COLLECTIVEGENIUS FESTIVAL 2026:CANDID to Run in NYC
The festival, formerly known as EstroGenius, enters its 26th year with performances across The Episcopal Actors' Guild, Triskelion Arts, and TheatreLab's Atelier.
This fall, CollectiveGenius, formerly EstroGenius, will launch its first festival under its new name, ushering in the next chapter of one of New York City's longest-running multidisciplinary performance festivals dedicated to women and gender-expansive artists.
CollectiveGenius is an NYC-based multidisciplinary performance festival and creative community dedicated to amplifying and supporting the voices of women and gender-expansive artists through script-based and body-based work. The festival enters its 26th year with a new identity that reflects the evolution of its mission and the artists it serves.
From dancers and playwrights to experimental performers, teens, musicians, burlesque artists, noise artists, filmmakers, DJs, and beyond - CollectiveGenius strives to create space for artists who challenge form, gender, genre, and societal expectation.
Executive Producer, Melissa Riker says 'As this landmark festival turns 26, it was time to grow our name to be as big as our inclusive mission. The space that we hold for artists has expanded in notoriety in our community, and we are proud that CollectiveGenius keeps our dedication to artists, matches the expansive nature of our mission and continues our work to bring the art and artists at the edges, to the center and into the spotlight. Join us to experience 3 weeks and a fabulously diverse network of artistry.'
The 2026 CollectiveGenius Festival will run from September 25 through October 11, 2026. Performances will take place at The Episcopal Actors' Guild (1 E 29th St, New York, NY 10016), Triskelion Arts (106 Calyer St, Brooklyn, NY 11222-2572), and TheatreLab's Atelier (357 W 36th St, Fl 3, New York, NY 10018). Tickets will be available for purchase at https://www.collectivegeniusfestival.org/.
FULL FESTIVAL LINE UP
Spontaneous Combustion
September 25-27
The Episcopal Actors' Guild
TICKETS
Spontaneous Combustion is the 48hr play writing challenge born at Manhattan Theatre Source. From a meeting Friday that offers topics and prompts to plays live and in front of an audience on Sunday: we let creativity, community and adrenaline drive the art.
Spontaneous Combustion Schedule:
Friday - Meet at Haughton Hall for Topic and Random Cast Selection
Saturday, September 26 - 12PM - Read-through of All Plays
Sunday, September 27 - 4-6:30PM Stage Plays | 7PM CANDID RE:SOURCE COMBUST #1
Monday, September 28 - 7PM CANDID RE:SOURCE COMBUST #2
Tuesday, September 29 - 7PM CANDID RE:SOURCE COMBUST #3
CollectiveGenius Dance
September 28-October 4
Open workshops and performances by fierce, experimental and wildly varied artists at the edges of dance and performance creation in New York City.
Events at Trisk are curated by Sabrina Canas, Buffy Sierra, Melissa Riker, John C. Robinson
Triskelion Arts
LINE UP OF DANCE ARTISTS AND FACILITATORS
COLLECTIVEGENIUS OPEN WORKSHOPS - Open to all
Monday Sept 28
7:00 PM | More Than One Way: An Improvisation Workshop, Facilitated by: Kayla Hamilton
This workshop explores improvisation through choice, curiosity, and the many ways we move, communicate, and participate. Through guided prompts, we will respond to what our bodies need, learn from who is in the room, and discover how difference can shape the dance.
Tuesday Sept 29
7:00 PM | Intro to Queer Tango Facilitated by: Luna Beller-Tadiar
Wednesday Sept 30
7:00 PM | HELL IS EMPTY AND ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE facilitated by Buffy Sierra is a workshop for composing live performance against the backdrop of ongoing and increasing horrors. Dancing is the one of the oldest forms of condemned action, perhaps aside from sex. In this workshop participants will be guided through improvisation and notation to create their own methods for movement-based performance composition. This workshop is centered around the notion that dancing will always exceed containment. We will use text, sound, memory, dreaming, and dancing to forget our limits and remember our possibilities. Open to all 18+ and over at any movement levels.
Thursday Oct 1
8pm - Candid Split Bill: Ching-I Chang and Proteo Media
The split-bill evening Includes:
Oceans Between Our Names by Ching-I Change (work-in-process) explores migration, diasporic memory, and how displacement lives within the body over time.
render warp weft by Proteo Media + Performance featuring choreography and performance by bree breeden and design and direction by Kathleen Kelley. The work conjures viral tales, video confessions, and deepfakes, "render warp weft" explores whose body and image we can really trust.
Friday Oct 2
Curated by Buffy Sierra
6:30 PM | "My Pleasure, Girl" created and performed by Saga Snow is a new work of live performance by Saga Snow dissecting the URL and IRL pitfalls and pleasures of self-making through sex, service, surveillance, and sisterhood.
8:30 PM | "tighter" created and performed by Reina NoBuena is a new work of live performance by Reina NoBuena concerning the gasping, cinching, cutting, loss, and love constitutive to drag and its discontents.
Saturday Oct 3
4:00 PM | Look, Look Again directed by Portia Wells
Look Look again is a ruin, a document of desire. Emerging from queer cruising's intimate and anonymous language of gestures, cues, glances, and grazes, this immersive ensemble work rehearses the erotic commons as a charged site of care, risk, and collective power.
6:00pm | Sanctuary created by Middle Child Dance Theatre
Sanctuary is an experimental and experiential performance that derives from the rhythms and rituals of christian spaces through the lens of queer identities. Through the premiere of this immersive evening length work, audiences will experience a playfully reimagined version of church.
8:30PM | Split Bill: Cristina Moya-Palacios and Valentina Baché VACA
A shared bill by two imaginative and boundary pushing artists. Cristina Moya-Palacios (Fresh Tracks 2026) and Valentina Baché (2026 CPR Artist in Residence) often share the stage in one another's work, audiences will get the opportunity to experience their overlaps and their exquisite individualism.
CollectiveGenius Short Plays
October 8-10
TheatreLab's Atelier
SHORT PLAY SELECTIONS: 'Girltar Center' by Cori Diaz, 'Manifest Destiny' by Emmy Potter, 'Defying Lorelie' by David Adam Gill, 'Mini Marshmallows' by Ren Rotantel, 'Oil On Your Eyelids.' by Al Groppi, 'See the Wolf' by Hanna Marie Olson.
CollectiveGenius Reading Series
October 11
TheatreLab's Atelier
READING SERIES SELECTIONS: 'Leaving Paradise' by Rebecca Kane, 'Brave' by Brian Petti, 'Lobster Claw' by Dana Leslie Goldstein, 'Telling A Story About Martha' by Amelia Kennedy, 'The Bag-O-Crab' by Yvonne DiGirolamo.
From EstroGenius to CollectiveGenius-a legacy amplifying and supporting women & gender expansive artists in NYC.
Founded in 2000 as a short play festival at Manhattan Theatre Source, EstroGenius grew into an annual celebration of artists breaking molds, cracking gender codes, and bringing bold new work to the stage. Over the years, the festival expanded beyond theatre to embrace dance, movement, and interdisciplinary performance.
As the festival evolved, so did the work: embracing theatre, dance, movement, and genre defying performance that reflects the spectrum and fluidity of both identity and expression. CollectiveGenius reflects the future of the festival: inclusive, collaborative, interdisciplinary, and artist-driven.
The 2026 CollectiveGenius Festival is led by Melissa Riker (Executive Director, Co-Producer & Curator), Sabrina Canas (Co-Producer & Curator), Heather Bildman (Short Plays Producer), and Rikki Ziegelman (Short Plays Producer, Marketing & Branding) with curators Buffy Sierra and John C Robinson.
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