Pick Up Performance Co. (PUPC) is a development, production, and presenting organization. Originally founded by choreographer/director David Gordon (1936-2022), in 1992 PUPC expanded its artistic leadership to support the work of writer/director Ain Gordon, who now helms the company. 

For more than forty-five years, PUPC has facilitated significant performance works via multi-year production/development models in partnership with leading performance venues, community organizations, and universities including BAM Next Wave, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Baryshnikov Arts, 651 Arts (all NY); UCLA Center for the Art of Performance, William Way LGBT Community Center (PA), the Mark Taper Forum (CA), International Festival of Arts & Ideas (CT), National Performance Network, and Williams College (MA), to cite a few. 

In 2022, in recognition of its familial artistic roots, PUPC piloted a “friends & family” initiative to support the individual projects of artists who have previously collaborated with Ain or David Gordon. PUPC is partnering on projects with choreographer/writer Emily Coates and performance/visual artist John Kelly.

As an outgrowth of “friends and family,” PUPC has launched a multi-artist multi-year project creating then managing teams to facilitate the individual archives of eleven LGBTQ+ artists who collectively mark seminal chapters in the last forty-plus years of New York’s alternative dance/performance scene. The goal is to assist the artists in preparing their archives for a permanent home and to find a way to make each of these archives available to the public. The artists are Five Lesbian Brothers, Ain Gordon, John Kelly, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Richard Move, Lola Pashalinski, Carmelita Tropicana 

An intro to the project can be seen at an exhibition in the BAM Harvey Rudin Gallery until Jan 30, 2024.

For more information: lgbtqartistsarchive.org