Curator Alex Poots will be the Park Avenue Armory’s next artistic director. Kristy Edmunds has been responsible for arts programming during the 2011 and 2012 seasons and will remain as consulting artistic director. Poots will begin programming the Armory’s 2013 season in early 2012.
Poots is currently, and will remain, director of the biennial Manchester International Festival in England, which was inaugurated in 2007 and has distinguished itself with a focus on commissioning new works. This year’s installation consisted entirely of exclusive, commissioned works and included The Life And Death Of Marina Abramovic, co-commissioned with Madrid’s Teatro Real, directed by Robert Wilson and featuring Willem Dafoe, with music composed by Antony Hegarty.
Also notable about the Manchester International Festival is Poots’s wholehearted embrace of popular music; he has included rap concerts in each outing—Kanye West, De La Soul and Snoop Dogg have all performed.
Poots previously served at the English National Opera and is currently engaged as an artistic adviser to the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
