News

BGC’s newest exhibition is a “captivating” exploration of the influence of the past on modern jewelry design.

The Bard College Conservatory of Music presented The Degree Recital of the Graduate Conducting Program on March 30, featuring conductors Renée Anne Louprette and Michael Patterson, who led exceptional performances of works by Beethoven, Vaughan Williams, Mozart, and Stravinsky for an enthusiastic, near-capacity audience in Olin Hall.

This summer, the Bard Music Festival celebrates its 30th anniversary season with a two-week, in-depth exploration of “Korngold and His World.” In twelve themed concert programs, complemented by pre-concert lectures, a film screening, panel discussions, and expert commentary, Bard examines the life and career of Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957), the under-sung yet hugely influential composer whose lush Romanticism would come to define the quintessential Hollywood sound. The festival will take place over two weekends, August 9–11 and 16–18, as the centerpiece of Bard SummerScape 2019.

Daniel Fish's "scrappy student staging" of Oklahoma! became a Bard legend. Then it transformed from the Theater Program to Bard SummerScape, and now to Broadway.

Talk to people about the director Daniel Fish, and certain words tend to come up a lot. Intense. Exacting. Tortured.

There’s his work, which lies at the challenging intersection of experimental theater, opera, film and installation art. And then there’s the man himself, whose rail-thin physique, storm of dark hair and penchant for black tends to draw analogies to a Dostoyevsky character.

Daniel Fish came to Bard to direct students in a production of Oklahoma! when Vaill was a senior. Twelve years later, “Vaill's portrayal of Jud Fry is about to become one of the most talked-about performances of the year.”

Filmmakers Adam Khalil ’14 and Zack Khalil ’11, who are brothers and Bard graduates, will received a two-year, $40,000 grant to pursue their work.

Elliott Sharp ’73—multitalented performer, composer, and producer—continues to be a leading figure in Manhattan’s downtown music community.

The show chronicles how a study of the indigenous people of British Columbia, originally published in 1897, has acted as a guide for contemporary Kwakiutl peoples.

The yearlong residency program is open to alumni/ae of the Bard MFA program and affiliated artists of Live Arts Bard. This year’s winners: artists William Lamson, Caitlin MacBride, and Tania El Khoury, visiting assistant professor of theater and performance at Bard; and pianist Courtney Bryan.

Artist Tschabalala Self ’12 explores the iconography, interiority, and subject status of black women in her multimedia portraits. She discusses her exhibition at Seattle’s Frye Art Museum in this interview.

The Orchestra Now (TŌN) continues its season at Bard Fisher Center on April 6 and 7 with Verdi’s celebrated Requiem, led by TŌN’s music director, Leon Botstein. The immense work is set for double choir and orchestra, and will feature soprano Margaret Tigue, mezzo-soprano Chloë Schaaf, and bass Wei Wu.

Led by The Boston Globe’s “bona fide b-girl,” Ephrat Asherie makes her Fisher Center debut with Odeon, a high-energy, hybrid hip-hop dance work set to and inspired by the music of early 20th-century Brazilian composer Ernesto Nazareth, played live. Odeon will be performed in the Fisher Center’s LUMA Theater on Saturday, April 13 at 7:30  p.m., and Sunday, April 14 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at fishercenter.bard.edu or by calling 845-758-7900.

Odeon delves into what happens when you bring together the extended family of street and club dances—including breaking, hip hop, house and vogue—remix them, pick them apart, and push them in new choreographic directions. An original dance work for seven dancers and four musicians, Odeon is the second collaboration between sister and brother team Ephrat and Ehud Asherie, choreographer and musical director, respectively.

Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie, a 2016 Bessie Award winner for Innovative Achievement in Dance, creates work for the dynamic group of multifaceted dancers in her company Ephrat Asherie Dance. The company embodies many different street and club dance styles including breaking, hip hop, house and vogue and is dedicated to revealing the inherently complex and dynamic qualities of these forms, “paving the way for something new” (The New York Times). 

While in residence at the Fisher Center, Asherie will also be developing a new work, which will be presented to the public in an open rehearsal on Friday, April 12 at 7 p.m. also in the LUMA Theater. This work-in-progress showing will be free and open to the public.

Odeon is presented through the Bard College Dance Program’s partnership with the American Dance Festival. Presentation support is provided by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

EPHRAT “BOUNCE” ASHERIE, a 2016 Bessie Award Winner for Innovative Achievement in Dance, is a New York City–based B-girl, dancer, and choreographer. As artistic director of Ephrat Asherie Dance (EAD) she has presented work at the Apollo Theater, FiraTarrega, Jacob’s Pillow, New York Live Arts, Summerstage, and the Yard, among others. Ephrat has received numerous awards to support her work, including a Mondo Cane! commission from Dixon Place, a Creative Development Residency from Jacob’s Pillow, Workspace and Extended Life Residencies from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, a Travel and Study Grant from the Jerome Foundation, and two residencies through the CUNY Dance Initiative. Her first evening-length work, A Single Ride, received two Bessie nominations in 2012 for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer and for Outstanding Sound Design by Marty Beller. Most recently, Ephrat received a National Dance Project award to support the development and touring of her newest work, Odeon. Set to premiere in the summer of 2018, Odeon was also made possible by Jacob's Pillow Dance, Mass MoCA, Works & Process at the Guggenheim, and the Jacob's Pillow Fellowship at the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts at LIU Post. Ephrat is a regular guest artist with Dorrance Dance and has worked and collaborated with Doug Elkins, Rennie Harris, Bill Irwin, David Parsons, Gus Solomons Jr., and Buddha Stretch, among others.

Ephrat has been on faculty at Wesleyan University and set pieces for students at Smith College, SUNY Brockport, Alvin Ailey Dance Center, University of Texas Rio Grande and Texas Tech University.  Ephrat teaches at Broadway Dance Center and is a founding member of the all-female house dance collective, MAWU. She earned her BA from Barnard College, Columbia University in Italian and her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she researched the vernacular jazz dance roots of contemporary street and club dances.

Ehud Asherie, “a master of swing and stride" (The New Yorker), is a jazz pianist who integrates the venerable New York piano tradition into his inventive style. He has toured clubs and festivals around the world, including South America, Europe and Asia. Asherie’s playing can be heard on countless recordings, including the 2010 Grammy Award winning soundtrack of HBO’s ‘Boardwalk Empire.’ He recently released his twelfth album entitled ‘Shuffle Along’ (Blue Heron Records), a solo piano performance of Eubie Blake songs from the musical ‘Shuffle Along.’

Rosenbaum, one of America’s most outspoken film critics, weighs in on Steven Spielberg, Elaine May, the Coen brothers, and Yiddishkeit.

In Seismic Belt, “Boshnack writes with purpose and passion, with an uncanny way of expressing a narrative. She is a musician, a composer, a feminist, an activist, and most certainly, a storyteller.”

The exhibition of more than 65 works includes abstract geometric paintings, punching bags, sculptures, and video.

Several Bardians are among the 75 artists whose work was chosen for this year’s Whitney Biennial. Congratulations to Jeffrey Gibson, artist in residence, and Tiona McClodden, Keith Haring Fellow in Art and Activism, as well as Bard College alumni/ae Adam Khalil ’14, Zack Khalil ’11, Carolyn Lazard ’10, and Lucas Blalock ’02; and Bard MFA alumni/ae Kyle Thurman ‘16, Christine Sun Kim ‘13, Martine Syms ‘18 and Madeline Hollander ‘19.

The two-day conference, “Tradition and Discovery: Teaching Chinese Music in the West,” includes guest speakers and concerts featuring performances by celebrated pipa virtuoso Wu Man and the Chinese instrument majors of the Bard College Conservatory of Music.