Performa celebrated its 20th anniversary on Wednesday night at Town Hall in New York with a variety show featuring over 50 artists. The lineup included Yvonne Rainer’s "Chair/Pillow, 1969/2026," Lonnie Holley with Shahzad Ismaily, Marcel Dzama’s "Moth Dance," Laurie Simmons and Michael Rohatyn’s "Music of Regret," a performance of Mary Lou Williams’s "A Fungus Amungus" directed by Solange Knowles and Carlos Soto, and a closing act by Alexa West. Julio Torres delivered a comedic meditation with a Diet Coke can, and the evening drew a crowd of artists, musicians, and curators, including Solange Knowles, Alia Shawkat, and others. After the show, an afterparty took place at the premiere of "MUTTER: The Diary of a Mother."
This event matters because it marks two decades of Performa, the pioneering performance art biennial founded by RoseLee Goldberg, and underscores the growing intersection of performance art with mainstream venues like Broadway's Town Hall. The anniversary show highlights how performance art continues to evolve, blending disciplines and attracting a broad cultural audience, while also reinforcing Performa's role in shaping contemporary art discourse in New York.