CROSSROADS + Luminary Award honoring Annina Nosei & Janet Wong @ La MaMa

Crossroads Series is a series championing radical Queer voices.

Sunday, May 10, 2026

3pm

The Club at La MaMa

74A East 4th Street (btw Bowery & 2nd Ave)

New York, NY 10003

New short works from Pioneers Go East Collective’s series empowering multigenerational LGBTQ+ and feminist artists in dialogue with their communities. Featuring works from our collective and frequent collaborators, including Sugar Vendil; and Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte with ALEXA Grae and Symara Sarai.

Performances at 3pm followed by the Luminary Award honoring Annina Nosei and Janet Wang + Fundraiser by Pioneers Go East Collective.

split bill:

Antonym: the opposite of nostalgia (excerpt)

Choreography and music composition by Sugar Vendil. Mei Ann Teo, Artistic Consultant. Harriet Jung, Costume Designer.

A Sea In-MOTION (excerpt)

by Pioneers Go East Collective w/ ALEXA Grae (composer, performance artist); Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte (direction, filmmaker, writer); and Symara Sarai (choreographer, performance artist); designed by Philip Treviño; and cinematographers and animation by bree breeden and Kathleen Kelley.

We are pleased to honor gallerist Annina Nosei and multi-hyphenate curator, choreographer, and producer Janet Wong with the inaugural Luminary Award on May 10th, 2026. The Luminary Award honors fearless artists and arts workers whose vision, generosity in community, and daring have made a major impact on the arts field at large.

Pioneers Go East Collective is an artist-driven arts and cultural hub inspiring a lively exchange of queer art and feminist culture by connecting people to ideas and experiences. Thus far this season, we held our fourth annual NY Times Critics’ Pick Out Front! Festival; provided opportunities and professional development for our NEXT! Mentorship Fellows; continued to offer free educational initiatives to youth in the LES, Brooklyn and Queens, and piloted a new NEXT! program that brings multiple generations together in the community.

The benefit will take place on at The Club at La MaMa. The event will feature the presentation of the Luminary Award, live performances by Alexa Grae with Pioneers Go East Collective and Sugar Vendil, delicious bites and good company, and a silent auction where you can build your current collection, or start one! Our benefit plays a large role in allowing us to fulfill our mission. Upcoming programming includes our Crossroads Series at La MaMa Moves! and Socrates Sculpture Park; our NEXT! Open Call, providing fellowships for eight artists; the Out Front! Fest 2027, returning to Judson Church and one more outstanding partnership (to be announced soon!).

About our Honorees:

Janet Wong is an independent performing arts professional with expertise in contemporary dance and performance in the U.S. and internationally. She began her career as a professional dancer in Berlin and was the Associate Artistic Director of New York Live Arts and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. Her interests include, in no particular order, choreography, curation, directing, technology, dramaturgy, producing, video work, projection design, education, mentorship, systems thinking, embodied values, international exchange, and environmental justice. She currently serves on the boards of the Jerome Foundation and Big Dance Theater.

Annina Nosei is an Italian-born gallerist. After working at the Ileana Sonnabend Gallery in Paris and as a professor in the United States during the early 1960s, she began to show and deal contemporary works in 1979. Open 1980 to 2006, the Annina Nosei Gallery exhibited works by artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Barbara Kruger, and Shirin Neshat. She first encountered Rauschenberg’s work while assisting Michael and Ileana Sonnabend and met the artist during the 1964 Venice Biennale. Due to her longtime friendship with artist Cy Twombly, association with the artist collective ONCE Group, and a variety of gallery connections, she and Rauschenberg shared social circles throughout his lifetime.

Charmaine Warren, Award Presenter to Janet Wong

2026 Benefit Committee

Kimberly Bartosik

David Blasher

John C. Robinson

Rachel McKinstry, Triskelion Arts

Jasmine Hearn

Pioneers Go East Collective is a radical queer laboratory collective of performing and visual artists, curators and social practitioners dedicated to time-based and media art to empower the LGBTQ+ experience. Since 2012 based in New York City, we create works of high artistic merit, speak out about social issues and build a platform to positively impact the LGBTQ+ community. Founded and led by Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte, Daniel Diaz, and Philip Treviño, in collaboration with Joey Kipp, ALEXA GRÆ, Anabella Lenzu, Mark Tambella, and syd island, the collective portrays same-gender-loving experiences, memory, and marginalization that resonate with contemporary lives. Pioneers Go East Collective combines stories of vulnerability and courage with popular culture to facilitate communal meaning and advocate for cultural integrity.

Pioneers Go East Collective’s work has been developed in residencies and presented in New York City at Socrates Sculpture Park (2025/26), BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music’s residency in 2023), BRIC ARTS MEDIA (2022/23), The LGBT Center (2019-24), Judson Church (2018-26), La MaMa Moves (2024), Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (2018-19), Center for Performance Research (2021-23), JACK (2018), La MaMa (2012-26), St Ann's Warehouse (2014), Governors Island/ Process Residency LMCC (2013/14), Chashama Gallery (2012), Goethe Institute Gallery (2012); and Upstate NY at Lumberyard (Catskill, NY) in 2023, Collar Works Gallery (Troy, NY) in 2023, Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency (2024), Kaatsbaan Cultural Park (Tivoli, NY) in 2024, and Time Space Limited (Hudson, NY) in 2025. Current collaborators: Symara Sarai, Darrin Wright, Joyce Isabelle, Azmi Mert Erdem, joy burklund, Adele Overbey, bree breeden, Kathleen Kelley, and Bryan Baira.

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is dedicated to the artist and all aspects of the theatre. La MaMa's 64th Season, LA MAMA NOW, focuses on creating solidarity and building community, exploring ways to build connections for cross-sector coalition and invite artists, activists, organizers and community members into the creative process. La MaMa has been honored with 30+ Obie Awards, dozens of Drama Desk, Bessie Awards, Villager Awards, the 2018 Regional Theatre Tony Award, and most recently a 2023 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Special Citation. We are a creative home to artists and resident companies from around the world, many of whom have made lasting contributions to the arts, including Blue Man Group, Bette Midler, Ping Chong, Jackie Curtis, Robert De Niro, André De Shields, Adrienne Kennedy, Cole Escola, Bridget Everett, Harvey Fierstein, Diane Lane, Charles Ludlam, Tom Eyen, Spiderwoman Theater, Tadeusz Kantor, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Meredith Monk, David and Amy Sedaris, Stephanie Hsu, Julie Taymor, Kazuo Ohno, Tom O'Horgan, Andrei Serban, Liz Swados, and Andy Warhol.La MaMa's vision of nurturing new artists and new work from all nations, cultures, races and identities remains as strong today as it was when Ellen Stewart first opened the doors in 1961.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Pioneers Go East Collective