Our Programs
Programs in the Division of the Arts include:
- Architecture
- Art History and Visual Culture
- Dance
- Film and Electronic Arts
- Music
- Photography
- Studio Arts
- Theater and Performance
Coursework and Requirements
As a student progresses to the Upper College, the coursework increasingly consists of smaller studio discussion groups and seminars in which active participation is expected. Advisory conferences, tutorials, and independent work prepare the student for the Senior Project. This yearlong independent project may be a critical or theoretical monograph, a collection of essays, or, for a large proportion of students, an artistic work, such as an exhibition of original paintings, sculpture, or photography; performances in dance, theater, or music; dance choreography or musical composition; or the making of a short film with sound. In designing their Senior Project topics, students may have reason to join their arts studies together with a complementary field or discipline, including programs or concentrations in other divisions. Plans for such integrated or interdivisional projects are normally created on an individual basis with the adviser.
Discover More
Photo by Paula Court
Live Arts Bard
“When I was a student at Bard, I was drawn to the Fisher Center because of Live Arts Bard. LAB is pushing the frontiers of these art forms, all of which are becoming more open and fluid.” —Sam Miller ’15
Live Arts Bard (LAB) is the interdisciplinary residency and commissioning program of Bard’s Fisher Center. Since its launch in 2012, Fisher Center LAB has supported residencies, workshops, and performances for hundreds of artists, incubating new projects and engaging audiences, students, faculty, and staff in the process of creating contemporary performances.
Live Arts Bard (LAB) is the interdisciplinary residency and commissioning program of Bard’s Fisher Center. Since its launch in 2012, Fisher Center LAB has supported residencies, workshops, and performances for hundreds of artists, incubating new projects and engaging audiences, students, faculty, and staff in the process of creating contemporary performances.
Arts News and Events
Featured News
Mara Baldwin Awarded Summer 2025 Artist Residency by the McColl Center
Baldwin’s multidisciplinary and research-based work uses textiles and drawings to create serial and narrative forms, and focuses on the impossible dream of utopia.
Mara Baldwin Awarded Summer 2025 Artist Residency by the McColl Center
Mara Baldwin, visiting artist in residence in Studio Arts at Bard.
Post Date: 06-20-2025
Recent News
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Richard Aldous Reviews Walter Lippmann: An Intellectual Biography for the Wall Street Journal
Richard Aldous Reviews Walter Lippmann: An Intellectual Biography for the Wall Street Journal
Professor of History Richard Aldous published a review in the Wall Street Journal of Tom Arnold-Forster’s biography of Walter Lippmann, a twentieth-century journalist. Walter Lippmann: An Intellectual Biography follows Lippmann’s career as one of the most ubiquitous journalists of his era who wrote several books of democratic theory. Aldous evaluates Arnold-Forster’s biography as a good first book and a “fair hearing,” rather than a defense, for its subject. Despite being less well-known today than some of his contemporaries, Lippmann was significant because of his “arresting, often contradictory ideas [that shaped] the national debate,” argues Aldous. He says Lippman passed the litmus test “for all public intellectuals— to illuminate their own time and make us think about ours.”Professor of History Richard Aldous.
Post Date: 06-20-2025
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Coralie Kraft ’13 Interviewed by PBS News About Doomsday Preppers
Coralie Kraft ’13 Interviewed by PBS News About Doomsday Preppers
Coralie Kraft ’13, visual editor, writer, and Bard College alumna, was interviewed by PBS News about her New York Times Magazine article “The ‘Panic Industry’ Boom,” for which she was also the contributing photo editor. The article and photo essay explored how some Americans are increasingly spending vast amounts of money prepping for doomsday scenarios by building bunkers, bomb shelters, gun rooms, panic rooms and other means of surviving through a collapse. In conversation with Ali Rogin, Kraft discussed her thoughts on why more people are preparing for disasters, the companies that build the structures meant to safeguard their clients, and the mindsets behind those who are preparing for such scenarios. “I think that as more and more people are impacted by things like pandemics, by civil unrest and demonstrations and activism in their cities, by financial collapse as those factors hit a wider and wider population, it makes sense to me that more of us would be interested in this type of, ‘what can I do in the event of a disaster scenario or a doomsday scenario,’” Kraft told PBS.Bard college alumna Coralie Kraft ’13.
Post Date: 06-20-2025
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Henry Mielarczyk ’25 Joins Stennis Program for Congressional Interns
Henry Mielarczyk ’25 Joins Stennis Program for Congressional Interns
Bard alumnus Henry Mielarczyk ’25, a philosophy and music performance major, has been accepted into the 2025 Stennis Program for Congressional Interns. The internship, given by the Stennis Center for Public Service in Washington, DC, is a competitive bipartisan program designed to provide congressional interns with an opportunity to better understand the role of Congress as an institution and its role in the democracy of the United States. Interns will connect with current and former senior congressional staff through a series of discussion sessions designed to provide an in-depth look at Congress and its operations with other institutions. The Stennis Center is a bipartisan legislative branch agency created by Congress in 1988 to promote and strengthen the highest ideals of public service in the United States. The center aims to develop and deliver a portfolio of unique programs for young people, leaders in local, state, and federal government, and congressional staff.Henry Mielarczyk ’25.
Post Date: 06-18-2025
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For the Washington Post, Francine Prose Reflects on Mrs. Dalloway
For the Washington Post, Francine Prose Reflects on Mrs. Dalloway
To celebrate the centennial of the publication of Mrs. Dalloway, Distinguished Writer in Residence Francine Prose wrote a retrospective on Virginia Woolf’s most famous work for the Washington Post. Mrs. Dalloway, which follows a woman over a single June day, turns 100 this week. Prose writes that her recent re-read impressed her because of Woolf’s “grace and skill” that “made the [writing] process look easy.” Discussing what makes the novel special a century later, she says it celebrates humanity while not ignoring the suffering of life: “Woolf’s subject is not just Clarissa Dalloway’s life but life itself, the wonder of human consciousness and what it means — what it feels like — to be a human being.”Francine Prose. Photo by Christine Jean Chambers
Prose is the author of 22 works of fiction and has taught at Bard since 2005.
Post Date: 06-10-2025
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Three Bard College Graduates Win 2025 Fulbright Awards
Three Bard College Graduates Win 2025 Fulbright Awards
Three Bard College graduates have won 2025–26 Fulbright Awards for individually designed research projects and English teaching assistantships. The Fulbright program facilitates cultural exchange through direct interaction on an individual basis in the classroom, field, home, and in routine tasks, allowing the grantee to gain an appreciation of others’ viewpoints and beliefs, the way they do things, and the way they think. During their grants, Fulbrighters meet, work, live with, and learn from the people of the host country, sharing daily experiences. Bard College is a Fulbright top producing institution.Clockwise L-R: Maia Cluver ’22, Cecilia Giancola ’25, and Oskar Pezalla-Granlund ’24.
Maia Cluver ’22, a joint Art History and Visual Culture and Human Rights major, has been selected for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) in Jordan for the 2025-26 academic year. As a student, Cluver was a language tutor in the Bard Learning Commons, and currently works in the Academic Resource Center at Al-Quds Bard.
Cecilia Giancola ’25, who majored in Historical Studies, has been awarded a Fulbright independent study/research grant to India. Giancola’s Fulbright is an archival research project focused on the operations of the Baroda (Gaikwad) state in western India during the 19th century. In her research, Giancola plans to investigate the operations of the Baroda–a “princely” state in colonial India–with the British Raj and their illicit trade and smuggling practices.
Oskar Pezalla-Granlund ’24, an Art History and Visual Culture major, has received a Fulbright independent study/research grant to Spain. Oskar’s project investigates the history of Philippine-Spanish artistic and cultural relations through the history of Museo-Biblioteca de Ultramar (1887-1908), a museum dedicated to displaying the art, culture, and history of the Spanish colonies. Pezalla-Granlund’s research aims to contribute to the often overlooked history of the artistic and cultural contact between the Philippines and Spain through the examination of a museum that crystalizes the contradictions of late-colonial society.
Fulbright is a program of the US Department of State, with funding provided by the US government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program. Fulbright alumni work to make a positive impact on their communities, sectors, and the world and have included 62 Nobel Prize recipients, 80 MacArthur Foundation Fellows, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, and 42 current or former heads of state or government.
Post Date: 06-04-2025
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Yebel Gallegos Awarded New York State Choreographers Initiative 2025 Award
Yebel Gallegos Awarded New York State Choreographers Initiative 2025 Award
Yebel Gallegos, assistant professor of dance at Bard, has been awarded a New York State Choreographers Initiative 2025 Award of $11,500 through the New York State’s DanceForce, a network of dance activists working to increase the quality and quantity of dance, in partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts. The award, which is designed to help awardees develop their choreographic skills by providing resources to advance their creative practice, will fund Yebel with a $2,500 stipend and paid support for both a mentor and creative time spent with dancers and other collaborators of his choice. Yebel’s choreography project will become a mini-residency designed to fit his specific artistic needs, and he has invited Dante Puleio, artistic director of the Limón Dance Company, to serve as his mentor. Puleio’s insight into how experienced dancers navigate inherited choreographic traditions makes him an ideal guide as Yebel explores new methods of movement generation with professionals in the field.Yebel Gallegos, assistant professor of dance at Bard.
Post Date: 06-02-2025