Jack Ferver is a New York based writer, choreographer, and performer. Their genre defying performances, which have been called “so extreme that they sometimes look and feel like exorcisms” (The New Yorker), interrogate and indict psychological and socio-political issues, particularly in the realms of gender, sexual orientation, and power struggles. Weaponizing spectacle and stark naturalism, character and self, humor and horror, their performance practice is rooted in the shattering effects of trauma, and the numerous selves that can arise from that shattering.
Ferver’s upcoming performance MY TOWN, which queers Thornton Wilder’s classic American Play, Our Town, will mark their 16th full-length performance work. MY TOWN premieres at The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) in Spring of 2025 with its NYC premiere at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in the Fall of 2025. Ferver has been presented in New York City at New York Live Arts; New Museum; The Kitchen; The French Institute Alliance Française, as part of Crossing the Line; Abrons Arts Center; Gibney Dance; Performance Space 122; the Museum of Arts and Design, as part of Performa 11; Danspace Project; and Dixon Place. Domestically and internationally, by the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College (NY); American Dance Institute (MD); Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (IL); Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (OR); the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA (ME); the Institute of Contemporary Art (MA); Diverse Works in collaboration with the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston (TX); Théâtre de Vanves (France); and BalletLab (Australia).
Ferver’s work has been critically acclaimed in The New York Times, La Monde, Artforum, The New Yorker, Time Out NY, Modern Painters, The Financial Times, The Village Voice, and ArtsJournal. They are a recipient of numerous grants and residencies, including the notable unrestricted, by nomination Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists in Theater and Performance.
PHOTOGRAPH BY DANIEL RAMPULLA