About Tom Pearson
Tom Pearson, self-portrait, Moscow, 2018.
Tom is a critically-acclaimed, award-winning choreographer, poet, and multi-media artist, known for his original works for dance and theater, including the long-running immersive theater hits Then She Fell and The Grand Paradise, as a founder and co-artistic director of the New York City-based performance company Third Rail Projects, and as director and curator for the Global Performance Studio, a program for cultural listening and exchange.
His performance works have been called “wildly imaginative” by The New Yorker and “haunting, hallucinatory, and profoundly intimate” by VOGUE. Tom’s debut poetry collection, The Sandpiper’s Spell, was heralded by Kirkus Reviews as one of the Best Indie Book of 2019, calling the volume “vastly panoramic and deeply introspective” and proclaiming Tom “a startlingly intuitive new poet—one to watch.” His follow-up collection of poetry and art, Still, the Sky, published in 2022, received several book awards and has been called “a work of originality and power” by BookLife by Publisher’s Weekly.
Tom’s work combines material culture and audience-centered narratives, taking the form of mixed-media projects that employ theater, art, choreography, and poetry as well as ceremony, artifact, and mythos to craft interactive experiences. He draws on a background in performance studies, archetypal and scientific psychology, dream practices, ritual, and ceremony.
Tom holds an MA from New York University in performance studies and has been named among the 100 most influential people in Brooklyn culture by Brooklyn Magazine. He has received various accolades for his work, including: two New York Dance & Performance (BESSIE) Awards (Vanishing Point, 2008 & Then She Fell, 2013), the Kingsbury and Cody Harris Allen Awards for writing from the Florida State University, an IllumiNation Award from the Ford Foundation and National Museum of the American Indian, an Indie Reader Discovery Award, three Reader Views Literary Awards, and a Readers’ Favorite Book Award for his book of poetry and art Still, the Sky, and several international film festival awards for his collaborative experimental short film, The Night Garden. He was a contributor and featured artist for the Emmy Award-winning series IMMERSIVE.WORLD by ALL ARTS.
Additionally, his company, Third Rail Projects, has 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, as a recipient of the Chita Rivera Award for Choreography for Ghost Light at Lincoln Center Theater’s LTC3 at the Clare Tow Theater, and with a Drama Desk Awards Nomination for Unique Theatrical Experience for Midsummer: a Banquet.
Tom Pearson; photo by Joshua Dutton-Reaver
Tom has received commissions for the creation of original performance works from: Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, La Jolla Playhouse, Jacob’s Pillow, The Folger Shakespeare Library, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and National Museum of the American Indian, Dance Theater Workshop, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, Danspace Project, i•ma•gine | e•volve (Berette Macaulay), On the Boards, BRIC, and more.
He has likewise received fellowships and artist residencies from: CEC Artslink (St. Petersburg, Russia); The Bogliasco Foundation (Bogliasco, Italy); the Center for the Arts at Wesleyan University (Middletown, Connecticut); DanceNOW SILO (Springtown, PA); the Swarthmore Project (Swarthmore College, PA); Topaz Arts (Woodside, NY); Dance Theater Workshop (New York, NY); The Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation (Hong Kong); Ace Hotel New York (New York, NY); the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (New York, NY); Ziferburg Café (St. Petersburg, Russia); Governors Island (Governors Island, NY); and Olin College of Engineering (Needham, Massachusetts); among others.
His work has been shown on PBS, NBC, and other networks.
He is the author of two books of poetry, The Sandpiper’s Spell and Still, the Sky. A bilingual edition (English with Italian translation) of Still, the Sky, Eppure, Il Cielo is now available.
Available Upon Request:
COMPLETE LIST OF WORKS (PDF)
CURRICULUM VITAE (PDF)
PRESS COVERAGE