Stephen Petronio Company Reveals Closing Season and Final Performances at Jacob's Pillow

The Stephen Petronio Company will sunset the organization after an accomplished 40-year run as Stephen Petronio transitions to independent creative projects. The occasion will be marked by an intensive period of activity in New York City culminating in final performances at the renowned Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, MA, July 23-27, 2025.
 
The Jacob’s Pillow program, It Ends Like This, will feature some of Petronio’s signature works, including MiddleSexGorge (1990), Petronio’s anthem for sexual empowerment with music by British post-punk band Wire and costumes by H. Petal, the athletic male duet BUD (2005), with music by Rufus Wainwright, and the tender solo Broken Man (2002), with music by Blixa Bargeld—both with costumes by Tara Subkoff/Imitation of Christ. The program also includes Petronio’s solo improvisation Another Kind of Steve (2024), and the critically acclaimed American Landscapes (2019), a series of shifting pastoral and social canvases that reflect the complicated beauty that coexists in these United States. The work features an original score by Jozef Van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch and visual design by Robert Longo. American Landscapes is curated by Jill Brienza. Lighting design is by Petronio’s longtime collaborator Ken Tabachnick.
 
“This has been an incredible 40 years building worlds with some of the most talented dancers, musicians, visual artists, and designers on the planet,” says Stephen Petronio. “I couldn’t be prouder of this history, and I look forward to more creation through new modes of delivering that work! I’m particularly grateful to the thoughtful team at Jacob’s Pillow for the historic platform to acknowledge our contribution and land this ship with joy and grace.”
 
Leading up to the performances, SPC will host a series of open classes and rehearsals of select works in New York City, extending an invitation to the New York dance community into this final period of research. Online screenings of various works in the Company’s archive will also be presented.
 
“It is an honor for Jacob’s Pillow to be the chosen venue to sunset Stephen Petronio Company after four decades of groundbreaking performances and accomplishments,” says Pamela Tatge, Executive and Artistic Director of Jacob’s Pillow. “It’s important to our institution to support and uplift companies such as SPC in the various stages of their artistic journey.”
 
Over the next year, the Company will work to develop a digital platform to preserve Petronio’s extensive repertoire and to provide access to significant works, and establish a vehicle to continue its Bloodlines(future) initiative, creating a fund to support the research and performance of early career artists with a wish to bolster the diversity and equity of the field, particularly in the lineage of postmodern and experimental dance. There will also be a final period for Petronio Education Program, an on-site teaching initiative brought to classrooms in the public school system in Greene County, NY.
 
Stephen Petronio Company Board Chair Jill Brienza says: “We’ve navigated SPC through an amazing history and we feel that the 40th anniversary is the perfect moment to celebrate Stephen’s artistry and legacy, while bringing the company to a close. It has been an honor to lead an organization that has had such a significant impact on American dance.”
 
One of the foremost choreographers of his generation, Stephen Petronio has built a distinct and powerful language of movement that speaks to the intuitive and complex possibilities of the body. His visionary creative output over the last 40 years is multifaceted. In 1984, he founded the Stephen Petronio Company, committed to the creation and presentation of new and existing works and to touring internationally. In 2015, he created Bloodlines, legacy initiatives meant to preserve the history of postmodern dance lineage while also advancing its future through new works that honor and extend that history and offer a platform for a greater inclusivity of artistic voices. In 2017, the Company founded the Petronio Residency Center (PRC) in the pristine Catskill Mountains. A research and development facility for movement-based artists, PRC was conceived to provide essential support in a nurturing environment for vibrant talent in the dance world. In 2021, with the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, PRC established a permanent conservation easement for 77 acres of the 172-acre property, designating The Doris Duke Preserve at Round Top, Greene County, a forever wild preserve that attaches to the Catskill State Preserve and expands its footprint. Though the residency center closed its doors in 2023, it left an indelible mark on more than 100 artists and leaves behind a tangible contribution, the conservancy, that will live on in perpetuity.
 

About Stephen Petronio

Stephen Petronio is an acclaimed American choreographer, dancer, and artistic director known for his innovative and boundary-pushing work in contemporary dance. As a graduate of Hampshire College, an early student of Steve Paxton, and the first male dancer in the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Petronio has made a significant impact on the dance world through his unique artistic vision and his commitment to pushing the limits of movement and expression.
 
In 1984, Petronio founded the Stephen Petronio Company, committed to touring and performing throughout the world. The Company quickly gained recognition for its bold and visually striking performances. Petronio’s choreography challenged traditional notions of movement and explored themes of sexuality, gender, and identity.
 
Over the years, Petronio has collaborated with some of today's most innovative visual artists, designers, and composers, including Cindy Sherman, Anish Kapoor, Robert Longo, Stephen Hannock, Teresita Fernandez, Janine Antoni, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Nico Muhly, Rufus Wainwright, Jozef Van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch, Ryan Lott/Son Lux, Monstah Black, David Linton, Narciso Rodriguez, Tara Subkoff/Imitation of Christ, Patricia Field/Iris Bohnner, Leigh Bowery, Ghost, and Michelle Rhee, as well as choreographers Anna Halprin, Michael Clark, and Johnnie Cruise Mercer.
 
Petronio has also created dances for other companies around the world, including the Frankfurt Ballet, Lyon Opera Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He has received numerous awards including a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie), an American Choreographers Award, a Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art Award, a Doris Duke Artist Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
 
Petronio’s memoir, Confessions of a Motion Addict, is available on Amazon.com. His latest limited-edition book, In Absentia, features entries from his journals written in quarantine at the Petronio Residency Center paired with never-before-seen studio photos by Sarah Silver and Grant Friedman.
 
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.
 

About Stephen Petronio Company

Founded in 1984, Stephen Petronio Company has performed in 40 countries throughout the world, including numerous New York City engagements with 25 seasons at The Joyce Theater. The Company has been commissioned by Dance Umbrella Festival/London, Hebbel-Theater/Berlin, Scène National de Sceaux, Festival d’Automne à Paris, CNDC Angers/France, The Holland Festival, Montpellier Danse Festival, Danceworks UK Ltd., Festival de Danse–Cannes, and in the U.S. by San Francisco Performances, The Joyce Theater, UCSB Arts & Lectures, Wexner Center for the Arts, Walker Art Center, and White Bird, among others, and is the recipient of a Dancing Lab residency at the National Center for Choreography at the University of Akron (NCCAkron).
 
The 2014-15 season marked the first incarnation of 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. To date, the Company has restaged 12 works by Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Anna Halprin, Yvonne Rainer, Rudy Perez, and Steve Paxton.
 
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, which provided a safe haven for intensive developmental choreographic research. PRC supported future choreographic invention in the field with artist residencies and education initiatives. The program served more than 100 artists, becoming part of a growing ecosystem in the U.S. dedicated to fostering a new model for the future of contemporary dance.
 
In 2021, with the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, PRC established a permanent conservation easement designating it The Doris Duke Preserve at Round Top, Greene County as a preserve in perpetuity, putting PRC at the forefront of regional conservation efforts.
 
 

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