Beat of the Traps at the Museum of Modern Art, September 18th, 20th, & 21st.

September 17, 2025

Beat of the Traps (1992), 

Created by Mike Kelley, Anita Pace, and Stephen Prina

Dates:

Thu, Sep 18, 8:00 p.m., MoMA, Floor 2, Atrium
The Donald and Catherine Marron Family Atrium

Sat, Sep 20, 8:00 p.m. MoMA, Floor 2, Atrium
The Donald and Catherine, Marron Family Atrium

Sun, Sep 21, 8:00 p.m., MoMA, Floor 2, Atrium
The Donald and Catherine Marron Family Atrium

“The beat is the regular pulse, or heart of pop music,” notes Stephen Prina. This notion is interrogated and unraveled in Beat of the Traps. Presented for the first time since the year of its debut in 1992, this collaborative performance created by Mike Kelley, Anita Pace, and Prina assembles a dance performance, a percussion recital, a rock drum solo, a music fanatic’s vaudevillian monologue about rock star excess—written by Mike Kelley, and the number one song on Billboard’s Hot 100 at the time of the performance.

New York premiere

Directors: Anita Pace, Stephen Prina
Choreographer: Anita Pace
Voice and guitar: Stephen Prina
Actor: Abbott Alexander
Dancers: Jon Baldwin, Freeda Electra
Percussionists: M.B. Gordy, Jonathan “Butch” Norton
Rehearsal director (Los Angeles): Marco Rivera
Stage manager (New York): Phillip Trevino
Stagehands: Giordano "Gio" Cruz, Chris Peifer, Kasey Price, Stephen Workman
Lighting: Kelley Shih, Masha Tsimring
Costume reconstruction: Christian Joy

Previous performances: The Remise, Vienna, Austria (premiere); The Gindi Auditorium, American Jewish University, Los Angeles, CA

With special thanks to Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts.

If the event sells out, there will be a first-come, first-served standby line beginning at 7:30 p.m. on the night of the event. For more info click here.