American Dance Festival

ADF's Quilan "Cue" Arnold teaches a class at Bard. Photo by Karl Rabe

In fall 2018, the Bard Dance Program embarked on a partnership with the American Dance Festival (ADF). Through coursework, artist residencies, performance opportunities, and public dialogs, students encounter a range of well-respected artists who put research and inquiry at the center of their professional practices.

ADF Dance Intensives

About the Partnership

The Bard/ADF partnership fully realizes the dance program’s mission to reflect a 21st century understanding of the study of dance in a liberal arts college setting. Each year, ADF develops a critical question that provides a framework for the Bard/ADF curriculum, as well as for ADF’s summer and winter intensives. The critical question provides purpose, tone, and relevance to the curriculum. ADF’s critical lens for 2018 was to examine how two influential roots of modern dance—the African diaspora and Western European dance traditions—operate within contemporary practice. Critical questions such as this deepen students' understanding of their dance practice and contribute new knowledge about the field that can be disseminated through each institution’s channels.

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About ADF

ADF's sustained record of creative achievement is indivisible from the history of modern dance.

Since 1934, ADF has served the needs of dance, dancers, choreographers, and performance artists through its performance season and summer school. Named “One of the nation’s most important institutions” by the New York Times and “The world’s greatest dance festival” by the New York Post, ADF’s reputation is global. It is rare to find a professional dance artist working today who has not attended either its summer school or its winter intensive.

ADF Faculty

Each academic year, ADF artist educators lead five courses, including coursework in movement forms and creative practices from a range of traditions for students of all levels. ADF faculty and the ADF artist-in-residence for the current academic year can be found on the Bard faculty webpage.

See our Faculty