Pole dancing is a form generally excluded from the critical discourse surrounding dance, and—though increasingly less so—dance is a form historically excluded from the critical discourse of fine arts and the museum. It is thrilling then to experience Gerard & Kelly’s P.O.L.E. (People, Objects, Language, Exchange), a series of events and performances at the New Museum that shrug off these distinctions and allow pole dance to exist both as Dance and as Fine Art, with capitals D, F, and A, respectively.

Swiss choreographer Alexandra Bachzetsis’s From A to B via C orbits around a brief reconstruction of the 17th-century Diego Velazquez painting “Venus at her Mirror.”

Thick, white stripes are painted on the black back wall of The Kitchen’s stage—immediately evoking both the American flag and the slats of prison. Dancer Cassie Mey rises silently from her seated post and begins a transfixing, balletic solo.

Effie Bowen looks people in the eye. She draws her viewers with her, deep into mysterious, glittering atmospheres. Performing her own choreography or that of regular collaborators like Jen Rosenblit and Kim Brandt, Bowen’s projects tend toward performance art.

A note from the Editor: In the same spirit of the Music section’s Undiscovered Lands, we’ve dedicated October to dancers who we believe deserve greater recognition. Spotlighted here are 16 artists who have captivated us with their virtuosity and inventiveness, their vulnerability and grace. By no means an exhaustive list, we’re excited to begin the conversation.

The audience is still filing into the theater when Kim Brandt’s troupe of 24 dancers—amongst them the other three choreographers on the bill—collapse into a mountain of bodies onstage.