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Under the Radar, consistently one of the most exciting theater and performance festivals in New York City since its launch in 2005, has announced six highlights from its upcoming roster, ahead of a full announcement this fall. Its 21st edition will take place in over 20 venues across the city from January 7-25, 2026.
In keeping with the festival’s eye toward the best of U.S. and international experimental performance, it will continue to explore dance, music, theater, film, opera, conversation and stagecraft through works by NY-based artists Narcissister (in her first-ever proscenium presentation), The HawtPlates, Kaneza Schaal, Lisa Fagan and Lena Engelstein, as well as European virtuosos Cherish Menzo and Mario Banushi.
RECOMMENDED: Free dance performances are back in Battery Park City next month
Booted from its longtime home at the Public Theater in 2023, citing budget cuts, the festival has impressively managed to stay afloat through on-your-feet thinking from founder and artistic director Mark Russell, who has since spread its near-monthlong programming across several of the city’s arts institutions.
In 2026, these will include Performance Space New York, NYU Skirball, The Performing Garage, HERE Arts Center and Live Artery | New York Live Arts. (Beyond today’s initial announcement–more details below–there will also be performances at Lincoln Center, La MaMa, The Chocolate Factory Theater and more to be announced.)
Under the Radar is applying its curatorial sense of trust in communal exploration and risk-taking to its leadership model. Beginning in 2026, Russell will share curatorial duties with a cohort of festival curators set to rotate every three years, beginning with co-creative directors Meropi Peponides and Kaneza Schaal.
The festival is now produced by Thomas O. Kriegsmann and Sami Pyne of ArKtype, a Tony-nominated production company who has worked with heavy-hitters like John Cameron Mitchell, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Annie-B Parson, and recently made its Broadway premiere with Sufjan Stevens & Justin Peck’s Illinoise.
More information will be announced in the coming weeks and can be found at utrfest.org.
Check out these Under the Radar 2026 festival highlights:
The HawtPlates
Dream Feed
HERE Arts Center
The HawtPlates, a family singing group formed in a one-bedroom apartment in The Bronx, will premiere Dream Feed, an electroacoustic song cycle that drops audiences into the humor, terror, beauty, and allure of an active mind within a slumbering body. A 2023 HERE Arts Residency Program (HARP) commission with additional commissioning support by UTR, this psychedelic live concept album makes its world premiere in the 2026 Under the Radar Festival.
Cherish Menzo
DARKMATTER
Performance Space New York
In DARKMATTER, the Brussels/Amsterdam-based choreographer Cherish Menzo and her onstage partner Camilo Mejía Cortés chop and screw ways to detach their bodies from public perception and their daily reality. Among other references, they look up to the sky, at dark matter, at black holes that meet and collide to give birth to a new, (afro)futuristic and enigmatic body. Together, they throw their bodies into complex conversations that they want to both enter into and transcend—a duality that feeds the performance.
Narcississter
Voyage into Infinity - following 2024 PW premiere
NYU Skirball
Channeling raw energy and a punk aesthetic, Voyage into Infinity collides reclaimed, everyday items with the spectacle that has defined much of the masked and merkin-ed performance artist’s two-decade practice. The performance pays homage to the elaborate Rube Goldberg machine featured in the canonical 1987 video, The Way Things Go. A live score performed by the musician Holland Andrews will accompany the piece, which premiered and was commissioned last year at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works.
Mario Banushi
MAMI
NYU Skirball
The 26-year-old Albanian–born, Greek-based wunderkind Mario Banushi brings his latest work, fresh off raves at the esteemed Avignon Festival. In this silent, powerful ensemble piece, he breaks from his typical theme of mourning to focus instead on the source of life, finding the common ground between the Greek words mami (mom) and mam (food).
Kaneza Schaal
DATA ROOM
The Performing Garage
DATA ROOM is a series of intimate, public conversations conceived by New York-based theater, opera, and film artist Kaneza Schaal. The project is the first iteration of a multi-year project exploring how we exchange knowledge, preserve creative lineage, and build shared meaning in a time of fragmented attention and digital overexposure.
Lisa Fagan and Lena Engelstein
Friday Night Rat Catchers
Live Artery I New York Live Arts
Beneath the shimmer of a disco ball, lucky contestants dance like they have the world on a string in this piece from the NYC-based experimental performers. The year is 1976, an irresistible bassline drives, and the martinis never run dry. What could go wrong?