Michelle Levy is an interdisciplinary artist, storyteller, writer, and cultural organizer based in Brooklyn, New York. Working within a framework of “the search” and “research,” Levy explores the space between performance and life, and the discoveries made possible in real-life performative moments. While inside her investigations, Levy allows herself to be vulnerable to the events that transpire, enabling the audience to project themselves onto and connect with her journey. Her works unfold over an extended duration until they reach a resolution or moment of natural rest.
Levy has presented work at venues including Abrons Art Center, Dixon Place, Flux Factory, Glasshouse Gallery, Gowanus Studio Space, La MaMa Galleria, Littlefield, Magnet Theater, NURTUREart, Pete’s Candy Store, Secret Project Robot, Spectacle Theater, and Theaterlab in New York City, Grizzly Grizzly (Philadelphia), Machine Project (Los Angeles), Festivalt (Krakow), Galicia Jewish Museum (Kraków) Instytut Teatralny (Warsaw), Kana Theater (Szczecin) POLIN Museum (Warsaw), and Center and Foundation for Contemporary Art (Prague).
Levy is a two-time recent recipient of a New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Grants (2025, 2022) and Asylum Arts (2024, 2019) for her research/film/performance projects activating works from the archive: HAPPENINGS IN POLAND - RESTAGING OF A CHILDHOOD PLAY, and PAULINA. For the former- reincarnating a play written by her immigrant teenage grandmother and performed at the Henry Street Settlement Playhouse in New York's Lower East Side in 1921, Levy also received a Puffin Foundation Grant and was a year-long guest artist with Abrons Arts Center Urban Youth Theater, where the play was researched, reimagined, and re-performed by the teens on its original stage over 100 years later. The result of this process is being made into a multimedia documentary work. Levy participated in Union Docs Early Production Lab (2022) for the development of her first feature-length non-fiction film based on her evolving project: PAULINA. She received an Asylum Arts Sustaining Practice Grant (2020); and grants from the US Embassy, Warsaw, Poland (2019) and Asylum Arts for development and presentation of the performance and engagement iterations of PAULINA, in collaboration with Polish writer and artist Patrycja Dołowy. Over 2018/19, Levy's artistic research in Poland was hosted by POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, with cooperation from the Archive and Genealogy departments of the Emmanuel Ringleblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw; and PAULINA was the Project-in-Residence for Festivalt, a radical Jewish art festival in Kraków (2019).
Levy was a participant in the Asylum Arts/POLIN Museum Poland Retreat for Jewish Artists in Warsaw (2017); received a CCNY Connor Travel Scholarship to study performance at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London (2014); a travel fellowship from the Czech Center New York for a curatorial residency at MeetFactory in Prague (2013); and residencies at CAC Troy (2011), The Gowanus Studio Space (2011), and Chashama North (2006). Levy holds an MFA in Digital and Interdisciplinary Art Practice from The City College of New York, and a BA in Studio Art from Wesleyan University, CT. She studied improv comedy and storytelling at Magnet Theater, New York, and is a co-founder of Temporary Files: an experimental video art-making cooperative and publishing platform.
From 2008 - 2018, Levy was the Founding Director of EFA Project Space, an exhibition program of The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts in Manhattan. There, she also created the SHIFT Residency supporting the creative practices of artists working for arts organizations in NYC. Her initiatives at EFA have received major support from the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Trust for Mutual Understanding, among others. From 2000 - 2008, Levy was Program Manager of International Print Center New York. She continues her cultural organizing work as a consultant and mentor to artists, and as co-founder of Temp. Files (launched in 2021), an experimental video art co-operative, residency, and publishing platform. Since 2023, Levy has been part-time faculty at Parsons School of Design at The New School.
Levy has been a guest lecturer and panelist at universities and institutions for both her art and organizational practices, including American University, Carnegie Mellon, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York Foundation for the Arts, Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute, Queens College, Rhode Island School of Design, School of Visual Arts, Tyler School of the Arts, and others; and has written numerous texts for catalogues and publications.