On 16 March 2026, TORCHES will continue with a conversation with critically acclaimed choreographer and performer Chanon Judson.
Chanon is an investigative-innovator. In the tradition of a litany of makers that have used the arts to unmask history, mend, learn, and access liberation, Chanon collages multiple modalities of performance practice to craft solutions. Largely, Chanon makes by way of dance-theatre, performance, visual design, and the curation of art-based communal practices that encourage play, self reflection and engagement with jazz as an organizing aesthetic. Chanon is an associate professor at the University at Buffalo. She served as co-artistic director and ensemble performer with Urban Bush Women. Choreographic credits include Haint Blu, Hair and Other Stories (UBW), The Priestess of Twerk (Nia Witherspoon), The Hang (Taylor Mac, Niegel Smith), Cannabis! A Viper Vaudeville (Talvin Wilks, Baba Israel, Grace Galu), The Invention of Tragedy (Meghan Finn). Performance-collaborator credits include, Dancing with Glass – The Piano Etudes, Snake Hips in our DNA, A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, God’s Trombone, and the Tony award winning musical Fela!.
TORCHES: 30+ Years of Downtown Performance
As co-founder of HERE Arts Center—described by the Obie committee as “a lasting home for the weird and wild in downtown performance”—Kristin Marting spent the past three decades immersed in making, witnessing, and supporting groundbreaking performance in New York City. TORCHES is a much needed exploration of New York City’s unique and influential downtown performance world from the 1990s through the 2020s. Part memoir, part oral history, and part cultural inquiry, TORCHES offers in-depth video conversations with more than thirty of the most imaginative and boundary pushing artists working in the field today. TORCHES is both a living archive and an offering for the future. Learning about these artists and their work is not just looking back; it can ignite what’s coming next. They are not only inventors of form—they are keepers of community, fire-starters for our future. See more about the project on the TORCHES website at torchesnyc.org.
