Shows
Performance TalksPerformance Talks with Jenny SchlenzkaIn this episode, I’m speaking with Jenny Schlenzka, Director of the Gropius Bau in Berlin.We talk about Jenny’s early years in New York, her time at the Museum of Modern Art as its first performance curator, what it means to program live work and performance in museum structures not designed for sound and movement, and questions of collecting and historicizing dance and performance. We also talk about 02020, a project she concocted with Sarah Michelson during her time as Director of Performance Space New York in which they gave a group of artist the mandate to r...
2026-01-0236 min
Performance TalksPerformance Talks with Mickey MaharIn this episode, I am joined by co-interviewer Dylan Sherman. We speak with performer Mickey Mahar, whose work has been central to performances by artists like Maria Hassabi, Anne Imhof, Ryan McNamara, and Pope.L. We talk about what it means to perform inside museum spaces and art fairs, how it feels to be endlessly photographed by strangers, and the often invisible labor involved in co-creating performance works. Mickey reflects on growing up as a competitive Irish dancer, starting as a performer in the New York art world, and what it’s like to perform when you don’t alwa...
2025-06-2032 min
Performance TalksPerformance Talks with Philip BitherThis episode of Performance Talks is a conversation with Philip Bither, Senior Curator of Performing Arts at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, who oversees one of the country's leading contemporary performing arts programs.In this conversation, he and I talk about the Walker’s long history with commissioning and presenting live work, the evolving relationship between performance and visual art, and the ongoing questions around how to preserve liveness. And, maybe most importantly, we look at what it means to support artists over time—and why that matters.Philip Bither has overseen significant expansion of t...
2025-04-1640 min
Performance TalksPerformance Talks with Beatrix RufThis episode of Performance Talks is a conversation with Beatrix Ruf, the Director of Hartwig Art Foundation, where she oversees the vision and realization of its new contemporary art museum in Amsterdam.In this conversation, we discuss the need to rethink the economy and infrastructure of museums to allow for performance and interdisciplinary experimentation, the specifics of how the cultural production scene of Amsterdam functions and her plans for the new museum in Amsterdam.Beatrix Ruf is the Director of Hartwig Art Foundation, where she oversees the vision and realization of its new contemporary art...
2025-02-0536 min
Performance TalksPerformance Talks with the Carolee Schneemann FoundationThis episode of Performance Talks is a conversation with Rachel Helm and Rachel Churner from the Carolee Schneemann Foundation, recorded at Schneemann's home in upstate New York. In this conversation, We talk about the complexities of preserving the artist's home, a nearly 300 year old structure, as well as the intricacies of representing an artist who had such a strong presentation and idea of self through an archive, and their plans of turning her home into a residency.Rachel Helm is the manager of the Carolee Schneemann Foundation and steward of Schneemann’s home in New Pa...
2024-12-2047 min
Performance TalksPerformance Talks with Limor TomerThis episode of Performance Talks is a conversation with the General Manager of Live Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Limor Tomer.Tomer earned both her B.A. and M.A. from The Juilliard School. For 10 years, she performed professionally as a classical pianist in solo and orchestral performances throughout the U.S. and Europe. While at The Met, Tomer expanded and branched out the museum's performance program into exciting new arenas.In this conversation, we speak about what it looks like to program live work at a historical museum, the...
2024-11-1421 min
Performance TalksPerformance Talks with Charles AubinFor this episode of Performance Talks I had the pleasure to interview the New York-based curator and Co-Director of Centre Pompidou Jersey City, Charles Aubin.Aubin started his career at Centre Pompidou in Paris, served as Senior Curator and Head of Publications at Performa, and was recently hired as Co-Director of Centre Pompidou Jersey City (scheduled to open in 2026) in a full circle moment. Working at Performa for more than a decade, the artists he curated work by are almost too numerous works to name: Madeline Hollander, Jérôme Bell, Danielle Dean, and Franz Er...
2024-10-2945 min
Performance TalksBonus Episode: Performance Talks Book Club with Nile Harris and David VelascoOn September 29 at 99 Canal, writer and editor David Velasco and performer and producer Nile Harris, joined Jeanette Bisschops for a conversation on 'Sarah Michelson,' the 2017 book edited by Velasco and published by MoMA as part of their Modern Dance series. They were joined by a crowd of performance devotees and, in a surprise appearance, Sarah herself. In the recorded discussion, the group talks about the contested process of making the book, the value of dance writing, and how they came to be obsessed with Sarah's work in the first place. ~ ~ ~
2024-10-151h 17
Performance TalksPerformance Talks with David VelascoThis first episode of Performance Talks is a conversation with writer and editor David VelascoHe brought dance on to the pages of Art Forum during his six year stint as editor-in-chief at the magazine and was the editor of Modern Dance, a series of monographs on contemporary choreographers, published by MoMA. His writing on dance and performance is some of the best out there. In this conversation, Velasco speaks about the importance of integrating dance and theater history into the visual art canon, finding his voice as a writer and the excitement and difficulties of evoking...
2024-09-2749 min
Rhizome CommissionsA Conversation with Kate CooperOn the occasion of New Museum’s “Screen Series Online: Kate Cooper,” Rhizome has invited the artist and presentation curator, Jeanette Bisschops, New Museum Curatorial Fellow, to discuss Cooper’s vivid and provocative CGI videos on view as part of Screens Series Online, and to preview forthcoming work.
2022-11-0400 min