Stephen Petronio Company to Launch Digital Archive of 40-Year Legacy
Archivist Lexa Walsh curated the collection, which includes footage, sketches, and a costume archive.
The Stephen Petronio Company has announced the launch of a digital archive dedicated to preserving and celebrating the artistic legacy of the Company. Designed as a dynamic online resource, the archive features videos, photographs, interviews, timeline, and other media, offering an intimate look at the breadth of Stephen Petronio's practice and the Company's history. Conceived as a living record of artistic inquiry, the platform is a creative legacy made visible online, designed to engage both present and future generations.
Spanning more than 40 years, the archive traces the Company's artistic development alongside pivotal chapters in Petronio's career, illuminating the ideas and processes that have shaped his singular contribution to contemporary dance. It highlights 43 of Petronio's choreographic works—several of which are available for licensing—as well as his extraordinary collaborations with artists across visual art, fashion, and music. Visitors can access recordings of Petronio offering insights into a number of defining works including MiddleSexGorge (1990), Lareigne (1995), City of Twist (2002), and Underland (2003); a listening room featuring excerpts of music from 32 of Petronio's dances; the Company's costume archive; as well as personal artifacts, printed matter, and documentation in the form of Petronio's notes and sketches from various works. The site also highlights Petronio's enduring commitment to experimentation and artistic research through the Petronio Residency Center, which served as a vital space for creative development and research for seven years.
In February 2025, the Stephen Petronio Company announced it was sunsetting as Stephen Petronio transitions to independent creative projects. The Company celebrated its final performances at the renowned Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in July 2025. As part of the final initiatives leading to its closing, Stephen Petronio has gifted solos to members of his core Company for the purpose of live performance and educational use. These works, selected by each dancer, are offered in perpetuity to honor their contribution to his work. In addition, Petronio has established the Stephen Petronio Bloodlines(future) Award to support the research and development of works by early career movement-based artists, particularly in the lineage of postmodern and experimental dance. The first award will be announced this fall.
The Stephen Petronio Company's digital archive is curated by archivist Lexa Walsh in collaboration with Stephen Petronio. Website by Abby Browde. Videos of selected works by Dia Felix. Photographs of archival materials by JKA Photography and Radiant Gradient Photography.
Stephen Petronio Company's physical materials and videos have been donated to the New York Public Library's Jerome Robbins Dance Division and will soon be publicly available at the Library for the Performing Arts.
ABOUT Stephen Petronio COMPANY
Founded by choreographer Stephen Petronio in 1984, the Stephen Petronio Company (SPC) continues to be widely regarded as a leading contemporary dance company of its generation.
Throughout its 40-year history, the Company produced over 70 dance works and performed in 40 countries throughout the world, including numerous New York City engagements with 25 seasons at The Joyce Theater. Commissions from major organizations include Dance Umbrella Festival (London), Hebbel Theater (Berlin), Scène National de Sceaux (France), Festival d'Automne à Paris, CNDC Angers (France), The Holland Festival, Internationales Tanz Festival NRW (Germany), Festival International Montpellier-Danse, Danceworks UK Ltd, Het Muziektheater (Amsterdam), International Cannes Danse Festival. Commissions in the US include San Francisco Performances, The Joyce Theater (NYC), UCSB Arts & Lectures (Santa Barbara, CA), Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, OH), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN), and White Bird (Portland, OR), among others. In 2017, the Company completed a five-week residency in Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, teaching and performing as a part of the sixth season of DanceMotionUSA supported by the US Department of State and Brooklyn Academy of Music.
In addition to producing and presenting works for the Company, Stephen Petronio Company had an active licensing and commissioning program. Stephen Petronio has been commissioned to create works for more than 20 companies, including Frankfurt Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, Lyon Opera Ballet, Tulsa Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Scottish Ballet, CanDoCo, and Axis Dance Company. Numerous works from the repertory have also been set on companies in Australia, England, France, Belgium, Scotland, Wales, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands, and the US.
In 2014, Petronio created Bloodlines, a Stephen Petronio Company project to honor and embody a lineage of American postmodern dance masters. Distinguished for creating original languages that exemplify the highest level of artistic excellence displayed through extreme physical and conceptual rigor, these artists have had a profound impact on Petronio's own artistic path. As part of Bloodlines, the Company restaged 12 works by Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Anna Halprin, Yvonne Rainer, Rudy Perez, and Steve Paxton. The Bloodlines(future) initiative followed, directing support toward a diverse generation of choreographers in this artistic lineage.
In 2017, Stephen Petronio Company expanded its focus on American postmodern dance to explore the meaning of legacy and its impact on the future and sustainability of this most ephemeral art form, establishing the Petronio Residency Center (PRC) in the Catskill Mountains of New York. PRC provided a haven for intensive choreographic research in a protected natural environment, supporting future choreographic invention in the field through artist residencies and educational initiatives. The program served more than 100 artists on site, and thousands of students in Greene County classrooms, becoming part of a growing US ecosystem dedicated to fostering a new model for the future of contemporary dance. Significantly, SPC was able to establish in perpetuity the 77-acre Doris Duke Preserve at Round Top, Greene County, with the generosity of Doris Duke Foundation.
Stephen Petronio's contributions to the field of contemporary dance have had a lasting impact on the art form. His fearless exploration of movement, his commitment to collaboration, and his relentless pursuit of innovation have solidified his place as one of the most influential choreographers of his generation. The Stephen Petronio Company celebrated its final performances at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, MA, in July 2025. As part of its final gestures, Stephen Petronio Company leaves in its wake a digital archive and the Stephen Petronio Bloodlines(future) Award, a biennial award to support the creative endeavors of early career choreographers.
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