CROSSING THE LINE FESTIVAL to Return to New York with L'Alliance New York

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 https://lallianceny.org/crossing-the-line-festival/. Tickets for all shows will go on sale at the end of July.

L'Alliance New York's acclaimed Crossing The Line Festival celebrates dynamic artists and diverse perspectives from around the French-speaking world, in partnership with New York City's leading art institutions. The program comprises an array of groundbreaking, thought-provoking film, music, dance, theater, installation, and performance, many of which are world, U.S., North American, or New York premieres. The works celebrate diversity, inclusion, and hope, and represent the urgency of dialogue in this country and across oceans.  

“Crossing The Line as a platform for French and francophone creation keeps our local performing arts scene diverse, curious, and cutting-edge. This year, recent newcomers in the festival come back 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,” said Violaine Huisman, Crossing The Line Curator.

 

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, ultimately collapsing into it.

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.

 

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).

 

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 18through Saturday, November 28, 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

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