About

PhysFestNYC debuted in January 2024 thanks to a grassroots crowdfunding campaign and the generosity of our hosts at Stella Adler Center for the Arts in Downtown Manhattan. We define Physical Theater as any performing art form that centers the body in space. This includes Dance Theater, Commedia dell’arte, Clown, Mime, Butoh, Mukabhinaya, and limitless genre-mixing or -defying styles.

Vision 

PhysFestNYC is a community-focused festival that celebrates, enriches, and envisions our field of physical theater. As an annual gathering, it will provide space for practitioners, audiences, and the physical-theater-curious to share in presented works, diverse workshop offerings, and community-building events. Together, they will deepen our understanding and appreciation for what physical theater can be. In 2024, we hosted 7 events per day over 10 days. This is the first Physical Theater Festival in NYC, and there is only one other festival of its kind in the USA.

Context

Physical theater tends to be experimental, innovative, and genre-breaking, and its methods are increasingly used in larger commercial productions. Despite this, physical theater practitioners are under-resourced and often siloed in their practice. We seek to create a festival that opens pathways of communication and opportunities for shared resources, thereby supporting artists in their work and deepening their impact. There were 143 artists represented in PhysFest 2024.

What is “Community-Focused?”

  • Horizontal Leadership. Instead of being led by a singular party, the leadership team of the festival consists of various cohorts in order to better reflect the varying desires and perspectives of the physical theater community.

  • Access and Inclusion. Though we all have a body in common, those bodies are incredibly diverse in shape, politicization, performance style, lived experience, ability, etc. We want PhysFestNYC to be an accurate reflection of the range of practitioners in our field, as well as a rich space for discourse that pushes us toward increased inclusion field-wide. All parts of the festival will be designed with access and inclusion in mind. 

  • Responsive Planning. We began developing the festival in 2022, highlighted by various open events for community input. With a tiered rollout, the festival’s design was an emergent response to the desires, ideas, and needs of those in the physical theater community and its audiences. We are continuing this precedent in 2025.

Ethos: Our ethos is the ethics of the soul of the festival, representing the collective agreement and plan that underlies our creation.

  • Inclusivity: We are dedicated to creating an inclusive, accessible, and welcoming environment for all individuals interested in physical theater, irrespective of their background or ability.

  • Collaboration: We foster a collaborative and supportive community, encouraging participants to work together and embrace the collective creative process.

  • Artistic Excellence: We strive for artistic excellence, providing outstanding workshops, performances, and growth opportunities to nurture participants' artistic journeys.

  • Safe Space: We prioritize the creation of a safe and supportive space as much as is possible within our control, allowing participants to freely express themselves and explore their artistic potential.

  • Empowerment: We empower participants to discover their unique artistic voices, develop their skills, and embrace their creative potential.

  • Mind-Body Connection: We recognize and explore the profound connection between the mind and body in physical theater, promoting holistic well-being and self-care practices for all bodies.

  • Cultural Awareness: We celebrate cultural diversity, promoting cultural exchange and fostering understanding and appreciation among participants.

  • Ethical Engagement: We uphold ethical standards in all aspects of our festival, valuing consent, boundaries, and the ethical treatment of others.

  • Community Engagement: We actively engage with the local community through outreach programs, public performances, and collaborations, aiming to create a positive impact.

  • Joy: We wish to create a space that is joyful for all who participate in and/or encounter it.

Open House Report

In 2023, we launched the festival design process by soliciting input from our community. The Open House on January 29th at Stella Adler Center for the Arts was a beautiful event. To see pictures from the event and read the unedited brainstorm of those who participated in person and remotely, Click This Link.

Photos by Bjorn Bolinder

Meet the Artistic Leadership Circle

The Artistic Leadership Circle works together to read the applications and curate the festival, keeping the Ethos at the core. Their leadership guides each festival. They perform at the festival in a multi-bill evening. Our inaugural ALC crafted the curation criteria; they included Bill Bowers, Margarita Blush, Selma Trevino, Lou Sydel, Akil Apollo Davis, and Ran Xia.

Learn about the 2026 ALC below!

  • Star Mitchell (they/them) is a luminous force of rebirth—a transdisciplinary artist and native New Yorker boldly walking in their creative audacity. Their performance work is rooted in the spirit of Sankofa—“Go Back and Get It”—a principle that anchors their desire to uproot and recover lost histories, and amplify unspoken truths. With works featured at Ars Nova’s Ant Fest, The Shed, Judson Memorial Church, CPR, BAAD!, Princeton University, Abrons Arts Center & Gibney. Their current focus is community-centered, bringing movement as liberation into everyday life. Through their work as a Teaching artist (Present), National Reviewer for Young Arts (2024), and Programs Coordinator for Healing The Black Body (2024), to bring that focus into fruition. Star is presently a BAX Studio Resident Artist, a 2025 MODArts Resident and Pioneers Go East NEXT! Mentee. As well as a 2023 EMERGENYC Alum, 2022 CPR Artist-in-Residence, and 2021 City Artist Corps Recipient.

  • “The balance of power is ever-shifting in Daniel Irizarry’s thrillingly kaleidoscopic, boldly physical world” --The New York Times 

    'Rabelaisian director Daniel Irizarry, a capering theatrical creature with a goat’s appetite for heights” --The New Yorker 

    Daniel Irizarry is a Puerto Rican born International Experimental Theatre director,  performer and educator based in NYC and Boston. His work embraces highly stylized and  visceral acting, pataphysics, a profound celebration of GERMS, and communion with the  audience through consent. He is the Artistic Director of One-Eighth Theater and Lecturer at  MIT Music & Theatre Arts. Most recently directed and performed Prof. Watson: A  Pataphysical Lecture at Down to Earth Festival and Prelude Festival in NYC initiated by the  Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at the CUNY Graduate Center. This summer, thanks to MIT's  Fay Chandler and The Dean's Grant, he directed and performed My Onliness at Sibiu  International Theatre Festival in Romania. This fall he has been invited as guest  artist/Professor to give an intensive Theatre LAB/Seminar at Vilniaus Kolejiga, Lithuania  focusing in creating original etudes driven from Lorca's classic Blood Wedding. He is also  one of the curators for the 2026 PhysFestNYC that will take place at Stellar Adler Center for  the Arts in NYC.  

    Other notable credits: Directed and performed 'Class Dismissed' at La MaMa Ellen Stewart  Theatre, NYC. Directed and devised “Plum Box—Strange—Ideal and more than…” 10  poems of South Korean artist Yi Sang, created at MIT Music and Theatre Arts in  collaboration with Harvard and Berklee College, composed by Professor Woody Pak.  Directed and conceptualized ‘Retratos’ with local Chilean and Argentinian actors at  Temporales Internacionales de Teatro and Universidad de Los Lagos in Puerto Montt,  Chile. Directed & performed in “Ultra Left Violence” written by Robert Lyons, as the final  project for the historic closing of 30 years at the New Ohio Theatre. Directed and  performed “The Maids” by acclaimed playwright Jose Rivera (New York Times Critics pick);  “UBU” by Adam Symkowicz (Time Out NY Critics pick). Directed the world premiere in the  US of “Busu” by Mishima at Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theatre Festival. Directed  and performed “YOVO” presented in NYC, Poland, Cuba and South Korea. Directed and  performed “My Onliness” by Robert Lyons at New Ohio Theatre in NYC & selected as one of  the best performances Off-Broadway in 2022 by Theatermania. Directed the world  premiere of Witkacy’s “The Madman and the Nun” in Ankara, Turkey which toured to  Gardzienice International festival in Poland, produced at Pregones Theatre and Bohemian  National Hall in NYC. 

    Over his career he has directed, performed and taught workshops in India, Germany,  Japan, Lithuania, Italy, Romania, UK, Colombia, among others. As an educator he has  most notably taught as Professor at LMTA (Vilnius, Lithuania), Visiting Assistant Professor  at Bilkent University Performing Arts (Ankara, Turkey), Assistant Professor in the Acting  Department at Seoul Institute of the Arts (Ansan, South Korea) and Guest Artist/Professor at Folkwang University (Essen, Germany). He holds an MFA in Acting from Columbia  University and a BA in Drama at The Universidad de Puerto Rico.

  • Selma Trevino (she/her) is a Brazilian performing artist based in New York City who specializes in Corporeal Mime. She co-founded Corporeal Arts Incorporated, a physical theatre company which devises original shows, offers professional training workshops, and promotes intercultural exchanges. Her choreography has appeared at Baryshnikov Arts Center, Lincoln Center, Dixon Place, and Green Space as well as in California, Paris, Finland, and throughout Brazil. Informed by Alexander Technique, Flamenco, and Grotowski’s Plastiques, her physical research seeks to employ Corporeal Mime to develop the personal movement of performers. She holds an MA in Performance Studies from NYU and full certification in Pilates.

  • Lou Sydel (he/they) is a choreographer whose work draws from the study of gesture as well as experiences of transness, imagining movement as a living journal for a body moving towards new directions. He is a graduate of Bowdoin College with a degree in performance and anthropology, and has studied physical theater at LaGuardia Arts HS and Accademia Dell’Arte. Past work has been shown at New York Live Arts with Ellen Robbins, as well as the Celebration Barn, Westbeth, PortFringe, Norte Maar Dance at Socrates, Sokolow Theater / Dance Ensemble, Rascal Arts at Theater Row, and the International Society for Gesture Studies. Lousydel.com

  • Margarita Blush (she/her) is a Bulgarian American theatre artist. She works in the field of devised physical and visual theatre as a creator, director, performer, and educator.

    Margarita is the Producing Artistic Director of Margarita Blush Productions, an ensemble-based company which performs nationally and internationally. Margarita’s work has been supported by The Jim Henson Foundation, NET, TCG, USArtists International, and many others. She has also received an Asian Cultural Council and a Grant Wood Fellowship.Margarita is passionate about meaningful collaborations with artists and organizations from around the world. She has performed, taught, directed, and studied in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Turkey, Germany, France, U.K., Japan, Indonesia, and USA.

    www.MargaritaBlush.com