All Stories About Exponential Festival

NYC’s January Festivals: Not Dead Yet

With Under the Radar bouncing back and Prototype and Exponential still going strong, it was challenging, surprising festival season all over again.

Under the Radar, Exponential, and Prototype at last returned in person this year, and the pickings were as unexpected and various as ever.

No, it’s not March 2020 all over again, but the latest COVID-19 variant has theatres struggling with some familiar dilemmas of safety and scheduling.

It wasn’t quite the season of our discontent, but this year’s January festivals felt a bit less binge-able than usual, despite the high points.

New York’s annual experimental theatre sampler boasts plenty of chills and frills, but the real attraction is carefully crafted mayhem.

What I saw when I chose to focus on artists of color at Under the Radar, COIL, et al.

Interaction, immersion, identification, and exploration at this year’s Under the Radar, Coil, American Realness, et al.

Performance installations, dance performances, an “algorithmic concert”—January festivals presented works that defied categorization.

In the newest addition to NYC’s January festivals, Theresa Buchheister curates a selection of homegrown experimental work.