HERE

HERE builds a community that nurtures career artists as they create innovative hybrid live performance in theatre, dance, music, puppetry, media and visual art. Our artist residencies support the singular vision of the lead artist through commissions, long-term development, and production support. HERE’s programs and performances promote relationships among local, national, and international artists. Our space is a destination for audiences who are passionate about ground-breaking contemporary work and the creative process behind it.

Since 1993, HERE has been one of New York’s most prolific producing organizations, and today, it stands at the forefront of the city’s presenters of daring new hybrid art. HERE supports multidisciplinary work that does not fit into a conventional programming agenda. Our aesthetic represents the independent, the innovative, and the experimental: HERE has developed such acclaimed works as Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues; Basil Twist’s Symphonie Fantastique; Basil Twist and Joey Arias' Arias with a Twist; Hazelle Goodman’s On Edge; Young Jean Lee's Songs of The Dragons Flying To Heaven; Trey Lyford & Geoff Sobelle’s all wear bowlers; Faye Driscoll's 837 Venice Boulevard; Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge and original musical and dance works created and directed by HERE Co-Founder and Artistic Director Kristin Marting.

The New York Times has called HERE “one of the most unusual arts spaces in New York and possibly the model for the cutting-edge arts spaces of tomorrow.” Indeed, HERE has become successful at creating a new kind of arts enterprise—the collaborative multiarts center. In 17 years, we’ve supported over 12,000 artists and attracted over 950,000 arts patrons. We aim to integrate art into daily life and engage our community’s needs and interests on as many different levels as possible in order to ensure our regular presence in their lives.

HERE supports the work of artists at all stages in their careers through fully-produced works, commissions and subsidized performance and rehearsal space. In addition, HERE’s staff provides marketing, technical and administrative support. All work at HERE is curated based on the strength and uniqueness of the artist’s vision.

Over the last 17 years, HERE and the work presented HERE have garnered 16 OBIE awards, two OBIE grants for artistic achievement, a 2006 Edwin Booth Award (“for Outstanding Contribution to NY Theatre”) from the CUNY Graduate Center, five Drama Desk nominations, two Berrilla Kerr Awards, four NY Innovative Theatre Awards and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. We believe that our multidisciplinary approach is the way to engage the audiences of tomorrow, ensuring a healthy and productive future for the performing arts field at large.

HERE’s core annual audience consists of approximately 40,000 ethnically diverse, urban 20-40 something’s— an audience base that many in the field attempt to engage. We produce work that is affordable, challenging and alternative—offering our audiences the opportunity to feel that they are part of something new and fresh. Key elements of our performance programming are designed to allow the public to have as many access points to the development of original art as possible through work-in-progress showings, workshop productions, postshow artist talkbacks, informal discussions in our café and full productions.