"This Dancerie explores Paris as the site of a queer century lived in public in a multi-event, multi-site, multi-media project that explores the ways in which gay men have created public expressions of desire despite prohibitions against the manifestation of those aspects of their lives." 

From This Dancerie Website

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Artistic Director: Tony Whitfield

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Artist Bio

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Born in 1954 in Philadelphia, Tony Whitfield is a multi-media artist, designer, and educator. who, From 1976, Whitfield was an influential member of the public and non-profit sectors in NYC’s arts community, including Associate Director of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council where he produced and curated 100 events a year to Senior Policy Analyst for Cultural Affairs in the Office of the Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger, to Performance Curator at Just Above Midtown Inc. and Director of Printed Matter Inc. Having relocated to Detroit in 2020, he has worked with communities and organizations that underpin and are supported by his creative practice focused on the health and history of people of color and diverse queer populations in urban environments. During the COVID pandemic, he was a curator and facilitator for online sessions of Village Berlin’s STRETCH Festivals.  Products of his art practice were displayed in the summer of 2022 at five locations in the citywide queer art exhibitions of Mighty Real Queer Detroit. His theater work, New Love: 1910: World Out of Kilter, has been shown by La MaMa, ETC in NYC. Among the presenters of his artwork in solo shows are HOWL! Happening in NYC, the Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano (ICPNA) in Lima, Centre LGBTQ in Paris, and presenters in group exhibitions in galleries and museums are Instinct exhibition projects at Village in Berlin, NYC’s Museum of Art and Design, Leslie Lohman Museum, The Pop-Up Museum of Queer History. His video installation, Paris, 1938, was featured in Paris’ NUIT BLANCHE 2017. Whitfield also writes about art, new media, film, performance art and design, and has been published often in the US and abroad. The recipient of grants from the Jerome Foundation and the Camargo Foundation, The Brooklyn Arts Council, and Parsons School of Design/New School University, he has been an Emeritus Professor at The New School University in NYC since 2020, where he taught in at Parsons School of Design and, over 27 years, served in leadership roles including, Director of the Furniture Program, Chair of the Product Design Department, and Associate Dean for Civic Engagement and Social Justice Issues. In addition, Whitfield has been a Visiting Faculty at L’Escuela de Disenō at Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic and The Design School of Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago de Chile. From June 2022 to March 2023, Whitfield served as Art and Cultural Program Developer and Curator at Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit.