The Dark: PS21’s Winter Festival of Performance This Week

February 16–22 | Multiple Venues Across Columbia County, NY | Various Times

A new chapter in Columbia County’s cultural calendar begins this week as the PS21 Center for Contemporary Performance launches The Dark, a weeklong festival of performance, installation, music, dance, theatre, and community-oriented experiences across more than a dozen locations from February 16 through February. The program unfolds at PS21’s campus and at partner venues—including galleries, theaters, libraries, churches, restaurants, and outdoor public spaces—bringing contemporary work into unexpected corners of the region.

Rather than shun winter, The Dark treats winter as artistic ground, inviting engagement through more than 80 performances by over 60 international artists. The festival opens February 16 with a campus-wide activation at PS21, including outdoor installations and evening performances. Throughout the week, audiences can encounter the Trisha Brown Dance Company in a series of performances that revisit and reinterpret seminal postmodern choreography; late-night experimental music sets; and interdisciplinary works that unfold across intimate spaces in Hudson and Chatham.

Midweek programming includes site-specific dance in Spencertown, chamber and contemporary music performances in historic church settings, and collaborative works pairing live score with film. On Friday and Saturday evenings (February 20–21), the PS21 Pavilion anchors the festival with large-scale performance programs that bring together international artists in dance and music, while smaller pop-up events activate storefronts and community spaces throughout Hudson and Kinderhook.

Audience experiences range from outdoor ice skating and public saunas on the PS21 grounds to whispered “discovery walks,” fire-lit gatherings, and installations. Music spans contemporary classical, experimental, and global traditions, with performances scheduled daily across afternoon and evening time slots to encourage festival-style wandering.

For tickets and a full list of performances and locations, see PS21’s festival guide.