What does music know about us that we don't yet know about ourselves?

It shapes the rhythm of our days, bends our perspectives, and gives form to the stories we carry. The rituals we return to, both ordinary and transcendent, pulse with the emotional frequency of sound. At a moment when the world feels especially lonely and fractured, gathering together to listen intently may be one of the most radical acts available to us.

The shape of music reflects the shape of our lives. In the contour of our narratives, the grain of our voices, the recursive and ever-unfolding stages of personal and communal becoming, our lives take on the form of song. As Schopenhauer wrote, “Music is the melody to which the world is the text.”

TOPOS 2026 is a space where audiences and artists converge to communicate the ineffable. Across performances, live podcasts, film screenings, and conversation, the festival creates occasions for deepened listening and critical encounters: music as a means of articulating that which resists articulation.

Featuring Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith, Miho Hatori, Edward George, Paul Abbott, IMA, Rock City Falls Trio (Improv Spaces), Sun Dogs (Improv Spaces), Fred Moten, and The Silent Light—TOPOS 2026 brings together different forms of music, not as genres but as provocative sites of experience.

Every presentation is a way into our own stories and of those around us, asking: do these stories have the potential to help us collectively reimagine new, and perhaps better, possible futures?

Schedule

• All nine events are included in the $50 Festival Pass TICKETS. 
  Single tickets TICKETSare available for $20.
• WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2
• 5PM, Sanctuary for Independent Media
• WORKSHOP
• BE THE MEDIA! WORKSHOP / Edward George 
• 7PM, Sanctuary for Independent Media
• SCREENING, TALK
• BLACK ATLAS / Edward George and Fred Moten 
• Both Wednesday events take place at the Sanctuary for Independent Media in North Troy.
• THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3
• 6PM, Studio 2
• TALK, PERFORMANCE
• THE STRANGENESS OF JAZZ / Edward George
• 9PM, Studio 1—Goodman
• PERFORMANCE
• そして花びらは燃え、華が咲く AND THE PETALS BURST INTO FLAMES... / IMA 
• FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4
• 7PM, Concert Hall
• PERFORMANCE
• DEFIANT LIFE / Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith
• 9PM, Theater
• PERFORMANCE
• PARIS SYNDROME / MIHO HATORI, with Michiko Ogawa and Dan Peck 
• SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5
• 12–1:30PM, Main Entrance, East Plaza
• BBQ, FREE
• Brooks’ bbq / sound house records / Community BBQ
• 2PM, Concert Hall
• PERFORMANCE
• IMPROV SPACES / Rock City Falls Trio, Sun Dogs
• 4PM, Studio 1—Goodman
• PERFORMANCE
• THE STRANGENESS OF DRUMMING / Paul Abbott and Edward George 
• 7PM, Theater
• SCREENING, PERFORMANCE
• A PAGE OF MADNESS / The Silent Light

How do our bodies shape experiences and make meaning?

How does performance attune us to forms and formations among bodies?

Whether moving in rigid unison, standing heroically alone, or morphing responsively, performing bodies have an incredible capacity to construct our world. Join us to witness—and even participate in—a weekend of experiences by rule-breaking dance and theater artists who reframe how we participate in society by physically showing up.

This festival assembles creative experiments—performances, installations, talks, and video works—throughout the building, testing how movement and action build sensory, spatial situations that have social weight. Each invites us to notice the structures beneath the surface of our immediate attention. These structures direct and choreograph us into positions: leader and their people, performer and script, individual and society, human figure and surrounding scene, stage and audience.

The term corpus points to how a body can take center stage and to the connections formed across a body of work, or a collection of bodies. This festival turns EMPAC’s building into not only a gathered body of artworks, but also a gathering place to share food and ideas, including an artist-led community meal and book bar.

Here, collective activity and individual experience are closer together than they appear.

Here, we are implicated in each other’s experiences, playing our part in ecosystems of power, control, freedom, and mutual responsibility—but always with the potential to move differently.

Low Sensory Space

During the festival weekend, April 23–25, a low sensory space will be available on Level 7, just south of the Lobby during open installation hours. In this quieter space, visitors will find dim lights, cozy seating, water bottles, tissues, and a few smaller rooms for privacy. Signage and festival building maps will show the way, and ushers will be available throughout the building to direct.

Low Sensory Space hours:
11AM–10PM Thursday and Friday
11AM–6PM Saturday

staging grounds is an open platform for performance, installation, and public programs.

By staging our shared experiences, how might we open up new forms of collective possibility? A staging ground is the architecture for an event—a place where people, objects, and ideas gather in anticipation of an unfolding scene. What follows may be a construction, a mission, a broadcast, a migration.

At EMPAC, staging grounds explores how art, cultural memory, and experience are shaped by structures that re-animate events across time. How do objects, gestures, or stories gain new meaning when they’re set in motion? How does each performance or installation transform what we inherit from the past, showing how culture survives by being continuously re-staged?

Anchoring staging grounds are two new commissions by artists Korakrit Arunanondchai and Jewyo Rhii, with additional artworks by Na Mira and Samson Young, and a film by Li Yi-Fan. The program also includes open installations, talks, workshops, and screenings in three distinct sites of gathering—the studio, the lobby, and the theater—each inviting you to witness, question, and take part in the unfolding scenes.

staging grounds Schedule

TOPOS is a gathering for listening, exploration, and discovery—a place where musical experimentalism becomes an experience open to all. Join us for five extraordinary productions that invite inquiry and pleasure, provocation and dance.

From country to house, chamber music to noise, TOPOS features the world premieres of commissioned projects by composer-performers Raven Chacon and Sarah Davachi, alongside performances by King Britt, Suzi Analogue, and Myles Ortiz-Green in Liberation Meditations: A Call.

Two rare presentations of Iannis Xenakis’s landmark electronic piece Persepolis, realized by sound artist Micah Silver, and a screening of the documentary Xenakis: Portrait 1971-72 round out the program. A community barbeque open to all celebrates the festival’s final day.

Each festival event becomes its own topos: a charged site of experience and wonder for every listener.

Schedule

• THURSDAY, AUGUST 28
• 7PM, Gasholder House, 113 Jefferson St., Troy
• PERFORMANCE, FREE
• Lazyhorse / Raven Chacon, Miriam Elhajli, Steve Hammond, Mali Obomsawin, The Living Earth Show
• 9PM, Studio 1—Goodman
• PERFORMANCE, DJ SET
• King Britt presents Liberation Meditations: A Call / with special guests Suzi Analogue and Myles Ortiz-Green
• FRIDAY, AUGUST 29
• 6PM, Concert Hall
• TALK
• In Conversation: Sarah Davachi & Amadeus Julian Regucera
• 7PM, Concert Hall
• PERFORMANCE
• The Rose Dialogues & Interludes  / Sarah Davachi 
• 9PM, Studio 1—Goodman
• PERFORMANCE
• Persepolis (1971)   / Iannis Xenakis realized by Micah Silver 
• SATURDAY, AUGUST 30
• 12PM, Terrace
• BBQ
• Festival BBQ
• 1:30PM, Theater
• Film/Video, FREE
• Xenakis Portrait 1971–72  / Directed by Pierre Andrégui 
• 3PM, Studio 1—Goodman
• PERFORMANCE
• Persepolis (1971)   / Iannis Xenakis realized by Micah Silver 

Ephemeral Organ is a series of residencies, performances, and talks by artists whose work explores choreography and bodily motion as technologies for transmitting memory, history, and Black lived experience. Each artist simultaneously navigates the ever-shifting nature of live performance and the urge to retain, return to, and generate traces of the past.

The word ephemeral suggests short-lived objects, activity that leaves residual evidence, and brief but intense durations. Archival materials not designed to be preserved but which are still potently present are often called ephemera. The word organ hints at the body and its parts, a series of interior vessels and chambers which intimately order—or organize—our modes of living. In dance and performance, bodies are often understood as having inherent archiving functions; archives are spaces of public record, systems which give purpose to what we want to keep. Our bodies hold experience, gain knowledge, recall behaviors, track gestures, and mediate infinite possible actions each time they move.

Interpreting archival materials, mining family memories, recording movement through technology—each Ephemeral Organ project holds past and present side by side, inseparably. Each of the artists has developed distinct choreographic devices through which performers can compose history through their bodies and which allows them to generate, keep, and even at times lovingly lose, a bodily record of their actions.

The series began with residencies and talks in fall 2024 with artists SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY, Steffani Jemison, collaborative duo Katherine Simóne Reynolds and A.J. McClenon, and series curator Tara Aisha Willis.

In April 2025, using EMPAC’s spaces simultaneously like a series of chambers, the series culminates in two days of events including performances by Leslie Cuyjet, an installation and performances by Katherine Simóne Reynolds and A.J. McClenon, and artist talks by Steffani Jemison and Justine A. Chambers on their latest works which register archival and historical traces through gesture.

Jonathan González and julia elizabeth neal join the artists during the festival as guest writers and interlocutors, documenting the events for future archives in relation to their ongoing research on Black performance history and practice.

Food and refreshments will be available for purchase at Evelyn's Café throughout the festival.

Special event parking for Ephemeral Organ festival in the College Avenue parking garage will be open at 2PM both days.

Schedule

• THURSDAY, APRIL 17
• 3–8PM, Studio 1—Goodman
• INSTALLATION, PERFORMANCE
• Gestures Investigating the Good and Not So Good In Relationships – As Shown to Us by Blondell Cummings / Katherine Simone Reynolds and A.J. McClenon

  Reynolds and McClenon experiment with video installation and performance, meditating on domestic space and Blondell Cummings’s archive in a shifting, home-like interior. Live performance interventions intermittently on Thursday; then, the traces of their presence remain in the space Friday. Audiences may enter the installation at any time.

• 5:30PM, Theater
• TALK
• on In Succession / Steffani Jemison

  Jemison reflects on her fall 2024 residency for the latest iteration of a series of video and performance works exploring how bodies share weight and responsibility.

• 6:45PM, Evelyn's Café
• RECEPTION
• FRIDAY, APRIL 18
• 3–8PM, Studio 1—Goodman
• INSTALLATION
• Gestures Investigating the Good and Not So Good In Relationships – As Shown to Us by Blondell Cummings / Katherine Simone Reynolds and A.J. McClenon

  Reynolds and McClenon experiment with video installation and performance in a shifting, home-like interior, meditating on Blondell Cummings's preoccupation with domestic spaces. Live performance interventions intermittently on Thursday; then, the traces of their presence remain in the space Friday. Audiences may enter the installation at any time.

• 4PM, Theater
• DANCE/THEATER, PERFORMANCE
• With Marion / Leslie Cuyjet

  Cuyjet performs inside a cocoon of mediated memory, text, and gesture in her solo performance, With Marion.

• 5:30PM, Theater
• TALK
• on The Brutal Joy / Justine A. Chambers

  Chambers shares new writing on and recent documentation of her dance work, The Brutal Joy, a scored improvisation which unfurls Black vernacular dance alongside sartorial gesture.

• 6:45PM, Evelyn's Café
• RECEPTION
• 7PM, Evelyn's Café
• TOUR
• Building Tour w/ EMPAC Curators

  Meet in the café on level 5 for a building tour with an EMPAC curator, going behind the scenes to experience the center’s infrastructure as few do.

• 8PM, Theater
• DANCE/THEATER, PERFORMANCE
• With Marion / Leslie Cuyjet

  Cuyjet performs inside a cocoon of mediated memory, text, and gesture in her solo performance, With Marion.

All times are EDT

Over the course of three days, and across EMPAC’s four main venues and public spaces, the 10YEARS celebration marks a decade since the building's opening in 2008 by presenting a diverse offering of cross-disciplinary performances spanning music, dance, theater, film, and many experiential spaces in between. Five of these performances have been newly commissioned by EMPAC, were developed over the past year through the artist-in-residence program, and will make their world premiere this weekend.

10YEARS features works by:

• Formosa Quartet
• Trajal Harrell
• Maria Hassabi
• Moved by the Motion (Wu Tsang and boychild with Patrick Belaga, Josh Johnson, and Asma Maroof)
• Olga Neuwirth and International Contemporary Ensemble
• Isabelle Pauwels
• Yara Travieso

In addition to the lineup of performances and installations, Saturday’s events include a research demonstration by the Cognitive and Immersive Systems Laboratory (CISL), a talk on digital archiving strategies by EMPAC Director Johannes Goebel, and an address by Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson preceding Saturday evening’s Ambisonic performance in the Concert Hall.

Four new EMPAC-commissioned works will be performed on Saturday, October 4, showcasing diverse achievements from the artist-in-residence program spanning art installation, musical performance, and a dramatic trip through the countryside in a bus.

In Anthony Marcellini’s Obsolescere: The Thing is Falling, a number of objects will be presented in a lush visual environment capturing their relative obsolescence, from a Ford Taurus to an encyclopedia. Marcellini’s work captures the obsolete object in a state of historical flux, not quite a dead end but a condition that allows new properties to emerge once a thing is freed from the narrow presumptions of their no-longer necessary uses.

Empathy School is a bold twist on narrative performance that takes its audience on a bus ride through the post-industrial landscape of Troy and its surrounding countryside, while theatrical stories about the community and its history are told. Created in collaboration between artists Aaron Landsman and Brent Green, Empathy School seeks to merge participatory performance with long-term community engagement in a thrillingly unconventional setting.

Celebrated guitarist and composer Mick Barr will perform solo electric guitar works. Barr has played with the experimental metal groups Orthrelm and and Crom Tech and collaborated with Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler. He will bring his virtuosity and adventurous avant-jazz to EMPAC in a rousing performance from a daring 21st Century musician.

For the truly adventurous the theatrical group Temporary Distortion will present My Voice Has An Echo In It, a six-hour performance that combines live music, text and video. The performers will be enclosed in a capsule of two-way mirrors, through which the audience can see them but the players can only see themselves, reflected infinitely backward in all directions. A slight audio delay ensures the sounds produced by the performers are heard by the audience two-seconds after they’ve been produced, challenging the nature of both performance and spectation.

With over 15 premieres spanning theater, 24-channel sound, contemporary dance, video, and a barn raising; exchanges with artists, curators, and creative engineers; and a dynamic archive of the artistic process, this three day festival highlights EMPAC’s focus on creation via its commissioning and residency programs.

Performances, installations, and screenings including:

BalletLab (Australia)
Yanira Castro | a canary torsi (NYC)
Early Morning Opera (Los Angeles)
Volkmar Klien (Austria)
MTAA (NYC)
Michael J. Schumacher (NYC)
Hans Tutschku (Cambridge, MA)
DANCE MOViES Commission 2009-2010 Premieres

Filament also unveils Live Shorts: three programs of performances from across the spectrum of dance, theater, music, and the visual arts, commissioned specifically for this festival. Working within the same constraints, artists will present varied and vigorous short works.

Live Shorts artists include: Paul Abacus • Wally Cardona • SUE-C + Laetitia Sonami • Steve Cuiffo, Trey Lyford + Geoff Sobelle • Jen DeNike • MTAA • Miro Dance Theatre • National Theater of the United States of America • Trouble

On Sunday, join us in a dedication and performance of the late composer Maryanne Amacher's unfinished final work developed in residence, The Star Room.

Over the three days, the building will be busy with conversation and free events: talks with artists, curators, and staff, receptions in Evelyn’s Café, a Saturday night party featuring Joro Boro (NYC) + Properly Chilled (Albany), and more.

• BalletLab
• Daniel Teige
• Daryl Hannah
• Dennis Diamond
• Graham Parker
• Hans Tutschku
• Jean-Francois Peyret
• Jen DeNike
• Jennifer Tipton
• Keiko Courdy
• Laetitia Sonami
• Lars Jan
• Lisa Parra
• Louie Magic
• Lucy Van Cleef
• Mads Lynnerup
• Marites Carino
• Maryanne Amacher
• Micah Silver
• Michael J. Schumacher
• Michael Sarff
• Movement Research
• MTAA
• Nuria Fragoso
• O+A
• Peter Flaherty
• Robert The representing Maryanne Amacher
• Rose Kallal
• Sean Griffin
• Sergei Tcherepnin
• Sophie Kahn
• Sue Costabile
• The Light Surgeons
• Thom Kubli
• Thomas Grill
• Tim Whidden
• Toni Dove
• Trouble
• Volkmar Klein
• Wally Cardona
• Wayne McGregor | Random Dance
• Workspace Unlimited
• Yanira Castro

The US premiere of the onedotzero_adventures in motion festival comes to EMPAC Friday, April 17 through Sunday, April 19, with an explosive showcase of internationally curated moving image. Featuring ground-breaking short film screenings, playful installations, spectacular live cinematic performances, vj/dj events and presentations.

All-day screenings feature compilations of short form videos that represent the latest innovative work in moving image including music videos, character animation, experimental digital shorts and motion graphic design.

Extraordinary installations by Troika and Quayola will be installed in the EMPAC studios and mezzanine, which also includes a lounge and café.

Performances include Scanner and Olga Mink’s live multi-channel audiovisual performance that kicks off the festival in the theater on Friday, followed by local luminaries skfl and jenks who will bring the café alive with a mix of bouncy music and cinematic video on multiple screens throughout the space.

On Saturday night local musician and multimedia artist Jesse Stiles presents a new live score for and within Quayola’s brilliant video installation viewed on a massive screen suspended on the ceiling. Quayola will then follow with his own performance, Path to Abstraction a live synesthetic audiovisual event.

The London-based onedotzero — a self-described “hybrid”organization that is both a media production company in its own right and a network of events — makes EMPAC the only US stop on its 2008-2009 international tour, presenting selections from their acclaimed international festival.

In celebration of the opening of the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute presented three weekends of artistic performances and workshops, premieres of EMPAC-commissioned artworks, presentations of research at the frontiers of science, and social events ranging from black-tie elegant to come-as-you-are eclectic. The Gala Weekend offered audiences an introduction to the EMPAC program and mission with performances ranging from 15th-century choral music performed in a 21st-century concert hall to late-night DJ-VJ parties; a Presidential Colloquy and the official Ribbon Cutting kicked off the weekend. The Symposium Weekend brought together an international group of directors from leading research institutions to share their work in the arts, design, and media-based research, spanning augmented reality to the visualization and auralization of scientific data; and the Homecoming and Family Weekend offered events and performances ranging in media and style—including many student groups—focused on the greater Rensselaer community.

http://opening.empac.rpi.edu