From September 18-December 20, 2026, L’Alliance New York will present an international survey of new experiments in audience and form, highlighting a diversity of artists working at the intersections of visual art, music, film, dance, and theater. For more information and to reserve tickets, visit lallianceny.org/event/crossing-the-line-2026.
This year’s Crossing The Line festival highlights new collisions and experiments in audience and form, inviting art lovers to experience boundary-breaking visual art, music, film, dance, and theater across New York City and, for the first time in the festival’s history, in upstate New York. Featuring fourteen leading global artists, seven North American premieres and four New York premieres, the festival creates a unique opportunity for New York audiences to engage with thrilling and innovative international performance.
“Crossing The Line contributes to keeping our performing arts scene diverse, curious, and cutting-edge. This year, recent newcomers in the festival return with expanded runs and larger projects, while two artists make their US début. With roots in Greece, Guadeloupe, Rwanda, Nigeria, or Vietnam, our line-up embraces migratory voices and encourages audiences to travel just as far in their imagination.”—Violaine Huisman, Crossing The Line Curator
Full Festival Lineup:
The Birds, Lenio Kaklea Dance New York Premiere Friday, September 18, 2026 at 7:30 PM; Saturday, September 19, 2026 at 7:30 PM PS21: Center for Contemporary Performance (Chatham, NY) Returning to Crossing The Line after Αγρίμι / Fauve in 2024, choreographer Lenio Kaklea continues her exploration of ecology through dance. In The Birds, she takes inspiration from the ways in which birds structure their behavior through dance and song, from mating rituals to hunting patterns. Bright colors, acrobatics, and energetic movements contrast with the eerie sense of being watched, as Kaklea questions the precarious equilibrium between freedom and subjugation.
The Birds is co-presented by PS21: Center for Contemporary Performance and L’Alliance New York’s Crossing The Line Festival
Commedia dell’arte, Camille Henrot Theater New York Premiere Wednesday, September 23, 2026 at 7:30 PM; Thursday, September 24, 2026 at 7:30 PM; Friday, September 25, 2026 at 7:30 PM; Saturday, September 26, 2026 at 2 PM L'Alliance New York Florence Gould Theater Camille Henrot brings her interdisciplinary practice to the stage for the first time, incorporating the stock characters and comic ploys of the Italian Renaissance theatrical tradition within a modern-day New York City apartment building. The delivery of a package triggers a cascade of uncanny events among tenants, as the tragi-comedic play attempts to make sense out of the senseless. Followed by Crossing The Line Reception on Sep 23. Commedia dell’arte is co-presented by Performa and L'Alliance New York’s Crossing The Line Festival. Co-commissioned by Performa, Aspen Art Museum / Wheeler Opera House, and LYRA Art Foundation. Commedia dell'arte is curated by RoseLee Goldberg, founding Director and Chief Curator of Performa, and Eliza Ryan, Curator at Large, Aspen Art Museum. World Premiere at the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen as part of the Aspen Art Museum’s 2026 AIR Festival, July 30, 2026.
Traces of Gounouj, Léo Lérus Dance North American Premiere Saturday, October 3, 2026 at 12:30 PM, 2 PM, 3:30 PM, rain date Oct 4 Governors Island This site-specific performance brings together dancers Asha Thomas and Robert Cornejo to present excerpts of Gounouj In Situ, a work by choreographer Léo Lérus inspired by the natural beauty of his native Guadeloupe and the island’s resilient ability to adapt to the impact of human activity. The dancers' movement mirrors the complex mix of feelings around environmental preservation, juxtaposing disappointment and anger with an enduring hope and a shared movement toward a positive future.
Co-Presented by L’Alliance New York’s Crossing The Line Festival and Governors Island Arts’ INTERVENTIONS Performance Series.
Ad Libitum, Simon Le Borgne & Ulysse Zangs Dance, Music North American Premiere Wednesday, October 7, 2026 at 7:30 PM; Thursday, October 8, 2026 at 7:30 PM; Friday, October 9, 2026 at 7:30 PM Le Skyroom at L’Alliance New York A Latin expression, literally meaning “in accordance with one’s wishes or until satiety,” Ad Libitum is a piece about the desire to create, to step outside oneself, to expand. Dancer Simon Le Borgne and musician Ulysse Zangs explore the idea of molting, of emptying yourself through dance and live music. Driven by a musical score of drums, electric guitar, and synths, the performance expresses the need to change skin and shed all substance, as well as the need to embody yourself, to fill your own container.
With the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels; supported by Villa Albertine and Albertine Foundation through the FUSED program.
This Is Unreal, Liz Santoro & Pierre Godard Dance, Theater North American Premiere Thursday, October 15, 2026 at 7 PM; Friday, October 16, 2026 at 7 PM; Saturday, October 17, 2026 at 7 PM The Chocolate Factory Theater Dancer and choreographer Liz Santoro recounts her life onstage. Some memories are real, others are generated by artificial intelligence; some movements originate from her body, others are fabricated by an algorithm trained on her dancing. This Is Unreal constructs a hybrid world that asks: Where does the body end and the machine begin?
Co-presented with the Chocolate Factory Theater.
Toi, moi, Tituba..., Dorothée Munyaneza & Kadidi Company Dance US Premiere Friday, October 23, 2026 at 7:30 PM; Saturday, October 24, 2026 at 7:30 PM New York Live Arts Toi, moi, Tituba… is based on French philosopher Elsa Dorlin’s essay on Maryse Condé’s heroine Tituba. As a Black woman and so-called witch, Tituba gives a voice to those who are silenced by force. Inspired by this story, Dorothée Munyaneza uses her own body as an archive, and with composer Khyam Allami, presents a multiplicity of silenced voices and perspectives to revive memories and celebrate them through dance and music.
Toi, moi, Tituba... is presented by New York Live Arts, in association with BAM, L’Alliance New York’s Crossing The Line, and Villa Albertine
Mille secrets de poussins, Collectif Quatre Ailes Theater, Family Program North American Premiere Saturday, October 24, 2026 at 11:30 AM and 3 PM Le Skyroom at L’Alliance New York A narrator begins reading Claude Ponti’s Mille secrets de poussins, but things don’t go as planned... Full of mischief, the poussins (chicks) have hidden themselves in the library and start popping out of the books to play tricks on him. Accompanied by animated videos and multimedia effects, the performer leads the audience into a playful world.
Mirlitons, François Chaignaud & Aymeric Hainaux Dance, Music New York City Premiere Wednesday, November 4, 2026 at 7:30 PM; Thursday, November 5, 2026 at 7:30 PM; Friday, November 6, 2026 at 7:30 PM Le Skyroom at L’Alliance New York Choreographer François Chaignaud and beatboxer Aymeric Hainaux engage in a percussive duel. Through their voices, feet, arms, props, and costumes, the artists create a duet that is as uncategorizable as the word mirliton (which ranges in definition from a kid’s flute to a style of military hat).
With the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels; supported by Villa Albertine and Albertine Foundation through the FUSED program.
BAM in association with L’Alliance New York’s Crossing The Line Festival Presents adaku, part 2, sweat variant—Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born Dance New York Premiere Wednesday, November 11, 2026 at 7:30 PM; Thursday, November 12, 2026 at 7:30 PM; Friday, November 13, 2026 at 7:30 PM; Saturday, November 14, 2026 at 7:30 PM; Sunday, November 15, 2026 at 3 PM BAM Fisher In adaku, part 2, sweat variant, the collaborative practice of Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born continues a speculative trilogy exploring one family’s entanglement with the transatlantic slave trade, set in a near-future United States. At the crossroads of dance, theater, and visual arts, this piece invites audiences into cycles of ritual and repair.
BAM in association with L’Alliance New York’s Crossing The Line Festival Presents La Distance Festival d’Avignon Text and Direction by Tiago Rodrigues Theater North American Premiere Wednesday, November 18 through Sunday, November 29, 2026 BAM Harvey Theater Visionary playwright and director Tiago Rodrigues returns to Crossing The Line for the third year in a row with an urgent, unforgettable new work exploring separation, communication, and the consequences of our decisions. As humanity struggles to survive on Earth in 2077, a daughter chooses life in exile on Mars, leaving her father behind to grapple with love, loss, and the challenge of maintaining connections across unnavigable distances.
Losing Your Bag, Pascal Rambert & Pauline Chalamet Theater English Language World Premiere Thursday, November 19, 2026 at 7:30 PM; Friday, November 20, 2026 at 7:30 PM; Saturday, November 21, 2026 at 7:30 PM Le Skyroom at L’Alliance New York Making its English-language premiere, this one-woman piece is a collaboration between renowned French playwright Pascal Rambert and actress Pauline Chalamet. The play follows a young woman with a Master's degree, who is—temporarily—a window cleaner, as she expresses her anger at social stratification and grapples with loneliness.
Nexus de l’adoration, Joris Lacoste Theater North American Premiere Friday, November 20, 2026 at 7:30 PM; Saturday, November 21, 2026 at 7:30PM NYU Skirball Part ritual, part concert, part theatrical assembly, Nexus de l’adoration gathers song, speech, choreography, and devotion into a vivid ceremony for a fractured contemporary world. Paying homage to our world’s fascinating and expansive diversity, nine officiants sing, dance, and speak in a hybrid liturgy for our time.
Presented in Partnership with NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.
St. Ann’s Warehouse Presents National Theatre of Strasbourg Saigon, Caroline Guiela Nguyen Theater North American Premiere Thursday, December 3 through Sunday, December 20, 2026 St. Ann’s Warehouse Returning after the sold-out US Premiere of LACRIMA during last year’s Crossing The Line, Caroline Guiela Nguyen conjures up a vision of France as it exists beyond the limits it has been given, beyond its own borders. Set between 1990s France and 1950s Vietnam, Saigon unfolds in a vibrant restaurant where people gather to rebuild fragments of their lives across generations and continents.
Support for Crossing The Line Festival Air France, Albertine Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Van Cleef & Arpels, Wescustogo Foundation
L'Alliance New York's programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the Support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. #lalliancenewyork#fineartmagazineblog.blogspot.com#sunstormfineartmagazine.com, #artfunnow#artfunartists#arfuncreate#artfunpreform#artfunnew
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