 100 Women, a multiorganization commissioning project that invited 100 women artists and cultural creators to respond to women’s suffrage; a Queer Hip Hop Cypher, delving into the queer origins and aesthetics of hip hop with Krudxs Cubensi and author and scholar Dr. Shante Paradigm Smalls; the Archer Aymes Retrospective, exploring the legacy of emancipation through an immersive art installation curated by Carl Hancock Rux and featuring a concert performance by mezzo soprano Alicia Hall Moran and pianist Aaron Diehl; legendary artist Nao Bustamante’s BLOOM; Art at Water’s Edge, a symposium inspired by the work of director and scholar May Joseph on artistic invention in the face of climate change; Symposium: Sound & Color – The Future of Race in Design, an interdisciplinary forum exploring how race matters in creative design for live performance; Juke Joint, a two-day event spotlighting the history of the juke joint in Black American social history and its legacy in music and culture, including performances by Pamela Sneed and Stew; Hapo Na Zamani, a 1960s-style happening curated by Carl Hancock Rux with music direction by Vernon Reid in collaboration with Harlem Stage; Hidden Conversations, a celebration of Dr. Barbara Ann Teer with National Black Theatre; Corpus Delicti in collaboration with the NYC Trans Oral History Project; Guttural (Conducted Contact), a musical encapsulation of the African diaspora by multidisciplinary artist Richard Kennedy, closing The Radical Practice of Black Curation symposium with Princeton University; Antagonisms: A Gathering, a symposium investigating group dynamics led by playwright and essayist Claudia Rankine, renowned postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha, and acclaimed cultural historian Saidiya Hartman, and opened by Guggenheim fellow and choreographer Shamel Pitts’ [Essence of] TOUCH OF RED; Dorian Wood’s Canto de Todes / Song for All, a 12-hour durational chamber and electronic composition and installation mixing a genre-defying canon of folk, pop, and experimental music of Central and Latin America; the largest installation in North America of Yoko Ono’s ongoing project Wish Tree, accompanied by a two-day symposium A Dream You Dream Together exploring Ono’s legacy and tribute concerts featuring experimental electronic music duo Matmos and soprano Alicia Mall Moran with Carl Hancock Rux; and Lenapehoking, an

evening of music with Brent Michael Davids including the world premiere of his work “Ode to Joe.” Notable Public Programming salons include: the Literature Salon hosted by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, whose participants included Lynn Nottage, Suzan Lori-Parks, and Jeremy O. Harris; a Spoken Word Salon co-hosted with the Nuyorican Poets Cafe; a Film Salon featuring the works of immersive artist and film director Lynette Wallworth; “Museum as Sanctuary” led by installation artist and Artist-in-Residence Tania Bruguera, curated by Sonia Guiñansaca and CultureStrike, and featuring undocu-artists Julio Salgado and Emulsify; a Dance Salon presented in partnership with Dance Theater of Harlem, including New York City Ballet’s Wendy Whelan and choreographer Francesca Harper, among others; Captcha: Dancing, Data, Liberation led by visionary artist Rashaad Newsome; Seasons of Dance, a contemporary dance salon featuring conversations with “mother of contemporary African dance” Germaine Acogny, Tanztheater Wuppertal dancer Malou Airaudo, and dancers from The Rite of Spring / common ground[s] at the Armory; Day for Night: A Salon on Art and Nightlife, an afternoon salon bringing together scholars, writers, artists, and nightlife makers to enlighten nightlife as an art form, and discover the ways social and performative dance have intertwined in recent years, presented in conjunction with R.O.S.E; Black Theater Advance with National Black Theatre; and Caftan – Style as Liberation and Cultural Exchange, exploring the legacy of André Leon Talley. Artist Talks have featured esteemed artists, scholars, and thought leaders, such as: actor Bobby Cannavale; architects Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, and Elizabeth Diller; artist and composer Heiner Goebbels; choreographers Kyle Abraham, Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray, Trajal Harrell, Bill T. Jones, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, and Justin Peck; comedian Morgan Bassichis; composers Seth. A. Cluett, Alexandra Gardner, Georg Friedrich Haas, Philip Miller, Samy Moussa, Thuthuka Sibisi, Tyshawn Sorey, and Philip Venables; composer and director Michel van der Aa; composer, vocalist, and scholar Gelsey Bell; conductors Amandine Beyer and Matthias Pintscher; curator Ana Janevski; designer Peter Nigrini; directors Claus Guth, Robert Icke, Richard Jones, Sam Mendez, Satoshi Miyagi, Ariane Mnouchkine, Ben Powers, Peter Sellars, Yuval Sharon, Simon Stone, Ian Strasfogel, Ivo van Hove, and Alexander Zeldin; illustrator Ned Asta; Juilliard president Damian Woetzel and Juilliard Provost and Dean Ara Guzelimian; musicians Helmut Deutsch, Nona Hendryx, Meredith Monk, Kathinka Pasveer, Miah Persson, and Davóne Tines; New Yorker editor David Remnick; James Nicola, Artistic Director of New York Theater Workshop; performance artists Marina Abramović and Helga Davis; RoseLee Goldberg, Founding Director and Chief Curator of Performa; playwrights Ted Huffman, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Tony Kushner, Lynn Nottage, Jackie Sibblies Drury, and Anne Washburn; Dr. Augustus Casely Hayford, Director of the Smithsonian, National Museum of African Art; visual artists Nick Cave, Anne Imhof, William Kentridge, Julie Mehretu, Julian Rosefeldt, Hito Steyerl, and Ai Wei Wei; and writers and scholars Anne Bogart, Robert M. Dowling, Joseph Drew, Emily Greenwood, Ebony L. Haynes, Hua Hsu, and Carol Martin.

armoryonpark.org | @ParkAveArmory | #MakingSpaceArmory

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NEXT AT THE ARMORY NEW YORK PREMIERE ROMEO & JULIET SUITE MARCH 2 – 21

This site-specific dance-drama by celebrated choreographer, director, and filmmaker Benjamin Millepied reimagines Prokofiev’s iconic ballet through a contemporary lens. The piece exceeds the parameters of a traditional stage setting, taking place within the Drill Hall and additional spaces throughout the Armory, with concurrent scenes broadcast live on video screens for audiences to follow the action. With the lead roles performed by different configurations of gender pairings for each performance, the piece freshly reinterprets Shakespeare’s tragic tale in a universal celebration of love.

ARTISTS STUDIO JOY GUIDRY FEBRUARY 20 & 21

Joy Guidry is a celebrated artist in the experimental and avant-garde music spaces, representing a convergence of sound, spirit, and radical self-expression. This multifaceted artist comes to the Veterans Room to create a ruminative performance in the spirit of a southern church revival and based on her ambient album Five Prayers, reimagining it into movements based on different themes of Black American spirituality and artistic expression ranging from jazz and minimalism to opera, ballet, blues, and gospel.

JAMIRE WILLIAMS MARCH 25 & 26

NEW YORK PREMIERE CLINAMEN JUNE 10 – AUGUST 2

The acclaimed artist, musician, and composer Céleste Boursier-Mougenot presents the largest iteration to date of his ongoing aquatic and musical installation, featuring a series of circular basins filled with water in which ordinary ceramic bowls gloat and gently collide to produce melodious chiming sounds. These physical and sonic configurations are constantly changing, creating a bespoke auditory experience that invites audiences to contemplate time and sound as both individual and collective experiences.

Multidisciplinary artist Jamire Williams gives an immersive and experimental solo percussion performance that pushes the boundaries of rhythm, texture, and memory through a dynamic interplay of acoustic instruments, vintage samplers, and analog tape machines. Using a wide array of percussion instruments, found objects, and prepared surfaces, this layered sonic environment blurs the lines between past and present, human and machine, and live and recorded to offer the audience an enveloping, time-bending listening experience for spiritual inquiry and sonic excavation.

RECITAL SERIES FAZIL SAY FEBRUARY 10 & 11

Turkish pianist and composer Fazıl Say comes to the Board of Officers Room to display his virtuosity with a performance of J.S. Bach’s beloved Goldberg Variations paired with his own innovative compositions, harkening back to pianists of the past like Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin who showcased their unbounded artistry performing their works and improvisations for the public.

LIV REDPATH & HARRY RYLANCE MAY 28 & 30 NEW YORK SOLO RECITAL DEBUT

Leading soprano leggero Liv Redpath comes to the Armory from the world’s grandest operatic stages for her New York solo recital debut with pianist Harry Rylance. Redpath gives a uniquely curated program of arias and arts songs in the intimate Board of Officers Room that beautifully showcase her breathtaking coloratura, agility, and brightness.

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Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory | 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street

ABOUT PARK AVENUE ARMORY Part palace, part industrial shed, Park Avenue Armory supports unconventional works in the performing and visual arts that cannot be fully realized in a traditional proscenium theater, concert hall, or white wall gallery. With its soaring 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall—reminiscent of 19th-century European train stations—and an array of exuberant period rooms, the Armory provides a platform for artists to push the boundaries of their practice, collaborate across disciplines, and create new work in dialogue with the historic building. Across its grand and intimate spaces, the Armory enables a diverse range of artists to create, students to explore, and audiences to experience epic, adventurous, relevant work that cannot be done elsewhere in New York. The Armory both commissions and presents performances and installations in the grand Drill Hall and offers more intimate programming through its acclaimed Recital Series, which showcases musical talent from across the globe within the salon setting of the Board of Officers Room; its Artists Studio series curated by Jason Moran in the restored Veterans Room; Making Space at the Armory, a public programming series that brings together a discipline-spanning group of artists and cultural thought-leaders around the important issues of our time; and the Malkin Lecture Series that features presentations by scholars and writers on topics related to the Armory and its history. In addition, the Armory also has a year-round Artists-in-Residence program, providing space and support for artists to create new work and expand their practices. The Armory’s creativity-based arts education programs provide access to the arts to thousands of students from underserved New York City public schools, engaging them with the institution’s artistic programming and outside-the-box creative processes. Through its education initiatives, the Armory provides access to all Drill Hall performances, workshops taught by Master Teaching Artists, and in-depth residencies that support the schools’ curriculum. Youth Corps, the Armory’s year-round paid internship program, begins in high school and continues into the critical post-high school years, providing interns with mentored employment, job training, and skill development, as well as a network of peers and mentors to support their individual college and career goals. The Armory is undergoing a multi-phase renovation and restoration of its historic building led by architects Herzog & de Meuron, with Platt Byard Dovell White as Executive Architects.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Chairman Emeritus Elihu Rose, PhD Co-Chairs Adam R. Flatto Amanda J.T. Riegel President Rebecca Robertson Vice Presidents David Fox Pablo Legorreta Emanuel Stern

Marina Abramović Abigail Baratta Joyce F. Brown Cora Cahan Hélène Comfort Paul Cronson Tina R. Davis Jessie Ding Sanford B. Ehrenkranz Roberta Garza Kim Greenberg Samhita Jayanti Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Edward G. Klein, Brigadier General NYNG (Ret.) Ralph Lemon Jason Moran Janet C. Ross Stephanie Sharp Joan Steinberg Dabie Tsai Ying Zhou

Avant-Garde Chair Adrienne Katz Directors Emeriti Harrison M. Bains Angela E. Thompson* Wade F.B. Thompson* Founding Chairman, 2000-2009 Pierre Audi* Anita K. Hersh Artistic Director

*In memoriam Treasurer Emanuel Stern

armoryonpark.org | @ParkAveArmory | #MakingSpaceArmory

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