FIESTA FLAMENCA World Premiere and More Set for Baryshnikov Arts Spring 2026

Baryshnikov Arts will open its spring season with the world premiere of Fiesta Flamenca from March 4–5. The performance will be inspired by the origins of flamenco in café cantantes, placing the musicians and dancers among the audience in an intimate cabaret-style setting. This star-studded program will feature a dazzling lineup of renowned artists, such as dancers Raquel Heredia “La Repompa,” Juan Tomás de la Molía, Alberto Sellés, and singer-songwriter Mara Rey. All attendees 21 and over are invited to enjoy complimentary wine during the performance.

The season will continue with Tapestries, an evening-length dance theater piece by Suzzanne Ponomarenko told through the narrative of the Unicorn Tapestries (1495–1505) and a queer reimagining of Ukrainian folklore. Running April 23–24, the piece will consist of eight vignettes, each representing a different tapestry and folklore, threaded together to tell the tale of the Magical Unicorn. This hour-length performance unfolds through rigorous and quirky dance vocabulary abstracted from Ukrainian folk dance, ballet, post-modernism, and modern dance, alongside projections of newly imagined tapestries illustrated in a surrealist, dreamlike form by Emmy Castellani, a meticulously crafted eclectic score by Katie-James Rushin, and costumed by visionary designer David Quinn. Tapestries, developed in part during a Baryshnikov Arts Residency, serves as an embodied archive of the LGBTQIA+ people; an ever-evolving abstract multi-disciplinary Сморгасбург (Smorgasbord) of queer Ukrainian culture and history.

To conclude Spring 2026, on May 11, pianist Clara Yang and visual artist Xuan will combine artistic forces in Ex Machina, a multimedia performance that explores the evolving relationship between humanity and technology. A program of piano music by contemporary American composers including Reena Esmail, Christopher Cerrone, and Philip Glass will be combined with Xuan’s visual commentary to create an immersive theatrical experience that invites audiences to rethink the boundaries between human and machine. Ex Machina was developed in part during a Baryshnikov Arts Residency. This performance forms part of Carnegie Hall’s United in Sound: America at 250 festival.