DREW KLEIN (b. 1982) is Director of Performance at Large at the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) in Cincinnati, Ohio. Joining the CAC as Performance Curator in 2011, he created the institution’s first program dedicated to performance and time-based practices in its history, implementing platforms such as the Black Box Performance Series, the discourse series Goetta-Institut, and the annual interdisciplinary festival This Time Tomorrow (TTT). The central tenets of his work are cultural exchange and ethical collaboration. He has provided dozens of North American premieres for international artists, including Alice Ripoll/Cia REC, Begüm Erciyas, and Mithkal Alzghair, and has been instrumental in the creation of new performances through commissioning and producing works from makers such as Radouan Mriziga, Napoleon Maddox, Jens Lekman, and many more. He has engaged in multi-project collaborations with artists such as Mriziga, Kaneza Schaal, Raquel André, Kate McIntosh, Ingri Fiksdal, and eddy kwon.
Drew has been visiting curator and/or lecturer at organizations including Fusebox Festival, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, DiverseWorks, University of Cincinnati, and Art Academy of Cincinnati. He has served as a juror and panelist for artist-supporting foundations such as Creative Capital, MAP Fund, Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, Performing Arts Japan, and United States Artists.
Prior to joining the CAC, he worked in the New York independent film world with Cinetic Media and Sloss Eckhouse Dasti Haynes LawCo LLP. Holding a BFA in Electronic Media from the University of Cincinnati, he received an MA in Cultural Studies with great distinction from KU Leuven, researching equity and artistic mobility in the time of global climate crisis. Since 2021, he is based in Amsterdam.