Making Space at the Armory
Held in our historic period rooms and spaces, this insightful series of cutting-edge conversations, performances, and installations provide a unique forum for bridging art and culture. These happenings—curated by professor and Guggenheim fellow Tavia Nyong’o—make space for new points of view and unique perspectives from a diverse array of artists, scholars, cultural leaders, and social trailblazers.
2026 Season
-
Making Space at the Armory
Fox Tactics: Artists At Work In Trying Times
How do artists create in times and places of real risk of reprisal? This Sunday Salon gathers an international roster of artists who make daring work in the face of censorship and political backlash to explore this topic.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Artist Talk: Benjamin Millepied
This insightful dialogue gives audiences the opportunity to hear directly from our roster of artists and creative visionaries and explore the inspirations, ideas, and themes behind their work.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Now Is The Time: Artists Go To Work – Part I
Drawing inspiration from Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison’s belief that in challenging times artists must go to work, this kick-off of a two-part convening frames America’s 250th anniversary not as a celebration of completion but as a call for ongoing struggle, creativity, and mutual care across communities. Audiences are invited to gather and hear artists and scholars give testimony on the current state of the arts in America.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Live From The Armory
The Fall of the City by Archibald MacLeish was the first American verse play for radio and was broadcast live from the Armory in 1937. Inspired by the premiere of this new art form, this meetup gathers podcasters before an Armory audience to record episodes for their series on topics related to science and credulity, confidence and conspiracy, and the power of storytelling.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Artist Talk: Céleste Boursier-Mougenot
This insightful dialogue gives audiences the opportunity to hear directly from our roster of artists and creative visionaries and explore the inspirations, ideas, and themes behind their work.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Artist Talk: Simon Stone
This insightful dialogue gives audiences the opportunity to hear directly from our roster of artists and creative visionaries and explore the inspirations, ideas, and themes behind their work.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Voices Rising: Korean Diaspora Voices in Performance
This convening, presented in partnership with the Serica Initiative, considers how Korean artists are influencing U.S. culture—from the global reach of K-pop and K-drama to the vitality of the contemporary stage—while carrying forward deep artistic traditions from the Korean and Korean-American diasporas.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Now Is The Time: Artists Go To Work – Part II
Following the public discussion in Part I earlier in the season, this two-day gathering in the year-long reckoning showcases the fruits of collaborative work on what remains unfinished in American democracy. Audiences are invited to attend keynote conversations, artist salons, open studios, intimate performances, and interactive workshops held in the Armory’s historic rooms.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Artist Talk: Steve Reich
This insightful dialogue gives audiences the opportunity to hear directly from our roster of artists and creative visionaries and explore the inspirations, ideas, and themes behind their work.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Artist Talk: Marina Abramović
This insightful dialogue gives audiences the opportunity to hear directly from our roster of artists and creative visionaries and explore the inspirations, ideas, and themes behind their work.
Past Making Space Events
2025 Season
-
Making Space at the Armory
A Dream You Dream Together
This convening assembles a host of scholars, artists, writers, and activists for a series of panels and performances that explore and highlight Yoko Ono’s message and highlight her influence and impact on the art world and the world at-large.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Yoko Ono Tribute Concerts
In concurrence with Yoko Ono's Wish Tree and A Dream You Dream Together – A Symposium Celebrating Yoko Ono, Making Space at the Armory presents two intimate tribute concerts in one of the Armory historic period rooms inspired by Ono’s works and legacy.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Lenapehoking
This evocative evening of chamber music and storytelling considers the myth of Manhattan’s purchase while celebrating the enduring presence of Lenape and other Indigenous nations, featuring a world premiere by Brent Michael Davids.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Black Theater Advance
This dynamic salon tackles the issues facing Black theaters and theater makers in reimagining the future of American theater as a space for bold artistic expression and social change, in collaboration with National Black Theatre.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Caftan
Inspired by legendary fashionista André Leon Talley, his iconic caftans, and his role in the world of fashion, this vibrant, multifaceted program explores fashion’s role in self-expression, freedom, and diasporic encounter.
2024 Season
-
Making Space at the Armory
Richard Kennedy
Multidisciplinary artist Richard Kennedy presents Guttural (Conducted Contact), a musical encapsulation of the African diaspora that opens a portal of participatory gathering as truth emerges through song, dance, and wordless conversations.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Antagonisms: A Gathering
Led by playwright and poet Claudia Rankine, this symposium explores the poetics of disagreement through conversations and performances with postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha, cultural historian Saidiya V. Hartman, and choreographer Shamel Pitts.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Canto De Todes / Song for All
Singer and performance artist Dorian Wood exhibits a 12-hour composition and installation, mixing a genre-defying canon of folk, pop, and experimental music of Central and Latin America to spotlight timely issues of migration and social change.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Day For Night
This afternoon salon brings together scholars, writers, artists, and nightlife makers to enlighten nightlife as an art form, and discover the ways social and performative dance have intertwined in recent years.
2023 Season
-
Making Space at the Armory
Corpus Delicti
This afternoon happening features panels exploring topics including an examination of trans life through the lens of time, and multigenerational voices telling their stories and exploring the creative projects that have been born out of trans life.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Hapo Na Zamani
Hosted by Carl Hancock Rux with musical direction by Vernon Reid, these concerts feature Reid with members of Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber in a program inspired by the greats of the Black Arts Movement, co-presented by Harlem Stage.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Salon: Hidden Conversations
In commemoration of Juneteenth, Park Avenue Armory partners with National Black Theatre to uplift the work and impact of NBT founder Dr. Barbara Ann Teer through a variety of performances, panels, exhibitions, and windows into works-in-progress.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Salon: Juke Joint
A two-day event spotlighting the history of the juke joint in Black American social history and its legacy in music and culture, featuring poet, writer, and activist Pamela Sneed and singer-songwriter and playwright Stew.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Seasons of Dance
With diversity moving into the mainstream and modern dance at a crossroads, pioneering artistic directors, choreographers, and dancers gather to explore the intersection between creative vision and cultural context in the art form.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Symposium: Sound & Color
This state-of-the-art conversation—hosted by lighting designer Jane Cox, playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, set designer Mimi Lien, and sound designer and composer Mikaal Sulaiman—examines how race matters in creative design for live performance.
2022 Season
-
Making Space at the Armory
Salon: Captcha: Dancing, Data, Liberation
This Sunday Salon features roundtable discussions and a performance showcase that offer audiences the chance to engage with Rashaad Newsome's Assembly and take a quantum leap into Black visual complexity and spirit.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Salon/Performance: Queer Hip Hop Cypher
An exploration of the queer origins and aesthetics of hip hop through discussion, film, and performance, including a Black healing portal curated by Krudxs Cubensi and a panel on the queer underground hip hop scene led by Shanté Paradigm Smalls.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Archer Aymes Retrospective: A Juneteenth Exhibition
An immersive retrospective sound and light installation by Carl Hancock Rux inspired by his Obie-winning play Talk, activated by concert performance with mezzo soprano Alicia Hall Moran and pianist Aaron Diehl, in commemoration of Juneteenth.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Skillshare
Join a range of Armory artists and partners for an enlightening and interactive afternoon of open studios, workshops, activations, and discussion for people of all ages to explore dance, poetry, music, and more.
-
Making Space at the Armory
BLOOM
Rooted in both research and object-making, legendary artist Nao Bustamante creates a cross-disciplinary investigation centered around the design of the speculum and its use in the history of the pelvic examination.
-
Making Space at the Armory
Symposium: Art at Water's Edge
Artists, activists, and designers engage the meeting of land with water. This afternoon activation is inspired by director Peter Sellars’ call to “listen to the oceans” and scholar May Joseph's call for cosmopolitan citizenship in “fluid New York.”