Under the Radar is New York City’s premier annual festival of experimental theater, featuring cutting-edge performances from around the world and across the U.S. The 20th edition of UTR, the largest edition of the festival to date, features 33 productions at 30+ venues across the city.
Under the Radar connects with the city, the nation and the world through the voices of innovative multidisciplinary artists. The festival champions transparency, equity and collaboration in creating new live works. It embodies global citizenship, fosters innovation and provides a stage for new voices.
Artists participating this year include Aakash Odedra, Ahamefule J. Oluo, Alaa Shehada, Alex Tatarsky, Amir Reza Koohestani, Andrew Schneider, Ann Liv Young, Anne Washburn, Benji Reid, Christiana Kosiari, Cynthia Oliver, Dan Daw, David Herskovits, David Neumann, Faustin Linyekula, Godfrey Reggio, Ian Kamau, Irina Kruzhilina, Jaha Koo, Jenn Kidwell, John Fitzgerald, Jorge Andrade, Joseph Keckler, Julie J, Khawla Ibraheem, Marc Da Costa, Marcella Murray, Margarita Athanasiou, Matthew Niederhauser, Nile Harris, Omar Offendum, Robert Shenkken, Ronnie Burkett, Sasha Molochnikov, Stephanie Dinkins, Sujin Kim, Taibi Magar, Tania El Khoury, Theater in Quarantine & Sinking Ship, Viola He and Wakka Wakka.
Institutional venue partners are The Apollo, ArtXnyc, BAM, Baruch Performing Arts Center, Chemistry Creative, The Chocolate Factory Theater, The Flea, The Invisible Dog Art Center, Japan Society, Joe’s Pub, NYU Iris Cantor Theatre, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Mabou Mines, New Victory Theater, New York Live Arts, New York Theatre Workshop, NYU Skirball, Soho Rep, Onassis ONX, Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC), Performance Space New York, St. Ann’s Warehouse and 59E59 Theaters.
20th Anniversary festival highlights include:
Pioneer of hip hop theater turned award-winning photographer Benji Reid’s Find Your Eyes, a mix of Afro-futurist imagery, choreography and hard-hitting stories, at the Iris Cantor Theatre at NYU (January 9-12)
Performance-maker Dan Daw’s The Dan Daw Show, a peep into the shiny and sweaty push pull of living with shame while bursting with pride, performed alongside dancer Thomasin Gülgeç and presented by Performance Space New York (January 12-17)
Mehr Theatre Group’s Blind Runner, a poetic vision of struggle and mutual aid that juxtaposes a political prisoner with her husband’s race toward uncertain freedom, directed by Iranian theater maker Amir Reza Koohestani, performed in Persian with English supertitles, and presented in partnership with Waterwell by St. Ann’s Warehouse (January 4-19, Performances continue through January 24)
Performance artist and choreographer Ann Liv Young’s Marie Antoinette, an intimate, salon-style gathering in the artist’s inimitable, controversial style described by the artist as “dinner theater,” presented by Under the Radar and Chemistry Creative (January 8-19)
Playwright and performer Khawla Ibraheem’s A Knock on the Roof, directed and developed by Oliver Butler, following one woman’s routines of survival and everyday life in Gaza, in a co-production between New York Theatre Workshop and piece by piece productions (January 10-19, Performances continue through February 16)
Alex Tatarsky’s NOTHING DOING, a series of riotous freak-out sessions that offer a generous peek into the conjuring of new material from a clown obsessed with unstable fictions: from the self to the nation-state, baloney as both nonsense language and lunchmeat; co-commissioned by Under the Radar and Playwrights Horizons (Jan 7-19)
Lebanese artist Tania El Khoury’s performance installation The Search for Power, an investigation, together with her historian husband, into the history of power outages in Lebanon, presented by The Invisible Dog Art Center in a co-production with the Fisher Center at Bard (January 9-19)
South Korean artist Jaha Koo’s Cuckoo, exploring 20 years of Korean history and endemic loneliness through the insights of talking rice cookers, presented by Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC) (January 16-18)
Artist, writer and designer Ian Kamau’s Loss, a deeply personal orchestration of memories developed with his father, Trinidadian-Canadian writer and filmmaker Roger McTair, exploring grief and healing in Afro-Caribbean communities through live music, video and storytelling, presented by The Apollo (January 9-11)
The Onassis ONX-curated TECHNE, a multi-part experiential program of large-scale immersive artworks by John Fitzgerald & Godfrey Reggio, Marc Da Costa & Matthew Niederhauser, Margarita Athanasiou and Stephanie Dinkins, presented by BAM and Onassis (January 4-19)
Sinking Ship and Theater in Quarantine's world premiere production of The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy [redux], in which Jonathan Levin, Josh Luxenberg and Joshua William Gelb's New York Times Critic's Pick production has been rewritten, expanded and reconceived as a unique in-person theatrical experience, presented by New York Theatre Workshop in association with Lucille Lortel Theatre (January 4-19, Performances continue through January 26)
