In the process of re-imagining the site…stay tuned
These past years have been unbelievably busy, and I haven't had the chance to update this site.
I am in the midst of reimagining my work and this site.
Stay tuned!
VESSEL
The Chocolate Factory
Oct 26-29 2022
Something personal.
A means of transmission.
Bearing witness.
Oct 26-29 2022
Something personal.
A means of transmission.
Bearing witness.
Hellzapoppin’: What about the bees?
New York Live Arts
Oct 5-8, 2022
In this new adventure Rainer juxtaposes text, dance and excerpts from the two classic films—HELLZAPOPPIN’, a 1941 Hollywood musical, and Zero for Conduct, 1933, by French auteur Jean Vigo—as backdrop and inspiration for some of her choreography.
Oct 5-8, 2022
In this new adventure Rainer juxtaposes text, dance and excerpts from the two classic films—HELLZAPOPPIN’, a 1941 Hollywood musical, and Zero for Conduct, 1933, by French auteur Jean Vigo—as backdrop and inspiration for some of her choreography.
Nothingbeing
Portland Institute of Contemporary Art
TBA Festival: 22
Portland, OR
Oct 5-8, 2022
A collaboration that investigates ways to embody the conundrum of nothingness and "being."
TBA Festival: 22
Portland, OR
Oct 5-8, 2022
A collaboration that investigates ways to embody the conundrum of nothingness and "being."
Morning Light
The New York Choral Society presents Morning Light, a multidisciplinary digital performance of composer Kevin Siegfried’s new arrangement for a cappella chorus of the Shaker song Morning Light in collaboration with artist and choreographer David Thomson.
the ecology of care
The ecology of care is a discussion on how we can reenvision care and structures for artists and the field. Reimagining our art ecology using organic models in nature to build a more resilient and sustainable field that embraces the person and the art with care. These are some questions that have emerged through his...
Marble House Project Residency
I had the delicious pleasure of a summer residency here with two studios, one for writing and one for dancing.
Vs.
Vs. can be considered part tribunal of evidence — guided and constrained by the statutory powers of the “Interrogator” — and part psychodynamic investigation of a sovereign polity, a collective of accused citizenry.
The Sustainability Project in schools
J. Bouey interviewed me for a short article for DanceTeacher online regarding The Sustainability Project and my course Artists Sustainability.
Marking the Occasion
Marking the Occasion, the book, represents the final movement in a year-long engagement with the question, "Can a performance be a rough draft of a written work?" This publication also marks the events of 2020, and traces their reverberations through each artist's practice as time, movement, action, and collaboration take on new meanings. ...
patch the sky with 5 colored stones
Conceived by Daria FaÏn as a multilayered as a collaborative journey in celebration of her 60th birthday, and the culmination of 40 years of research into the body/mind embodiment within architecture, language, spirituality and communal action.
Last Audience: a performance manual
With Last Audience: a performance manual, a canary torsi reimagines performance for an era of social distance. A series of printed manuals developed in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
Trisha Brown Archives
In September 2020, the New York Public Library's Performing Arts Division acquired the archives of Trisha Brown. I had the pleasure of collaborating with Cori Olinghouse and later Ben Houtman, as the TBC archives technical consultant, designing the database that housed the interrelated information for the ephemera of Brown's archive.
Our Labyrinth
MetLiveArts in partnership with New York Live Arts, commissioned a unique, site-specific iteration of Taiwanese-American artist Lee Mingwei's durational performance work OUR LABYRINTH.
ECHO EXHIBIT
I had the pleasure of participating in Asiya Wadud's Echo Exhibit.
My collaboration with Chia-Lun Chang chosen as one of the poems exhibited in Lower Manhattan.
Okwui Okpokwasili & Peter Born: Sitting On a Man’s Head
One of PLATFORM 2020: Utterances from the Chorus‘s central questions “How do we weave a collective song?” builds on the ideas behind Okpokwasili’s and Born’s durational piece, Sitting On a Man’s Head.
Going Spaces and Other Worlding
Going Spaces and Other Worlding is the culmination of two years of residencies, research, and experimentation. Through film, performance, and sculptural
installation, Tripp uses forms of reenactment and rehearsal to conjure alternative modes of freedom, utopia, and civil disobedience at the crossroads of globalization and cultural hybridity.
Sept 21 - Dec 1, 2019
Anna, Darrin, David, Eleanor, jess, Katie, Leslie & Weena: The Door’s Unlocked
Foley Gallery
59 Orchard Street, NYC 10002
Monday through Friday 2pm-10pm | Saturday and Sunday 12pm-9pm
Parts of some Sextets
Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center
15-17 November 2019
DUMBO, 29 Jay Street, Bklyn
A piece centered around 12 mattresses, a 17th century American diarist and the madness of action.
Last Audience
The Last Audience is a work embodied by its audience–a live laboratory for the communal work of conjuring.
New York Live Arts
219 W 19th St, New York
October 16-20
6:30pm
Restagings No. 3: Fall (C.A.)
Fridman Gallery is honored to present Abigail Levine’s Restagings No. 3: Fall (C.A.), a 10 ½ hour performance and collective ritual for a community of performers, writers, and their witnesses.
Sunday, October 13th 2pm-12:30am
Continuous Project: 60 Years
Remai Modern
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Saturday, October 5, 7 PM
Sunday, October 6, 2 PM
Sorry I Missed Your Show: Adrienne Truscott
Sorry I Missed Your Show: Adrienne Truscotted by makers David Thomson and Melanie George, will present and talk about excerpts from a show that has caused her nothing but trouble—from the humorously banal to the deeply consequential, both personally and professionally.
Gibney Dance 280 Broadway, entrance 53A chambers
Sept. 18th 6:30
ASSEMBLY
Saturday, June 22, 6:30pm
Part of series of performances before the closing of The Kitchen for a 2 year renovation.
Marking the Occasion
Mt. Tremper Arts Center
Watershed Lab 2019
Curated by Jaime Shearn Coan and Tara Aisha Willis. Bringing seven artists together to explore the intersection of text and performance.
Movement Research Gala 2019
Judson Memorial ChurchThursday, June 6th I have the pleasure of being honored with the wonderful Stephen Facey this year at the Movement Research Gala on June 6th. Movement Research is one of the world’s leading laboratories for the investigation of dance and movement-based forms, now celebrating it’s 40th year. It’s an organization that is near and dear to my heart for...
Danspace Gala 2019: Rebel Angels: Honoring Simone Forti & Okwui Okpokwasili
St Marks Church
Tuesday, May 7 at 6pm
Danspace’s 2019 Gala honors visionary artists Simone Forti and Okwui Okpokwasili, whose embodied grace and radical generosity inspire across generations.
Yanira Castro | a canary torsi : Live Feed In-Process: Last Audience
New York Live Arts
April 26, 2019
Last Audience is a piece made with the audience. It grapples with questions of agency, manipulation and the complexity of choice inside a theatrical context.
Albertine Prize Launch 2019
French Embassy
972 Fifth Avenue
New York
April 3, 2019
I had pleasure of being invited to read a excerpt from Small Country by Gaël Faye, one of the five finalists for the prize. Translated by Sarah Ardizzone
Dance Union Podcast
The Dance Union Podast
Episode 42: Sustainability in Dance
Melanie and Jay met with David Hamilton Thomson to speak about his Sustainability Project that helps dance artists explore sustainable practices of making art.
Even the Stars Look Lonesome
Sharjah Biennial 14, United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Collaboration with Caecilia Tripp 5-screen film installation, copper sculpture
Tracing Beyond
Museum of Modern Art
January 24, 2019 6:30p
This Studies Project traces the legacies of dance beyond Judson Dance Theater, considering the complex web of influences and developments in the years before, during, and in the many decades since.
Extended Life Dance 3 Year Development Residency Fellowship
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
2019-2021
Dark and Stormy, when the going gets tough grab pussy
A raucous post-modern parody of Trump and Stormy Daniels played off of Tina Turner's Proud Mary. Sex, gender, power and privilege. Everything is upended!
Sundays on Broadway
4 November 2018 6p
Movement Research at Judson
12 November 2018 8p
The 34th Annual NY Dance & Performance Bessie Awards
The Skirball Center at NYU
Monday, October 8th, 2018 6p
The New York Dance and Performance Awards, also known as The Bessies, is a yearly event celebrated the work of artists who have performed in New York City during the course of the past season. he his own mythical beast received a Bessie...
Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done
The Museum of Modern Art
September 16, 2018–February 3, 2019
MoMA opens a retrospective exhibition of the groundbreaking work, ideas and artists that came out of Judson Dance Theater. In conjunction with this exhibition are a series of performances.
Spinning a Yarn
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Sunday, September 23, 2018 12:30 pm
For the closing of Contra la Pared, David Thomson collaborated with exhibiting artist Analia Segal to create a solo.
Dance and Process at The Kitchen
Dance and Process @ The Kitchen
June 9, 6pm: Athena Kokoronis and Angie Pittman
Working with Athena Kokoronis|Domestic Performance Agency and a cast of beautiful performers
TEDx Asbury Park | Life is a Dance
May 19, 2018
9am
Paramount Theatre
1300 Ocean Avenue
Asbury Park, NJ
The 6th edition of TEDxAsburyPark will be themed ‘Passion.
DEEP: The Sustainability Project
Gibney Dance
280 Broadway
Tuesday, May 8
6:30-8:30p
For this Gibney event, we are focusing on younger artists of color and how they perceive a sustainable life. Each artist would present strategies and ideas that they have been using to build and guide their goals as artists within this context.
The Kitchen L.A.B.
April 17, 6:30pm
Free
The sixth gathering in this year's L.A.B. series, featuring Chloë Bass, Andrianna Campbell, and David Thomson, revolving around the term relation.
Rauschenberg Residency
RESIDENCY 30: MARCH 5-APRIL 6, 2018 The Rauschenberg Residency is a creative center that welcomes artists of all disciplines from around the world to live, work, and create. The residency is located on Robert Rauschenberg’s former property on Captiva Island, Florida, where he lived and worked for nearly four decades. The facility, which includes the 8,000-square-foot studio Rauschenberg built in 1992 and a collection of historic homes and...
he his own mythical beast (premiere)
Performance Space 122 | COIL Festival 2018
150 First Avenue, at the corner of 9th Street
New York, NY
Jan 31 – Feb 2 7:30pm
Feb 4 3pm
The culmination of a series of performance installations that Interrogates the suppositions of neutrality of presence, and the black body in a postmodern world.
Yvonne Rainer | The Concept of Dust: Continuous Project-Altered Annually
Early Works & DUST
Marseilles, France
Porto, Portugal
Barcelona, Spain
14th-19th December 2017
Sorry I Missed Your Show: wondering who we are
Gibney Dance 280 Broadway
(Enter at 53A Chambers)
Wednesday, December 6 / 6:30 – 8:00 pm / FREE
David Thomson, in discussion with Okwui Okpokwasili, connects his work with Poet/theater artist and musician Sekou Sundiata’s 51st (dream) state to his current performance research project, he his own mythical beast
OPEN SPECTRUM: CREATIVE SUSTAINABILITY – How do we invest in ourselves as artists and human beings?
New York Live Arts Studios
219 West 19th Street
DEC 4, 7PM
Do you take time to invest in yourself? Do you have access to the resources, tools and advice you need to plan a sustainable life as an individual?
Kaneza Schaal | Go Forth | New Orleans
Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans
New Orleans, LA
Thursday, November 9, 2017 - 7:30pm
Friday, November 10, 2017 - 7:30pm
Saturday, November 11, 2017 - 7:30pm
Saturday, November 11, 2017 - 11:00pm
Kaneza Schaal | Go Forth | Cairo
Cairo International Festival for Contemporary & Experimental Theatre
Cairo, Egypt
Wednesday, September 27 at 10PM
Thursday, September 28 at 10PM
Maya Ciarrocchi | A Remedy for a Constitutional Crisis
Abrons Art Center
September 17, 2017 (Constitution Day)
12pm-8pm
A Remedy for a Constitutional Crisis is an eight-hour celebratory reading of the United States Constitution. This event is free to the public and will occur in the outdoor amphitheater at Abrons Art Center on September 17, 2017 (Constitution Day)
a canary torsi | CAST, STAGE, AUTHOR
Abrons Arts Center
The Chocolate Factory
The Invisible Dog
September 7-23, 2017
CAST, STAGE, AUTHOR is a trilogy of new works by interdisciplinary artist Yanira Castro and a team of collaborators.
Yvonne Rainer & David Michalek | SlowDancing/TrioA
St Marks Danspace Project
New York City
June 23 - July 1
Danspace Project premieres SlowDancing/TrioA, a new video installation by artist, David Michalek, in collaboration with choreographer, Yvonne Rainer!
Marta Renzi | In search of lost time
Stamford, VT
June 2017
Marta Renzi invited Aislinn MacMaster, Charles Caster-Dudzick and myself up to the beautiful and cozy home of Marta Miller in Vermont for 5 days to shoot a little something.
The Yard | Bessie Schonberg Choreography Residency
The Yard
Martha's Vineyard
Chilmark, MA
22 May - 11 June 2017
A three week shared residency with Raja Feather Kelly and his company, the feath3r theory. Continued development of the final section of he his own mythical beast, with two performances at the end of the residency.
Gustave Akakpo | Skins and Hoods (Even Knights Get Forgotten)
Skins and Hoods (Even Knights Get Forgotten) Mini-lab
Abrons Arts Center
3 May 2017
4p
As part of the French Play Series, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in association with Abrons Arts Center sponsored a mini-lab and a public reading of the play.
RADICAL BODIES: Anna Halprin; Simone Forti; Yvonne Rainer in CA and NY 1955-1972
UC Santa Barbara
Hatlen Theater
Wednesday, January 25, 2017 - 9:00am to Saturday, January 28, 2017 - 7:30pm
Radical Bodies reunites Halprin, Forti, and Rainer for the first time in over fifty-five years.
Barnard College | Tone
Creation of new work at Barnard College, Performances at New York Live Arts, December 1-3
Leslie Scalapino Award Reading | The Triumph of Crowds
New Ohio Theater 5 December 2016 I had the pleasure of performing in the reading for Third annual Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women Playwrights. Brigid McLeer is the recipient of the third annual Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women Playwrights. In memory of Leslie Scalapino and her “commitment to the community of experimental writing...
The Commons Choir | BROOKLYN REZOUND (work-in-progress)
BROOKLYN REZOUND, created by The Commons Choir in collaboration with composer Darius Jones, is an investigative musical and dance performance that delves into the history of diversity and displacement in Brooklyn.
The Voyeurs | Madison Square Park
The Voyeurs
Madison Square Park
23rd Street and Broadway
New York City
15, 16 September 2016
6p
18 September 2016
2p
Mt Tremper Arts Watershed Lab Residency | Performance
he his own mythical beast
Residency
5-11 September 2016
Performance
Saturday, September 10, 8:00 pm / Tickets $15
This process version of he his own mythical beast uses new and material accumulated from prior performance installations to build a multifaceted experience engaging the edges and issues of identity, power, myth and America.
a canary torsi | CAST, STAGE, AUTHOR
This summer I had the pleasure of working on a new project with Yanira Castro. We began with a series of extended interviews in the Spring and workshops in the Summer. CAST, STAGE, AUTHOR is a trilogy of works to premiere for three weeks in September 2017 at three commissioning NYC venues: The Chocolate Factory,...
The Voyeurs | Brooklyn Bridge Park
The Voyeurs
A performance installation by David Thomson
July 23 at 5:30 & 6:30 pm
Empire Fulton Ferry at Brooklyn Bridge Park
Art AIDS America | Bronx Museum
The first comprehensive overview of 30 years of art made in response to the AIDS epidemic in the United States
Opening night performance
Wednesday, July 13th
2nd floor North Wing
7:15pm
Look up here, I’m in heaven
BRIC Arts Media
July 6, 2016 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
“A thing that is hoped or wished for but in fact is illusory or impossible to achieve.”
Performances by exhibition artist David Antonio Cruz, and artists Jaamil Olawale Kosoko and David Thomson that explore contradictions in identity, freedom, and materiality of the black/brown body.
Kaneza Schaal | Go Forth
River to River Festival | LMCC
River to River Festival
The Arts Center at Governors Island, Building 110
Thu, Jun 16 from 4:30–5:30pm
Fri, Jun 17 from 4:30–5:30pm
Sat, Jun 18 from 2:30–3:30pm
Sun, Jun 19 from 2:30–3:30pm
“…a (fine) place to consider existence beneath and beyond the earth, “Go Forth” finds an immediate and visceral strength in ancient codes of mourning.”
–...
Yvonne Rainer | The Concept of Dust: Continuous Project-Altered Annually
The Kitchen
2-4 June 2016
8p
ADI/NYC PremiereThe Concept of Dust: Continuous Project-Altered Annually” is an ongoing work-in-progress that interweaves formal dance and personal themes of aging and mortality with humor and diverse texts
Maria Hassabi | PLASTIC
February 21 - March 20, 2016
Museum of Modern Art
Artist and choreographer Maria Hassabi’s PLASTIC is a commissioned live installation in which dancers perform throughout MoMA continuously during opening hours.
Process Space Residency | Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
1 - 29 February 2016
125 Maiden Lane Studio
Kaneza Schaal | Go Forth
7-12 January 2016
Westbeth Center
Drawing inspiration from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, GO FORTH is a performance and photo installation that considers how we create space in our lives for the presence of the absent.