Bard Alumna Joanna Haigood ’79 Honored with Dance Magazine Award
The 2024 DanceMagazine Awards honor Bard alumna Joanna Haigood ’79, alongside George Faison, Liz Lerman, Mavis Staines, Shen Wei, and Mikhail Baryshnikov, whose work with Baryshnikov Arts earned him the Chairman’s Award. The theme for this year’s awards is “the stage and beyond”—the dancers, choreographers, and educators recognized are invested in work that often transcends the proscenium.
Bard Alumna Joanna Haigood ’79 Honored with Dance Magazine Award
The 2024 DanceMagazine Awards honor Bard alumna Joanna Haigood ’79, alongside George Faison, Liz Lerman, Mavis Staines, Shen Wei, and Mikhail Baryshnikov, whose work with Baryshnikov Arts earned him the Chairman’s Award. From its first year in 1954, the DanceMagazine Awards have been given annually in appreciation of the artistry, integrity, and resilience that dance artists have demonstrated over the course of their careers. The theme for this year’s awards is “the stage and beyond”—the dancers, choreographers, and educators recognized are invested in work that often transcends the proscenium.
“Since 1980 Joanna Haigood has been creating work that uses natural, architectural, and cultural environments as points of departure for movement exploration and narrative,” says the DanceMagazine Awards statement. “Her stages have included grain terminals, a clock tower, the pope’s palace, military forts, and a mile of neighborhood streets in the South Bronx. Her work has been commissioned by many arts institutions, including Dancing in the Streets, Jacob’s Pillow, the Walker Art Center, the National Black Arts Festival, and Festival d’Avignon. Haigood has had the privilege to mentor many extraordinary young artists at the École Nationale des Arts du Cirque, the Trinity Laban Conservatoire, Spelman College, Stanford University, the San Francisco Circus Center, and Zaccho Studio.”
Bard Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Yebel Gallegos will spend the week of March 18– 22 in the MADarts Residency Program, which provides artists and their collaborators unlimited access to a dance studio and a quiet, comfortable living space at the Modern Accord Depot in Accord, New York. Gallegos will continue work on MACHO Sensibilities, a project that critically examines the imposition of machismo on male-identifying dancers of Mexican and Mexican-American descent.
Bard Dance Professor Yebel Gallegos Awarded MADarts Residency
Bard Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Yebel Gallegos will spend the week of March 18– 22 in the MADarts Residency Program, which provides artists and their collaborators unlimited access to a dance studio and a quiet, comfortable living space at the Modern Accord Depot in Accord, New York. Gallegos will continue work on his long-term dance production project, MACHO Sensibilities, which critically examines the imposition of machismo on male-identifying dancers of Mexican and Mexican-American descent. During the residency, he will be developing a new section with his collaborators that is set to premiere at the Faculty Dance Concert, taking place in the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts’ LUMA Theater at Bard College in spring 2024.The section will be a trio comprising three Mexican and Mexican-American artists including Gallego, costume and stage designer David Arevalo, and composer/sound designer/percussionist Jonathan Rodriguez. This research project is anchored in autoethnographic writing, oral history research, and movement analysis. “I define machismo as an exaggerated performance of a ‘man’s role’ as it is encouraged by the confines of heteronormativity and patriarchy. Machismo overshadows the individuality of gender representation, preventing the inclusion of diverse interpretations of masculinity in society,” writes Gallego.
Alumnus Sam Asa Pratt ’14 performed at the 2023 Dance Magazine Awards Ceremony, where Pratt received a Harkness Promise Award alongside Amadi Washington. Their dance company, Baye & Asa, was praised by Harkness Foundation for Dance Executive Director Joan Finkelstein for its ability to “create political metaphors, interrogate systemic inequities, and contemporize ancient allegories.”
Baye & Asa, Codirected by Sam Asa Pratt ’14, Wins Harkness Promise Award at 2023 Dance Magazine Awards
Alumnus Sam Asa Pratt ’14 performed at the 2023 Dance Magazine Awards Ceremony, where Pratt received a Harkness Promise Award alongside Amadi Washington. Their dance company, Baye & Asa, was praised by Harkness Foundation for Dance Executive Director Joan Finkelstein for its ability to “create political metaphors, interrogate systemic inequities, and contemporize ancient allegories.” Accepting the award, Pratt said, “In a contemporary world, there’s a lot of pressure to put yourself into a camp, to distill, succinctly and uncompromisingly, what you believe and where you stand. I think dance is uniquely positioned as an art form that can liberate thought into indeterminacy and to widen toward multiplicity instead of narrowing towards one singular thesis. Art remains one of the most advanced pieces of technology we have as a species.”
Bard College Dance Program Launches Two-Year Partnership with Villa Albertine
Beginning in fall 2023, the Bard College Dance Program is launching a two-year partnership with Villa Albertine, a cultural institution that supports exchanges in arts and ideas between the United States, France, and beyond. Each semester, artists selected by Tara Lorenzen, director of Bard’s Dance Program, and Nicole Birmann Bloom, Villa Albertine’s program officer for the performing arts, in collaboration with Centre National de la Danse(CN D, Pantin, France) and other French choreographic centers, will teach technique and repertory courses in Bard’s dance curriculum.
“The Bard Dance Program is thrilled to partner with Villa Albertine,” said Lorenzen. “There has always been a robust exchange of innovative dance ideas between French-supported artists and the US and I look forward to continuing this tradition with the next generation of dance students here in Annandale.”
During the spring semester, a choreographer will conduct a one week creative residency in the Luma Theater/Fisher Center with a public showing for the Bard community and masterclasses for the student body. A unique component of this partnership allows Bard dance students to participate in the international dance platform CAMPING at the CN D in Pantin, France, each June. CN D is a public institution created in 1998, devoted to the preservation of choreographic and dance culture. Its distinctive CAMPING dance festival gives students the opportunity to work with choreographers from around the globe, perform their own choreographic projects, and develop teaching practices by conducting morning classes with their peers.
The partnership is launching during Albertine Dance Season, the year-long exploration of dance from inception to performance that includes multi-city tours by French, France-based, African, and Caribbean companies, artistic residencies for up-and-coming choreographers, a dance-themed symposium featuring global leaders in the field, and more.
“The team at Villa Albertine shares with Bard College the deepest appreciation of the true value of educational exchange and the enduring cultural benefits of arts in education,” said Gaëtan Bruel, cultural counselor and director of Villa Albertine. ” We have the greatest confidence that this two-year partnership will uniquely support and sustain Bard students in the enrichment of their arts experience while at Bard and shape their future artistry.”
Since 2009, the Bard Dance Program has hosted an in-residence dance company or performing arts organization bringing professional technique and composition to the academic program in the form of teaching, educational licensing projects, master classes, full-Company production residencies, and public performances.
This fall, choreographers and performers Marcela Santander (Chile/France) and Volmir Cordeiro (Brazil/France) will join the Dance faculty in Annandale-on-Hudson. Wanjiru Kamuyu (Kenya/France/USA) will have a discussion on September 18, 2023, based on her current touring project “An Immigrant’s Story” and her unique creative process.
Maria Q. Simpson Launches Ballet Website for Educators
Maria Q. Simpson, professor of dance at Bard College, has launched Three Ballet Teachers... (3BT) in collaboration with Zvi Gotheiner and Hannah Wiley. 3BT is an online resource featuring video documentation of original ballet class choreography by the three contemporary ballet teachers. “The website provides teachers of all levels of experience with choreographed center-floor sequences that can be used in full or in part, or as inspiration for their own classes,” Maria said. The project came out of the mutual belief among Simpson, Gotheiner, and Wiley that ballet class choreography represents a huge body of unrecognized creative work, and that this work should be accessible. “3BT is looking to both highlight and exalt the training space and the choreography that occurs there as representative of the living history of the art form,” Maria said.
New York Times Profiles Bard’s Fisher Center: At 20, an Upstate Arts Haven Keeps Breaking New Ground
The Fisher Center at Bard has become an incubator for commercially promising new work like Justin Peck’s Illinois, while holding tight to its experimental roots. For the New York Times, Jennifer Schuessler visits Bard’s Fisher Center in its 20th anniversary season, on the heels of a sold-out, extended run of Illinois, to talk with Fisher Center Artistic Director Gideon Lester, Illinois director Justin Peck, choreographer Pam Tanowitz, President Leon Botstein, and others about the Fisher Center’s past and future. “Since opening 20 years ago,” she writes, “the center’s Frank Gehry building has emerged as a hothouse for the creation of uncompromising, cross-disciplinary, and sometimes hard to describe hits.”
Acclaimed Director Anne Bogart ’74 Wins Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement
American theater and opera director and cofounder of SITI Company Anne Bogart ’74, who studied drama and dance at Bard and received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from the College in 2014, has won a 2023 Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement. The Obie Awards honor the highest caliber of off-Broadway and off-off Broadway theater to recognize brave work, champion new material, and advance careers in theater. Bogart accepted her honor at the 66th Obie Awards ceremony in New York City.
“In 1974, fresh out of college, I moved to New York City. There was nowhere else in the world that made sense to me. I wanted to be where theater was happening. And I wanted to direct plays,” she said in her acceptance speech. In 1992, Bogart, along with Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki and a group of like-minded artists interested in revitalizing and redefining contemporary theater in the United States, founded SITI Company. Bogart was honored by the Obie judges for her 30 years of work with SITI Company, an artistic ensemble company, which created more than 50 productions presented at venues around the world, and pushed the boundaries of contemporary theater through innovative approaches to actor training, collaboration, and cultural exchange.
In December 2022, Bard’s Fisher Center presented the world premiere of SITI Company’s reimagining of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, codirected by Anne Bogart and Tony Award winner Darron L West. The work, commissioned by the Fisher Center, was the final production in SITI Company’s 30th anniversary “Finale Season.”
Bard College Professors Souleymane Badolo and Kite Each Receive 2023 Creative Capital “Wild Futures: Art, Culture, Impact” Awards
Bard College Assistant Professor of Dance Souleymane Badolo and MFA alum in Music/Sound and American and Indigenous Studies Program faculty member Kite (aka Suzanne Kite MFA ’18) have won 2023 Creative Capital “Wild Futures: Art, Culture, Impact” Awards, which will fund the creation of experimental, risk-taking projects that push boundaries formally and thematically, venturing into wild, out-there, never-before-seen concepts, and future universes real or imagined.
Creative Capital awarded 50 groundbreaking projects—comprising 66 individual artists—focused on Technology, Performing Arts, and Literature, as well as Multidisciplinary and Socially Engaged forms. Souleymane Badolo (with Jacob Bamogo) won an award in Dance. Kite won an award in Technology. Awardees will receive varying amounts up to $50,000 in direct funding to help finance their projects and build thriving artistic careers. The award provides a range of grant services from industry connections and financial planning to peer mentorship and community-building opportunities. Grant funding is unrestricted and may be used for any purpose to advance the project, including, but not limited to, studio space, housing, groceries, staffing, childcare, equipment, computers, and travel. The combined value of the 2023 Creative Capital Awards totals more than $2.5 million in artist support.
“The 2023 Creative Capital cohort reaffirms the unpredictable and radical range of ideas alive in the arts today—from artists working in Burkina Faso to Cambodia and across the United States. We continue to see our democratic, open-call grantmaking process catalyze visionary projects that will influence our communities, our culture, and our environment,” said Christine Kuan, Creative Capital President Executive Director.
The Creative Capital grant is administered through a national open call, a democratic process involving external review of thousands of applications by international industry experts, arts administrators, curators, scholars, and artists. The 2023 grantee cohort comprises 75% BIPOC artists, representing Asian, Black or African American, Latinx, Native American or Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and Middle Eastern-identified artists; 10% of artists identify as having a disability; and 59% of artists identify as women, gender nonconforming, or nonbinary. The cohort includes emerging, mid-career, and established artists between the ages of 25 and 69. The artists are affiliated with all regions of the United States and its territories, as well as artists based in Cambodia, Burkina Faso, Germany, and Japan.
Kite also won a 2023 United States Artists Fellowship in Media. The award honors her creative accomplishments and supports her ongoing artistic and professional development. Kite is one of 45 USA Fellows across 10 creative disciplines who will receive unrestricted $50,000 cash awards. USA Fellowships are awarded to artists at all stages of their careers and from all areas of the country through a rigorous nomination and panel selection process. Fellowships are awarded in the following disciplines: Architecture & Design, Craft, Dance, Film, Media, Music, Theater & Performance, Traditional Arts, Visual Art, and Writing. Learn more about USA Fellowships here.
Souleymane ‘Solo’ Badolo is a Brooklyn-based dancer, choreographer, and founder of the Burkina Faso–based troupe Kongo Ba Téria, which fuses traditional African dance with Western contemporary dance. A native of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Badolo began his professional career with the African dance company DAMA. He has also performed with Salia nï Seydou and the National Ballet of Burkina Faso, and worked with French choreographers Elsa Wolliaston and Mathilde Monnier. Badolo and Kongo Ba Téria are featured in the documentary Movement (R)evolution Africa. He appeared in the 2015 BAM Next Wave Festival; has created solo projects for Danspace, New York Live Arts, Dance New Amsterdam, Harlem Stage, the 92nd Street Y, and New York’s River to River Festival; and was commissioned to create a dance for Philadanco as part of James Brown: Get on the Good Foot, which was produced by the Apollo Theater and toured nationally and internationally. He was nominated for a Bessie Award in 2011 as outstanding emerging choreographer, received the Juried Bessie Award in 2012, and a 2016 Bessie for Outstanding Production for his piece Yimbégré, which “gloriously communicated the clash and reconciliation of the different traditions held within one’s life, one’s body.” The Suitcase Fund of New York Live Arts has supported Badolo’s ongoing research in Africa. He graduated with an MFA from Bennington in June 2013. He has been on the Bard College faculty since 2017 and previously taught at the New School, Denison University, and Bennington College.
Kite aka Suzanne Kite is an Oglála Lakȟóta performance artist, visual artist, and composer raised in Southern California, with a BFA from CalArts in music composition, an MFA from Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School, and is a PhD candidate at Concordia University for the forthcoming dissertation, sound and video work, and interactive installation Hél čhaŋkú kiŋ ȟpáye (There lies the road). Kite’s scholarship and practice explores contemporary Lakota ontology through research-creation, computational media, and performance. Kite often works in collaboration, especially with family and community members. Her art practice includes developing Machine Learning and compositional systems for body interface movement performances, interactive and static sculpture, immersive video and sound installations, poetry and experimental lectures, experimental video, as well as co-running the experimental electronic imprint, Unheard Records. Her work has been featured in various publications, including the American Indian Culture and Research Journal, the Journal of Design and Science (MIT Press), with the award-winning article, “Making Kin with Machines”, and the sculpture Ínyan Iyé (Telling Rock) (2019) was featured on the cover of Canadian Art.
Napping at Work? Sara Mednick ’95 Speaks with Discover Magazine about “How Naps Improve Memory Performance”
Asleep on the job? Dr. Sara Mednick ’95, Bard alumna and professor of cognitive science at the University of California, says that could be a good thing for productivity. Speaking with Discover magazine, Mednick shared insights into the cognitive benefits of naps, which “benefit everything that nighttime sleep helps, including emotional regulation, attention, alertness, motor function and memory.” The length and timing of a nap also impacts its effects on our well-being, with higher benefits from naps before 1 pm, leading many companies and universities to create “designated sleeping pods to allow students and employees to nap whenever they need to.” Building off of findings from a 2018 paper coauthored by Mednick, Discover outlines that while “the benefits of napping may vary across different individuals,” given their many cognitive benefits, it might be time to reconsider how naps fit into our personal and professional lives.
Thursday, December 12, 2024 Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Choreographed by rising artists in the Bard College Dance Program, this concert of Senior Projects represents the culmination of four years of intensive choreographic inquiry and research. Their concepts have been realized with the support of a professional staff of designers.
7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Fisher Center, LUMA Theater
12/13
Friday
Fall Senior Dance Concert
Friday, December 13, 2024 Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Choreographed by rising artists in the Bard College Dance Program, this concert of Senior Projects represents the culmination of four years of intensive choreographic inquiry and research. Their concepts have been realized with the support of a professional staff of designers.
7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Fisher Center, LUMA Theater
12/14
Saturday
Fall Senior Dance Concert
Saturday, December 14, 2024 Fisher Center, LUMA Theater2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Choreographed by rising artists in the Bard College Dance Program, this concert of Senior Projects represents the culmination of four years of intensive choreographic inquiry and research. Their concepts have been realized with the support of a professional staff of designers.
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Fisher Center, LUMA Theater
12/14
Saturday
Fall Senior Dance Concert
Saturday, December 14, 2024 Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Choreographed by rising artists in the Bard College Dance Program, this concert of Senior Projects represents the culmination of four years of intensive choreographic inquiry and research. Their concepts have been realized with the support of a professional staff of designers.
7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Fisher Center, LUMA Theater
Campus Center, Multipurpose Room6:00 pm – 9:00 pm EST/GMT-5 "Capoeira Angola is an Afro-Brazilian martial art and dance with a liberatory purpose and strong musical tradition at its core. In this introductory class to Capoeira Angola, we will go over the fundamentals of movement and music that define the art form. Alongside physical training, we will sing songs and play the musical instruments of Capoeira. In addition to being a dance and martial art, Capoeira Angola is also, and maybe most importantly, a "game." Come ready to play, in loose-fitting clothes that you feel comfortable moving in, and ready to enjoy yourself."
Taganyahu Swaby is a professor of Capoeira Angola and an eastern medicine practitioner. Tagan has practiced the artf orm for more than two decades. Originally from Jamaica, Tagan first began training Capoeira Angola in Bahia, Brazil, in 2000. He has trained extensively with masters including Mestre João Grande. Mestre Boca Do Rio, and Mestre Alberto “Chorão” Nunes. He received the title of Professor from his Master, Mestre Chorão, in 2018. Tagan founded the group Acupe Do Brooklyn (formerly Angoleiros Do Brooklyn) in 2010 and has created, directed, and participated in presentations for Brooklyn Museum, Bam Dance Africa, Odunde Festival in Philadelphia, and the Brooklyn African Street Festival. Originally trained as a visual artist, Tagan also explores and celebrates Capoeira Angola in his award-winning Portuguese-Language films Se Safando and Flavio, and Through Printmaking.
Saturday, December 9, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:00 pm EST/GMT-5 The Bard College Dance Program presents BODY CONCEPTS.Senior Projects in Dance by: Hannah Herschend Justine FlorenceFree and open to the public.
Saturday, December 9, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST/GMT-5 The Bard College Dance Program presents BODY CONCEPTS.Senior Projects in Dance by: Hannah Herschend Justine FlorenceFree and open to the public.
Friday, December 8, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:00 pm EST/GMT-5 The Bard College Dance Program presents BODY CONCEPTS.Senior Projects in Dance by: Hannah Herschend Justine FlorenceFree and open to the public.
Thursday, December 7, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:00 pm EST/GMT-5 The Bard College Dance Program presents BODY CONCEPTS.Senior Projects in Dance by: Hannah Herschend Justine FlorenceFree and open to the public.
Saturday, November 4, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 The Bard College Dance Program presents EVENFALL, featuring choreography by students of the Dance Program, Zara Boss and Rose Maskati, with a special guest performance by Savannah Lyons Anthony ’16.
Saturday, November 4, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 The Bard College Dance Program presents EVENFALL, featuring choreography by students of the Dance Program, Zara Boss and Rose Maskati, with a special guest performance by Savannah Lyons Anthony ’16.
Friday, November 3, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 The Bard College Dance Program presents EVENFALL, featuring choreography by students of the Dance Program, Zara Boss and Rose Maskati, with a special guest performance by Savannah Lyons Anthony ’16.
Thursday, November 2, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 The Bard College Dance Program presents EVENFALL, featuring choreography by students of the Dance Program, Zara Boss and Rose Maskati, with a special guest performance by Savannah Lyons Anthony ’16.
Thursday, October 26, 2023
Campus Center, Multipurpose Room5:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 "Capoeira Angola is an Afro-Brazilian martial art and dance with a liberatory purpose and strong musical tradition at its core. In this introductory class to Capoeira Angola, we will go over the fundamentals of movement and music that define the art form. Alongside physical training, we will sing songs and play the musical instruments of Capoeira. In addition to being a dance and martial art, Capoeira Angola is also, and maybe most importantly, a "game." Come ready to play, in loose-fitting clothes that you feel comfortable moving in, and ready to enjoy yourself."
Taganyahu Swaby is a professor of Capoeira Angola and an eastern medicine practitioner. Tagan has practiced the artf orm for more than two decades. Originally from Jamaica, Tagan first began training Capoeira Angola in Bahia, Brazil, in 2000. He has trained extensively with masters including Mestre João Grande. Mestre Boca Do Rio, and Mestre Alberto “Chorão” Nunes. He received the title of Professor from his Master, Mestre Chorão, in 2018. Tagan founded the group Acupe Do Brooklyn (formerly Angoleiros Do Brooklyn) in 2010 and has created, directed, and participated in presentations for Brooklyn Museum, Bam Dance Africa, Odunde Festival in Philadelphia, and the Brooklyn African Street Festival. Originally trained as a visual artist, Tagan also explores and celebrates Capoeira Angola in his award-winning Portuguese-Language films Se Safando and Flavio, and Through Printmaking.
Friday, September 29, 2023
A Discussion with Jennifer Homans Campus Center, Weis Cinema2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Jennifer Homans talks about her recent book, Mr. B: George Balanchine's 20th Century. Balanchine’s life coincided with some of the biggest historical events of his time. Born in Russia under the last Czar, Balanchine experienced the upheavals of World War I, the Russian Revolution, exile, World War II, and the Cold War. A co-founder of the New York City Ballet in 1949, he pressed dance in America to the forefront of modernism and made it a popular art. None of this was easy, and we will talk about his loneliness and failures, his five marriages—all to dancers— and many loves, and the ways that loss and love shaped his art. We will also follow his bouts of ill health and spiritual crises, and learn of his profound musical skills and sensibility, and his immense determination to make some of the most glorious, strange, and beautiful dances ever to grace the modern stage. Homans will reflect on Balanchine's life and work, and also on the experience and paradoxes of writing a life. Mr. B:
George Balanchine’s Twentieth Century, tells the epic story of one of the greatest choreographers of our time. Born in Imperial St. Petersburg in 1904, Balanchine survived as a child, barely, World War One and the Russian Revolution. He saw broken bodies and gruesome death, the human form destroyed, and in his own dances, he started over, building with the sticks and bones of the old, ruined Imperial art, and with everything he picked up as he went along, to invent a whole new way of dancing that pressed ballet to the forefront of modern art. Homans’ book, a decade in the making and based on over 100 interviews and research in archives across Russia, Europe, and the Americas, carries us through Balanchine’s tumultuous and high- pitched life and into the making of his extraordinary dances. We follow his path through the Russian avant-garde and into exile, where he joined with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and worked with Matisse and Picasso; Ravel and Stravinsky; surrealism, Dada and expressionism. We see him flee Europe in 1933 for NYC, where he founded, with Lincoln Kirstein, the NYCB in 1948. None of this was easy, and Homans shows us his loneliness and failed companies, his five marriages—all to dancers— and many loves. We follow his bouts of ill health and his spiritual crises, and learn of his profound musical skills and sensibility, and his immense determination to make some of the most glorious and beautiful, strange, absurd, and at times gruesome dances ever to grace the modern stage. Balanchine lived through his dancers. He was not like Mozart or Einstein or Picasso working alone to change the way people hear or think or see. He needed music and a whole theatrical enterprise, but dancers above all. His gift didn’t exist without them, and he gathered them and shaped them, making his own paints and pigments from their flesh and blood. Making dances was personal, psychological, intimate even, and because women were his primary material, and because he was a man who loved women, eroticism and love were always a part of it. As a man, Balanchine was deeply human, but also genuinely otherworldly—not of this life, and he knew it. His dances depended on the dancers he loved who, in some alchemy of art, were also him. They called him ‘Mr. B.’
Monday, September 18, 2023
Campus Center, Weis Cinema6:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 A showing of La Visite followed by a discussion that will detail her creative process and unique experience of navigating creative spaces as an immigrant. The discussion will be facilitated by Souleymane Badolo, assistant professor of dance, and Marcela Santander, visiting artist in residence.
Sunday, July 23, 2023
Following performances by Emily Johnson (Yup’ik) / Catalyst and Jeffrey Gibson (Choctaw/Cherokee) with Arielle Twist (Cree) on July 22, Johnson and Gibson will join in conversation with chief curator of Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969, Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish First Nation). CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Free, no registration required.
In partnership with CCS Bard, the Center for Indigenous Studies will present performances by influential artists Emily Johnson/Catalyst and Ya Tseen as well as a series of artist talks that expand the exhibition into new conceptual territory and themes. These initiatives were organized by the Center for Indigenous Studies, in complement with Indian Theater, throughout the duration of the show.
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Choreographed by rising artists in the Bard dance program, this concert of Senior Projects represents the culmination of four years of intensive choreographic inquiry and research. Their concepts have been realized with the support of a professional staff of designers.Choreography by Itzel Herrera Garcia Antonia Salathé
Saturday, May 13, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Choreographed by rising artists in the Bard dance program, this concert of Senior Projects represents the culmination of four years of intensive choreographic inquiry and research. Their concepts have been realized with the support of a professional staff of designers.Choreography by Itzel Herrera Garcia Antonia Salathé
Saturday, May 13, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Choreographed by rising artists in the Bard dance program, this concert of Senior Projects represents the culmination of four years of intensive choreographic inquiry and research. Their concepts have been realized with the support of a professional staff of designers.Choreography by Itzel Herrera Garcia Antonia Salathé
Friday, May 12, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Choreographed by rising artists in the Bard dance program, this concert of Senior Projects represents the culmination of four years of intensive choreographic inquiry and research. Their concepts have been realized with the support of a professional staff of designers.Choreography by Itzel Herrera Garcia Antonia Salathé
Friday, May 12, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Choreographed by rising artists in the Bard dance program, this concert of Senior Projects represents the culmination of four years of intensive choreographic inquiry and research. Their concepts have been realized with the support of a professional staff of designers.Choreography by Itzel Herrera Garcia Antonia Salathé
Thursday, May 11, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Choreographed by rising artists in the Bard dance program, this concert of Senior Projects represents the culmination of four years of intensive choreographic inquiry and research. Their concepts have been realized with the support of a professional staff of designers.Choreography by Itzel Herrera Garcia Antonia Salathé
Saturday, April 29, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 A dynamic evening of choreography by the distinguished faculty of the Bard College Dance Program, performed by students in the program and guests of the faculty.
Saturday, April 29, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 A dynamic evening of choreography by the distinguished faculty of the Bard College Dance Program, performed by students in the program and guests of the faculty.
Saturday, April 29, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 A dynamic evening of choreography by the distinguished faculty of the Bard College Dance Program, performed by students in the program and guests of the faculty.
Saturday, April 29, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 A dynamic evening of choreography by the distinguished faculty of the Bard College Dance Program, performed by students in the program and guests of the faculty.
Friday, April 28, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 A dynamic evening of choreography by the distinguished faculty of the Bard College Dance Program, performed by students in the program and guests of the faculty.
Friday, April 28, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 A dynamic evening of choreography by the distinguished faculty of the Bard College Dance Program, performed by students in the program and guests of the faculty.
Thursday, April 27, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 A dynamic evening of choreography by the distinguished faculty of the Bard College Dance Program, performed by students in the program and guests of the faculty.
Tuesday, March 14, 2023
Gibney Work-in-Progress showing Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 THIS PROGRAM has been canceled due to inclement weather.A dynamic duet by commissioned choreographer Yue Yin, A Measurable Experience marks the third year of the Gibney Company’s partnership with the Bard College Dance Program and the culmination of its Spring residency in the LUMA Theater at Bard.Please join us for a Q&A after the performance.
Saturday, March 11, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Choreographed and performed by Bard students, assisted by professional lighting and costume designers, this concert gives students a chance to explore new territory in dance-making. Dances are presented in partial fulfillment for acceptance into the Dance Program.Choreography by Zara Boss Justine Denamiel Rose Maskati Elsa Wood
Saturday, March 11, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Choreographed and performed by Bard students, assisted by professional lighting and costume designers, this concert gives students a chance to explore new territory in dance-making. Dances are presented in partial fulfillment for acceptance into the Dance Program.Choreography by Zara Boss Justine Denamiel Rose Maskati Elsa Wood
Saturday, March 11, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Choreographed and performed by Bard students, assisted by professional lighting and costume designers, this concert gives students a chance to explore new territory in dance-making. Dances are presented in partial fulfillment for acceptance into the Dance Program.Choreography by Zara Boss Justine Denamiel Rose Maskati Elsa Wood
Saturday, March 11, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Choreographed and performed by Bard students, assisted by professional lighting and costume designers, this concert gives students a chance to explore new territory in dance-making. Dances are presented in partial fulfillment for acceptance into the Dance Program.Choreography by Zara Boss Justine Denamiel Rose Maskati Elsa Wood
Friday, March 10, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Choreographed and performed by Bard students, assisted by professional lighting and costume designers, this concert gives students a chance to explore new territory in dance-making. Dances are presented in partial fulfillment for acceptance into the Dance Program.Choreography by Zara Boss Justine Denamiel Rose Maskati Elsa Wood
Friday, March 10, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Choreographed and performed by Bard students, assisted by professional lighting and costume designers, this concert gives students a chance to explore new territory in dance-making. Dances are presented in partial fulfillment for acceptance into the Dance Program.Choreography by Zara Boss Justine Denamiel Rose Maskati Elsa Wood
Thursday, March 9, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Choreographed and performed by Bard students, assisted by professional lighting and costume designers, this concert gives students a chance to explore new territory in dance-making. Dances are presented in partial fulfillment for acceptance into the Dance Program.Choreography by Zara Boss Justine Denamiel Rose Maskati Elsa Wood
Sunday, February 26, 2023
by Euripidies Fisher Center, LUMA Theater2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Phaedra is in love with Hippolytos — Hippolytos is her stepson. Hippolytos is in love with purity—obsessed with chastity and virginity. He worships Artemis and neglects Aphrodite. So Aphrodite takes her revenge and brings Hippolytos and his rigid world of patriarchal binaries to its knees.As Phaedra gets swept along, a pawn in Aphrodite’s scheme, she wrestles with her body, her place in the world—and how to survive as a woman in a society built on subjugation.With dark psychological acuity, Hippolytos unflinchingly delves into the complexities of transgression, desire, shame, family, betrayal, revenge, and the absolute horror of being in love.Image courtesy of Lou Havlicek, West75thphoto.com.
Sunday, February 26, 2023
by Euripidies Fisher Center, LUMA Theater2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Phaedra is in love with Hippolytos — Hippolytos is her stepson. Hippolytos is in love with purity—obsessed with chastity and virginity. He worships Artemis and neglects Aphrodite. So Aphrodite takes her revenge and brings Hippolytos and his rigid world of patriarchal binaries to its knees.As Phaedra gets swept along, a pawn in Aphrodite’s scheme, she wrestles with her body, her place in the world—and how to survive as a woman in a society built on subjugation.With dark psychological acuity, Hippolytos unflinchingly delves into the complexities of transgression, desire, shame, family, betrayal, revenge, and the absolute horror of being in love.Image courtesy of Lou Havlicek, West75thphoto.com.
Saturday, February 25, 2023
by Euripidies Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Phaedra is in love with Hippolytos — Hippolytos is her stepson. Hippolytos is in love with purity—obsessed with chastity and virginity. He worships Artemis and neglects Aphrodite. So Aphrodite takes her revenge and brings Hippolytos and his rigid world of patriarchal binaries to its knees.As Phaedra gets swept along, a pawn in Aphrodite’s scheme, she wrestles with her body, her place in the world—and how to survive as a woman in a society built on subjugation.With dark psychological acuity, Hippolytos unflinchingly delves into the complexities of transgression, desire, shame, family, betrayal, revenge, and the absolute horror of being in love.Image courtesy of Lou Havlicek, West75thphoto.com.
Saturday, February 25, 2023
by Euripidies Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Phaedra is in love with Hippolytos — Hippolytos is her stepson. Hippolytos is in love with purity—obsessed with chastity and virginity. He worships Artemis and neglects Aphrodite. So Aphrodite takes her revenge and brings Hippolytos and his rigid world of patriarchal binaries to its knees.As Phaedra gets swept along, a pawn in Aphrodite’s scheme, she wrestles with her body, her place in the world—and how to survive as a woman in a society built on subjugation.With dark psychological acuity, Hippolytos unflinchingly delves into the complexities of transgression, desire, shame, family, betrayal, revenge, and the absolute horror of being in love.Image courtesy of Lou Havlicek, West75thphoto.com.
Saturday, February 25, 2023
by Euripidies Fisher Center, LUMA Theater2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Phaedra is in love with Hippolytos — Hippolytos is her stepson. Hippolytos is in love with purity—obsessed with chastity and virginity. He worships Artemis and neglects Aphrodite. So Aphrodite takes her revenge and brings Hippolytos and his rigid world of patriarchal binaries to its knees.As Phaedra gets swept along, a pawn in Aphrodite’s scheme, she wrestles with her body, her place in the world—and how to survive as a woman in a society built on subjugation.With dark psychological acuity, Hippolytos unflinchingly delves into the complexities of transgression, desire, shame, family, betrayal, revenge, and the absolute horror of being in love.Image courtesy of Lou Havlicek, West75thphoto.com.
Saturday, February 25, 2023
by Euripidies Fisher Center, LUMA Theater2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Phaedra is in love with Hippolytos — Hippolytos is her stepson. Hippolytos is in love with purity—obsessed with chastity and virginity. He worships Artemis and neglects Aphrodite. So Aphrodite takes her revenge and brings Hippolytos and his rigid world of patriarchal binaries to its knees.As Phaedra gets swept along, a pawn in Aphrodite’s scheme, she wrestles with her body, her place in the world—and how to survive as a woman in a society built on subjugation.With dark psychological acuity, Hippolytos unflinchingly delves into the complexities of transgression, desire, shame, family, betrayal, revenge, and the absolute horror of being in love.Image courtesy of Lou Havlicek, West75thphoto.com.
Friday, February 24, 2023
by Euripidies Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Phaedra is in love with Hippolytos — Hippolytos is her stepson. Hippolytos is in love with purity—obsessed with chastity and virginity. He worships Artemis and neglects Aphrodite. So Aphrodite takes her revenge and brings Hippolytos and his rigid world of patriarchal binaries to its knees.As Phaedra gets swept along, a pawn in Aphrodite’s scheme, she wrestles with her body, her place in the world—and how to survive as a woman in a society built on subjugation.With dark psychological acuity, Hippolytos unflinchingly delves into the complexities of transgression, desire, shame, family, betrayal, revenge, and the absolute horror of being in love.Image courtesy of Lou Havlicek, West75thphoto.com.
Saturday, February 18, 2023
Fisher Center, Felicitas S. Thorne Dance Studio1:00 pm – 4:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Capoeira Angola is an Afro-Brazilian martial art and dance with a liberatory purpose and strong musical tradition at its core. In this introductory class to Capoeira Angola, we will go over the fundamentals of movement and music that define the artform. Alongside physical training, we will sing songs and play the musical instruments of Capoeira. In addition to being a dance and martial art, Capoeira Angola is also, and maybe most importantly, a game. Come ready to play in loose-fitting clothes that you feel comfortable moving in and ready to enjoy yourself.
Taganyahu Swaby is a professor of Capoeira Angola and an eastern medicine practitioner. Tagan has practiced the artform for more than two decades. Originally from Jamaica, Tagan first began training Capoeira Angola in Bahia, Brazil in 2000. He has trained extensively with masters including Mestre Joao Grande, Mestre Boca Do Rio, and Mestre Alberto “Chorao” Nunes. He received the title of professor from his master, Mestre Chorao, in 2018. Tagan founded the group “Acupe Do Brooklyn” (formerly “Angoleiros Do Brooklyn”) in 2010 and has created, directed, and participated in presentations including for the Brooklyn Museum, Bam Dance Africa, Odunde Festival in Philadelphia, and the Brooklyn African Street Festival. Originally trained as a visual artist, Tagan also explores and celebrates Capoeira Angola in his award-winning Portuguese-language films Se Safando and Flavio, and through printmaking.
GRAHAM STUDIO SERIES: NEW@Graham with Baye & Asa
Be the first to see a preview of a brand new work created for the Company by Baye & Asa that will premiere at the Joyce Theater this April! The evening will include a full rehearsal runthrough of the new work, as well as a conversation with the choreographers and comments from the dancers who have been part of the creative process! IN-PERSON and LIVE-STREAMED from the Martha Graham Studio Theater, NYC