Performance Art Movies

Bas Jan Ader rides his bike into a canal in Amsterdam.

One of a series of ‘falls’ by Bas Jan Ader that he recorded on film, this work was filmed in West Kapelle, Holland in 1970.

Bas Jan Ader hangs from the branch of a tall tree, until he loses his grip and falls into a river below.

A collaboration between filmmaker Ayoka Chenzira and performance artist Thomas Pinnock, who performs his "immigrant folktales" using traditional lore...

Summer 1991. The last days of the Soviet Empire. Dark clouds gathered over Moscow as the Soviet government prepared to turn back the clock of...

The video revolution of the 1970s offered unprecedented access to the moving image for artists and performers. This Is Not a Dream explores the...

Daniel Cockburn’s exuberantly cerebral, filmically deconstructionist work defies easy categorization, and this program of new work is no...

As Cirque du Soleil reboots its flagship production, O, more than a year after an abrupt shutdown, performers and crew members face uncertainty as...

This short film is part of a mixed media artwork of the same name, which also included postcards of Ader crying, sent to friends of his, with the...

A lonely character braving a steep mountain attempting to reach its peak. As he journeys the mountain, he is forced to confront a plethora of...

A mockumentary following an ambitious TV network executive trying to produce a controversial reality show where contestants play Russian Roulette.

Dirty Martini and Tigger!, stars of the New York underground scene, reveal some of the secrets of their provocative and remonstrative forms of...

The 1988 European tour of Survival Research Laboratories, with shows in Amsterdam and Copenhagen. SRL ferrets out and gleefully satirizes assorted...

Genesis P-Orridge: We used to just improvise at night, making up stories to each other. And so at some point we began making videos but when that one...

Turtle Dreams, produced for WGBH-TV, originally aired September 2, 1983. Shot by Ping Chong. Composed by Meredith Monk, performed by her and her...

In the film "You Don't Need Feet to Dance," African immigrant Sidiki Conde, having lost the use of his legs to polio at fourteen, balances his career...

Alan Kelley's eagerly awaited edit of a Survival Research Laboratories show in the Bay Area held on an empty parking lot off Beale Street at the foot...

A video portrait of the legendary late performance artist, fashion designer and nightlife icon Leigh Bowery. Atlas's camera follows Bowery as he...

Bas Jan Ader's first fall film shows him seated on a chair, tumbling from the roof of his two-storey house in the Inland Empire.