Events

*This tour requires no registration, and is first come, first served. Take a tour of the Joffrey Ballet exhibition with Libary staff to learn about the company's origins, and discover what makes the Joffrey a unique force in the world of dance. Robert Joffrey and his co-founder Gerald Arpino started a ballet company with a primary doctrine: that ballet was for everyone. Despite The Joffrey Ballet’s significant cultural impact, its story has received scant attention until now. In 2017, the Je…

Register This year, Jerome Robbins Dance Division turns 80 years old! One shining jewel in our crown is our Original Documentations program. Original Documentations is our phrase for the creation of archival film documentation of live dance with multiple cameras for inclusion in our moving image repository. The process requires collaboration between the videographers and the choreographers to create an accurate and professional record of dance history. We have produced thousands of films and v…

Register The Natural History of the American Dancer collective has been largely forgotten, but this improvisational ensemble of women, founded in 1971 by Barbara (Lloyd) Dilley and others, were the first performers at Danspace Project in 1974. Poet Larry Fagin told the New Yorker in 1999, that their performance birthed St. Mark’s Danspace Project in 1974. On the 50th anniversary of Danspace Project, the Library for the Performing Arts celebrates the seminal and iconic dance presenting organiza…

Register Play Club is like a book club, but for plays! Whether you are familiar with the art of reading plays, or looking to expand your appreciation for dramatic literature, this book club is an opportunity to read plays you have been meaning to explore or have never considered reading before. Learn about new works, discover new playwrights, and make friends! This group will read one playscript from the Library for the Performing Arts circulating collection every month, and then come together…

Register Premiering in 1987, Robert Joffrey’s The Nutcracker adopted elements of the classical 19th-century original by Lev Ivanov and Marius Petipa and made it distinctly American, setting the narrative in an American household, complete with vintage toys from Joffrey’s own collection. For this month’s The Dance Historian Is In, former Joffrey Ballet dancer Nicole Duffy speaks about Joffrey’s take on the holiday classic The Nutcracker. Having danced in Robert Joffrey’s production for many year…

Register In this evening event, William Parker, composer, bassist, multi-instrumentalist, and bandleader, performs his compositions with his jazz group. Parker’s large ensemble project involves the collective creative forces of the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra, which is featured in this program. In the words of Parker, “Huey's Pocket Watch was created for all those who wanted to be poets and were told they needed to get a real job. The H in Huey stands for Hope.  Huey's Pocket Watch is…

Register In advance of their performances at the Joyce Theater starting January 8, the Ramaswamy family discusses their newest work, Children of Dharma, in a conversation moderated by Shanta Thake, the Ehrenkranz Chief Artistic Officer at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts with performance excerpts. Ragamala Dance Company is internationally-lauded for their pioneering dance work centering ancestral wisdom to contextualize the immigrant experience. Children of Dharma explores life—forever…

**This event is online only** 53rd Street Library is continuing our successful remote music series in collaboration with the Library for the Performing Arts. This disc discussion will focus onThe ArchAndroid by Janelle Monáe. We are offering a monthly music club (1PM & 5PM options) via Google Hangouts/Meetup selecting and focusing on a classic album with a distinct cultural impact. To give the club an intimate feel--Like a book club for music. An LP Club!--and for us to get to know one…

**This event is online only** 53rd Street Library is continuing our successful remote music series in collaboration with the Library for the Performing Arts. This disc discussion will focus onThe ArchAndroid by Janelle Monáe. We are offering a monthly music club (1PM & 5PM options) via Google Hangouts/Meetup selecting and focusing on a classic album with a distinct cultural impact. To give the club an intimate feel--Like a book club for music. An LP Club!--and for us to get to know one…

Register Fresh from their recent Pulitzer wins for Drama, playwrights Eboni Booth (2024 for Primary Trust) and Sanaz Toossi (2023 for English) join three-time Pulitzer finalist David Henry Hwang in conversation (2020 for Soft Power, 2008 for Yellow Face, and 1989 for M. Butterfly). In this in-depth conversation, the playwrights reflect on craft, the creative process, and playwriting in fraught times. Anticipating the Broadway premiere of Sanaz Toossi's English on January 23 at Roundabout Theate…

Register In this month’s Dance Historian Is In, Nancy Dalva explores Gus Solomons Jr.’s life in dance with photos and video from the Jerome Robbins Dance Division archive. Solomons began his training in modern dance and ballet while studying architecture at MIT. Upon graduating he moved to New York City to dance, including an early stint with Martha Graham’s company, which he left to dance for Merce Cunningham from 1965 to 1968. Cunningham left a lasting influence on Solomons’ life-long choreog…

Register Commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day this year with an event that highlights the creative process behind current New York's Holocaust-related theater. In partnership with the National Jewish Theater Foundation's Holocaust Theater International Initiative, we are joined by NJTF President, producer, director, and educator Arnold Mittelman who will interview theater creators. This program illuminates how artists use a variety of source material to create unique works that i…