APAP Announces 2026 UP NEXT! Artists

18 artists will pitch new, diverse, exciting, tour-ready works at the UP NEXT! Artist Pitch Session at the APAP|NYC 2026 conference. The application for APAP|NYC 2026 media credentials is now open.

November 20, 2025—The Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) announced earlier this week the 18 artists from across the U.S. and around the globe selected by an APAP panel to pitch their new work at the annual UP NEXT! Artist Pitch Session at the APAP|NYC 2026 conference.

The UP NEXT! Artist Pitch Session will take place on Friday, January 9 from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. at the New York Hilton Midtown, as part of the 69th annual conference which runs from January 9-13, 2026 at the Hilton and in venues near the Hilton and across New York City.

APAP|NYC is produced by the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, the national service, advocacy and membership organization for the presenting, booking, and touring field. The annual convening attracts nearly 4,000 professionals—artists, agents, managers, producers, presenters and more—from around North America and the world to New York City every January for inspiration, networking, performance showcases, and the world’s largest performing arts marketplace and EXPO.

Admission to the UP NEXT! Artist Pitch Session is limited to conference registrants. The APAP|NYC Conference is a members conference.

APAP welcomes or new members,while registration is open to  the APAP|NYC 2026 Conference.

The  2026 UP NEXT! Artists.
Information subject to change. 

Andrea Voets (Resonate Productions) | SOZO

FOR REAL is part theatrical radio show, live podcast, and collective reckoning. Conceived by harpist and musical journalist Andrea Voets (Resonate Productions), this daring performance explores ways our culture undermines women intellectually, laying bare the sexism that strikes at mind and soul. Blending original live music, storytelling, and unscripted conversation, FOR REAL amplifies the voices of women whose experiences expose society’s emotional blind spots.  Each performance doubles as a podcast episode; the musicians support these vulnerable and honest con versations as they unfold with a new technique of simultaneous interviewing and improvising. In deep community with the audience, FOR REAL creates space to imagine a more just, dignified world, together.

Cahoots NI & Segerstrom Center for the Arts
The Musicians of Bremen, Live!

This swashbuckling musical follows four very different creatures, a Hen, Mule, Bobcat, and Coyote, each on a journey to a new life. The four musicians first struggle with their differences but emerge glorious as they discover how to work together and become a famous band! An epic journey from dusty crossroads to the bright lights of the big city, this show is a celebration of chasing big dreams.

lpulli Mexican Dance Company
Native Mexico | Dances of the First People

Native Mexico is a new touring production by Calpulli Mexican Dance Company that honors the living traditions of Mexico’s Indigenous communities, including the Mexika, Zapotec, Purepecha, and Totonaca. Through ceremonial dances, storytelling, and traditional music, the program celebrates the resilience and cultural legacy of Native civilizations. Developed in consultation with cultural experts, the one-hour, assembly-style performance is both visually stunning and educationally impactful. Designed for schools, museums, and smaller venues, this work connects ancient rituals to contemporary identity, offering audiences of all ages a deeper understanding of Indigenous heritage and its endurin presence today.

Charlotte Ballet
Carmen in Vegas – Andrea Schermoly’s groundbreaking production for Charlotte Ballet

Schermoly’s bold production of Carmen places the story in 1973 Las Vegas, to both Shchedrin and Bizet scores. Complete with a cast of showgirls, mafia men and Elvis impersonator, the tragedy unfolds against striking set designs, rhinestones and feathers. This sexy re-imagining of the love-triangle imagines Carmen as a woman faced with hard choices in a hard world. A fully contemporary work, dancers embody the story through innovative movement and the dance styes of the 70s. A roller coaster of emotions and gorgeous visuals, Carmen does not disappoint.

Chloé Charody (composer)
The Freestyle Orchestra
Tale of the Firebird – Concerto for Violin, Fire & Acrobatic Orchestra

Tale of the Firebird is a genre-bending reimagining of a virtuosic violin concerto with high-octane physicality, visual storytelling and spectacle, composed by Chloé Charody for The Freestyle Orchestra (where each musician has parallel skills in contemporary circus/movement arts). The whimsical, fairytale-like narrative traces the legend of the Phoenix, telling a story of resistance and renewal that underpins pertinent global themes, erupting with one of humanity’s greatest weapons against oppression: hope. Suited to all-ages, it is designed for both indoor or outdoor presentation, either standalone or in expanded collaboration with local orchestras – an unforgettable, multi-layered event for your next season.

Cirque Alfonse
LA NOCELa Noce d’Alfonse is a joyful, irreverent celebration of love in all its wild and wondrous forms. A flamboyant blend of circus, live music, and caustic humor, the show unfolds as a raucous, risqué wedding party—complete with acrobatic love-infused tableaux and honoring the union of a “lucky” couple from the audience. Drenched in a 1970s aesthetic and fueled by constant audience interaction, this festive freak show brims with bold twists and turns. Set to a live score mixing Caribbean rhythms and Québécois folk, La Noce delivers all the hallmarks of Cirque Alfonse: daring spectacle, offbeat poetry, music and unbridled fun.

Concrete Temple Theatre| Contenidos Artisticos
PACKRAT: The Quest por la Abundancia

PACKRAT: The Quest por la Abundancia is a visually crafted puppet-forward play that asks urgent questions about home, belonging, and responsibility at a time of global displacement and climate crisis. Inspired by the Comcáac, an Indigenous people of northern Mexico, the play embraces the language of dreams and the presence of ancestors to help guide us on our journey of taking care of ourselves, our planet and each other. PACKRAT: Abundance, available in English and Spanish, is a seamless blend of puppetry, projections and an original score, a new intercultural co-production rooted in Indigenous knowledge, ecological awareness, and cross-border artistic collaboration.

Electric Root
Let Love Lead: A Celebration of Black Music

Let Love Lead is Electric Root’s newest production — a soul-stirring concert that reimagines music as a bridge between generations, genres, and hearts. Led by acclaimed vocalists Brianna Thomas, C. Anthony Bryant, and Charenee Wade, this immersive, emotionally rich performance weaves recognizable melodies from traditions shaping our cultural soundscape. It invites audiences into a multigenerational celebration of connection, reflection, and joy. More than a concert, it’s a partnership rooted in our Radical Hospitality model, featuring local African diasporic musicians to co-create experiences that uplift Black musical excellence and transform the stage into a space of warmth and communal spirit.

Manual Cinema
The 4th Witch

Mariachi Continental de San Diego
A World’s Tradition

A World’s Tradition is a vibrant mariachi experience that reimagines tradition through an inclusive, cross-cultural lens. Blending masterful music with storytelling, narration, and bilingual supertitles, the show explores the diverse international roots of mariachi sub-genres. Created to bridge cultural gaps and foster universal connection, this performance welcomes all audiences, regardless of background or language to experience the beauty, emotion, and heritage of mariachi music.

Minty Fresh Circus
Minty Fresh Circus

Conceived by Monique Martin and created by a majority-Black creative team, Minty Fresh Circus features all-Black cast. This one-hour performance celebrates the healing power of Black music and movement. It is infused with the joy and resilience of those who traversed the transatlantic slave trade. Minty Fresh Circus features movement, music, and circus arts in a time-bending journey of redemption. Inspired by abolitionist Harriet Araminta Tubman and the survival of generations of African Americans, the central question in Minty Fresh Circus is: what does freedom feel & sound like if your only access to it is through your imagination?

Nidia Góngora
Pacífico MaravillaThe most recognized singer from the Colombian Pacific coast, Latin Grammy®-nominated Nidia Góngora is part of the 2025-26 Mid Atlantic Tours 2025-26 Roster. She recently collaborated with the Colombian reggaetón artist Feid, as well as the Costa Rican poet Shirley Campbell Barr. She released her recent work “Pacífica Maravilla.”
Throughout her 20+ years of international experience as a composer and performer, Prof. Góngora has successfully built bridges between the traditional music of her native Timbiquí (Cauca) and other world genres. She has been featured in popular magazines such as The Guardian, and The New York Times.

PUSH Physical Theatre
HOME[sic]

Both breathtaking and hilariously relatable, HOME[sic] is a visually stunning, acrobatic dreamscape from multi award-winning PUSH Physical Theatre. Through a fusion of movement, illusion, and dynamic physicality, it unpacks the fragile, shifting nature of home. Twins in the womb debate the existence of their mother. A couple adrift in a boat fall in and out of love. A man carries his home, the world and the audience on his back. Foundations crack, rooms shift, walls bend. This heartwarming story explores the tension between house and home: what we build, what we lose, and what we’re always searching for.

Quartet San Francisco
Strings in Swing: The Jazz Worlds of Raymond Scott and Eddie South

The program celebrates and features two unique, fascinating, and sorely under-represented American composers and instrumentalists, both heroes to Quartet San Francisco’s founder, Jeremy Cohen. The concert features live performance by Quartet San Francisco, projection of images, artwork, and video footage of these two composers. The program includes works by Raymond Scott used in cartoon soundtracks including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Ren & Stimpy, and string-quartet arrangements of Eddie South’s virtuosic fusion of jazz violin with European and “Gypsy” influences.

Ragamala Dance Company
Children of Dharma

An evening length performance for 7 dancers, Ragamala Dance Company’s ‘Children of Dharma’ is staged inside a lush lighting design featuring projections and an original recorded score. The poetic movement integrates a powerful ensemble and intimate solos that channel South Indian culture, unearthing some of the most enduring questions of conscience facing humanity. ‘Children of Dharma’ explores three characters from the Hindu epic The Mahabharata. These myths reveal the power of ancient cultures to reaffirm humanity’s relationship with nature and the sacred, provoking a visceral response to crises over the ages, from environmental devastation and oppression to unjust wars.

Ranky Tanky
This Village

This Village is Ranky Tanky’s newest album, featuring original songs inspired by Gullah culture and infused with jazz, gospel, and contemporary roots influences. Drawing from oral histories and the lived experiences of Gullah descendants, the project reimagines spirituals, work songs, and folklore for today’s audiences. The two-time GRAMMY-winning ensemble — Quiana Parler, Charlton Singleton, Quentin Baxter, Kevin Hamilton, and Clay Ross — brings the music of the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry to life with authenticity, virtuosity, and joy, offering a performance that is both deeply rooted in tradition and boldly forward-looking.

Squonk
Joy Machine

“Joy Machine” is Squonk’s most immersive outdoor spectacle yet—a large-scale performance that transforms the public space into a kinetic, musical playground. Audiences power the show with their energy, activating giant sculptures, instruments, and machines alongside Squonk’s raucous live band. For the first time, Squonk will invite the audience onstage to step into a world of the imagination. Participation is fluid—some may observe, others engage hands-on, and a few take center stage. Each show is unique, shaped by those who take part. “Joy Machine” is a celebration of connection, creativity, and shared joy in the public square.

TaikoArts Midwest
TaikoGroove

TaikoGROOVE is an international collaboration between TaikoArts Midwest (MN) and GOCOO (Tokyo) that delivers a celebratory, primal groove. It is as much dance as it is music, connecting us all in a shared global heartbeat. With booming Japanese taiko drums, TaikoGROOVE delivers joyful resilience and restoration. Join us for this epic all ages event: just what we need in these times.