Three international companies bring strikingly different forms of performance to NYU Skirball in November, beginning with the North American premiere of TOTEM — Void and Height, the final work of Japanese butoh choreographer Ushio Amagatsu.

Presented November 5–7, TOTEM features the rigorous, slow-moving vocabulary associated with Sankai Juku, the company Amagatsu founded. Completed before his death in 2024, it is performed by seven dancers who worked closely with him.

November 12–15 brings Deaf Republic, adapted from Ilya Kaminsky’s poetry by the Irish company Dead Centre and artist Zoë McWhinney. Its story of a town whose residents refuse to hear an occupying army combines sign language, puppetry, music and live cinema.

French artist Joris Lacoste closes the sequence November 20–21 with Nexus de l’adoration, a concert-like ceremony in which nine performers draw on the language of worship, praise and collective ritual.

Where: NYU Skirball, 566 LaGuardia Place, Manhattan. When: November 5–21, on selected dates. Program and tickets.