“haunting, hallucinatory, and profoundly intimate” – VOGUE

Multimedia Performance, Poetry, and Art

Tom Pearson’s multimedia works explore memory, refuge, and environmentalism through interactive experiences rooted in ritual and material culture. His writing is noted for its haunting, surreal imagery, described as “vastly panoramic and deeply personal” (Kirkus Reviews). In performance, Pearson is celebrated for his ability to craft “dreamscape[s] where the judgments and classifications of the waking mind are inoperative, and where the single self keeps splitting and blurring” (The New York Times).

PERFORMANCE

“dreamscape[s] where the judgments and classifications of the waking mind are inoperative, and where the single self keeps splitting and blurring.” – Ben Brantley, The New York Times

Performance Highlights

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POETRY

“Above all, Pearson demonstrates a mastery of imagery.” — Publisher’s Weekly

Published Works

Recent poems have appeared in The Arlington Literary Journal, Alocasia Literary Magazine, and 3Elements Literary Review. New poems also appear in Writings. Below are full-length works, currently available.

VISUAL ART

“Mesmeric and enveloping… stunning visual multimedia” — Kirkus Reviews

Exhibition Highlights

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ABOUT TOM

“Wildly imaginative multimedia… exciting theatrical encounter[s]” – The New Yorker

Tom Pearson is an award-winning, American multimedia theater artist, choreographer, and poet. Tom is founder and co-artistic director of the New York City-based performance company, Third Rail Projects, co-creator of its long-running off-Broadway hits, Then She Fell and The Grand Paradise, and director for the Global Performance Studio, a program for cultural listening and exchange. Tom holds a Master of Arts degree in Performance Studies from New York University. He has been noted for his “exacting, exuberant choreography” and for his “vastly panoramic and deeply personal” poetry.

Read More About Tom Pearson…

 THIRD RAIL PROJECTS

Creators of site-specific dance, immersive theater, and experiential performance

Tom Pearson’s artistic life in New York City began in the dance world of the early-1990s at the Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham schools. Throughout the decade, he studied writing, performance theory, and choreography, eventually earning in a degree in Performance Studies from New York University. While performing professionally for other companies, Pearson also began showing his own choreography in at venues like the Theater of the Riverside Church and Broadway’s Bridge for Dance.

A pivotal moment arrived in the summer of 2001 when he presented his first work under the banner of Third Rail Dance at the New York International Fringe Festival. Later that year, he formally co-founded the company alongside Brian Weaver and Jennine Willett. Reconfigured in 2007 as Third Rail Projects with co-directors Zach Morris and Jennine Willett, the collective has since redefined the medium, becoming a global leader in site-specific, immersive, and experiential performance.

“The artists of Third Rail are masters of the skewed perspective."

— Ben Brantley, The New York Times

Both critically acclaimed and an audience favorite, Third Rail Projects’ catalog of work has received widespread recognition for their contribution to site-specific and immersive theater formats, garnering such prestigious awards as two New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards, a Chita Rivera Award for Choreography, and a Drama Desk Awards Nomination for Unique Theatrical Experience. Third Rail Projects has also been recognized as part of the creative team of the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning virtual reality adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Wolves in the Walls and as contributors and featured artists in the Emmy Award-winning series IMMERSIVE.WORLD by ALL ARTS. In 2016, the artistic directors were named among the 100 most influential people in Brooklyn Culture by Brooklyn Magazine.

More at Third Rail Projects

 

GPS/X

“a true cross-cultural exchange” – Susan Katz, CEC ArtsLink

A black and white photo of two people, with a woman in the foreground facing sideways and a man in the background looking forward.

Global Performance Studio

A Program for Cultural Listening & Exchange + Process & Performance

The Global Performance Studio & eXchange, led by Tom Pearson, is dedicated to creating work through collaboration, sharing the site-specific and experiential performances practices of Third Rail Projects, and engaging with communities around the world. GPS/X cultivates opportunities to foster diplomacy through shared practice, dialogue, and community building, all within a framework of cultural listening and peer-to-peer artist exchange. To-date, GPS/X has worked with artists in the United States, Hong Kong, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Germany, Italy, and Russia. Learn More…

FILM

Over 25 Awards in more than 40 Film Festivals Worldwide

Films Available to Stream

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MORE PROJECTS

Further Performance Engagements, Residencies, and Other Activity

  • New Futures Project

    2024 | Artist Residency | Tom Pearson (U.S.) and Daria Karpova (Russia) | Flux Factory, NY

  • Calder Moves

    2024 | Immersive Music Concert with Flex Ensemble | Sprengel Museum, Hanover, Germany

  • The Night Garden

    2018/2022 | Film | Global Performance Studio through collaborations in St. Petersburg, Russia

  • Agave Trio

    2022 | Studio 80 + Sculpture Grounds, Old Lyme, Connecticut

  • Sketch Model Program

    2019-2020 | Creative-in-Reference / Artist Residency | Olin College of Engineering, Needham, Massachusetts

  • Passaggio

    2019 | Experimental Film Short | Official Selection, Mobile Dance Film Festival

  • Bogliasco Foundation

    Spring 2019 | Fellowship in Theater | Artist Residency, Bogliasco, Italy

  • Wesleyan University

    2018-2019 | Artist-in-Residence, Center for the Arts, Middletown, Connecticut

  • This Between Shadow

    2019 | Immersive Performance | Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut

  • Grove

    2017 | Visiting Artist Residency and Performances | Texas A&M University, College Station, TX

  • Break the Wall

    2018 | Immersive Theater Workshops | China Dream Entertainment, Shanghai, China

  • Genuine Plastic Reliquaries

    2015 | Site-Specific Performance | Arts Brookfield at Grace Plaza and One New York Plaza, NYC

  • House No. 17

    2015| Artist-in-Residence | Governors Island, New York

  • Recess

    2014 | Site-specific Dance Performances | Global Performance Studio with CEC ArtsLink’s Art Prospekt Festival, St. Petersburg, Russia

  • Anthem

    2014 | Site-specific Immersive Performances | SUNY Oswego and the Fort Ontario Historic Site, Oswego, NY

  • Yolk

    2014 | Site-specific Performances | Arts Brookfield at Grace Plaza, NYC

  • Marrow

    2013 | Site-specific Dance Performances | with Island Moving Company at The Steelyard, Providence, Rhode Island

  • Memento Mori

    2013 | Site-specific Immersive Performances on Tour | with Winkel & Balktick and Espolòn in Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York

  • Brooklyn Beat Festival

    2013 | Untitled Site-specific Durational Performances | Brooklyn Museum, New York

  • Fountain

    2013 | Site-specific Dance Performance | ArtBat Fest, Almaty, Kazakhstan

  • Roadside Attraction

    2013 | Site-specific Dance | Arts Brookfield at Brookfield Place & on Tour through New York State Dance Force

  • Looking Glass

    2011 | Site-specific Dance | Arts Brookfield in NY at Brookfield Place, One New York Plaza, and Zuccotti Park, and in LA at Bank of American Plaza

  • Bathing Aiperi

    2013 | Workshops & Immersive Performance | CEC ArtsLink & Capacity Building Foundation, Kyrgyzstan

  • Gustav

    2011 | Site-specific Immersive Dance Performance | Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, Tivoli, New York

  • Undercurrents & Exchange

    2010 (Part 2) | Two Weeks of Daily Serial Site-specific Performances | Arts Brookfield, Brookfield Place, New York

  • Beautiful Dreamer

    2010 | Site-specific Immersive, Durational, Looped Performances | Hudson Opera House, Hudson, New York

  • Kissing the Gunner's Daughter

    2010 | DNA Gallery, New York

  • Walking in Two

    2010 | Dance Theater Performance | Dance New Amsterdam, New York

  • The Drifting Encyclopedia

    2010 | Courtyard Gallery, World Financial Center, New York

  • The One You Love Is Sick

    2010 | Site-specific, Immersive Dance Performance | Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation

  • Undercurrents & Exchange

    2009 (Part 1) | Month-long Daily Episodic and Serial Site-specific Dance Performances | Arts Brookfield, Brookfield Place, New York

  • Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival

    2010 | Site-specific Dance Performance | Inside Out Stage at Jacob’s Pillow, Becket, Massachusetts

  • Steampunk Haunted House

    2009-2011 | Immersive Theater Performances | Abrons Arts Center, New ork

  • The Witness Project

    2009 | Dance Theater Performances | La MaMa E.T.C. and Museum of the American Indian, NY

  • Live at the Gantries

    2009 | Site-specific Dance Performance | Long Island City, Queens, NYC

  • Rub the Sleep

    2007 | Dance Theater Performances | La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, NYC

  • Strangers on Tong Chong Street

    2007 | Site-Specific Dance Performances | Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation and Swire Properties, Hong Kong

  • Seatbelt

    2006 | Dance Performance | La MaMa Moves!, La MaMa E.T.C., NYC

  • Squall

    2006 | Dance Theater Performance | Dance Theater Workshop, New York

  • Lacuna

    2006 | Site-specific Dance | Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, New York

  • REEL

    2005 | Site-specific Performances | Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s SiteLines series and Museum of the American Indian, NY

  • Beehive

    2006 | Site-specific Dance Performances | 40Forward at Dance Theater Workshop, NY

  • Screaming Shrubbery

    2005 | Dance Theater Performances | Merce Cunningham Studio, NYC

  • Ceremony

    2003 | Dance Theater Performances | Merce Cunningham Studio, NYC

  • Uktena

    2001 | Dance Theater Performances | Merce Cunningham Studio, NYC

  • Cénotaphe

    2001 | Dance Performance | The Bridge for Dance on Broadway, NYC

  • Ascending Silence

    2000 | Dance Performance | The Bridge for Dance on Broadway, NYC

  • Through the Keyhole

    1999 | Dance Performance | Theater of the Riverside Church, NYC