News

Beto O'Byrne, visiting artist in residence in theater and performance at Bard College, has been awarded a Franklin Research Grant by the American Philosophical Society. O'Byrne’s grant will support archival research and ethnographic fieldwork in San Antonio and Austin, Texas, in collaboration with Radical Evolution Performance Collective, toward the development of Forget the Alamo. This research-driven theatrical work reexamines the mythology surrounding the Alamo and the Texas Revolt, restoring Tejano, Black, and Indigenous perspectives long marginalized from state-sanctioned narratives, and grounding the performance in culturally specific aesthetics rooted in Tejano, Mexican American, and carpa traditions. 

Established in 1933, the Franklin Research Grant program supports noncommercial research in all areas of knowledge. Awards are designed to help meet various related costs, such as for travel to libraries and archives, the purchase of microfilm, photocopies, or equivalent research materials, fieldwork, and laboratory research expenses.

Bard’s Theater and Performance Program offers an interdisciplinary, liberal arts-based approach to the making and study of theater and performance, and embraces a wide range of performance practices, from live art and interactive installation to classical theater from around the globe.

Tania El Khoury, distinguished artist in residence, associate professor in theater and performance, and director of the Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College, has been honored by two residencies, one with the École Universitaire de Recherche ArTeC, a research school that supports experimental practices, and one with Théâtre Chaillot, a program within the French National Theater of Dance. In April, El Khoury was appointed as one of three leading international scholars invited annually by ArTeC whose work involves a transdisciplinary approach. During this residency in Paris, she delivered a public lecture in French, led a public workshop, provided feedback to MA students, and participated in a creative research event with Performing Knowledge, where she is an associate artist. 

El Khoury’s residency through Fabrique Chaillot, a selective program at Théâtre Chaillot within the French National Theater of Dance, provided her with three weeks to develop her new work, Choreography of State. The project deconstructs the embodied gestures of law enforcement and border patrol to reveal the dramaturgy of state violence. This multimedia installation performance approaches choreography as a forensic practice, inviting women choreographers from diverse practices around the world to create dance notations as evidence of power structures: scores of resistance to be activated by performers and embodied by the audience in a celebration of self-defense. Choreography of State is coproduced by the Théâtre Chaillot in Paris and the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, as part of Evidence, an international festival by the Fisher Center LAB. The work will premiere at Théâtre Chaillot in Paris from October 8–10, 2026, with its US premiere at Evidence, Fisher Center LAB, at Bard College from December 4–6, 2026.
 

Professor of Music James Bagwell, director of the music program at Bard College and director of performance studies in the Bard College Conservatory of Music, has been announced as the principal conductor of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, as well as principal conductor and director of choral music at the Berkshire Bach Society. Bagwell will assume a central artistic leadership role with Tulsa Symphony, helping shape programming and performances as the orchestra continues to expand its artistic vision and community impact. Bagwell was recognized by both organizations for the role he has played over the past two decades in creating a consistent record of excellence in choral performance. “These two appointments mark the culmination of a long artistic association with the Tulsa Symphony and Berkshire Bach,” said Bagwell. “I look forward to many more years of artistic collaborations with these two prestigious organizations.”

He has been a regular guest conductor for the Tulsa Symphony since 2007, leading it in performances of Mozart’s Requiem and Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, returning in subsequent seasons to conduct Britten’s War Requiem, and Mahler’s First Symphony. “We are thrilled to welcome James Bagwell as principal conductor of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra,” said Morgan Walker, executive director of Tulsa. “His long-standing relationship with the orchestra, combined with his depth of experience and artistic leadership, makes him the ideal partner as we look ahead to an exciting new chapter.” 

Bagwell, who additionally serves as codirector of the Bard Conservatory Graduate Program in conducting and is associate conductor of The Orchestra Now (TŌN), also frequently appears as a guest conductor for orchestras around the country and abroad, including the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, the Interlochen Music Festival, and the Jerusalem Symphony. “I’ve long admired James Bagwell’s work as a choral conductor,” said Eugene Drucker, artistic director of Berkshire Bach, “specifically in the Berkshire Bach Society vocal concerts for which I’ve had the pleasure of serving as his concertmaster, and more generally in his meticulous preparation of the chorus for opera productions at Bard College’s Summerscape and for oratorio performances with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.” 

The Music Program, one of the largest programs on Bard’s campus, provides a wide range of musical concentrations, from classical composition and performance to jazz, electronic music, musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory. 
 

The 2026 Venice Biennale, the renowned international cultural exhibition, will feature works by Bard faculty members and Center for Curatorial Studies alumnae. Walid Raad, professor of photography at Bard, is featured in the main exhibition, In Minor Keys, and will also participate in two mixed media installations in the Arsenale and in the Giardini, Postscript to the Arabic Edition and Far from quieting. Tom Eccles, executive director of the Center for Curatorial Studies and the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard, and Ruba Katrib CCS ’07 are cocurators of the show Untitled (a gathering of remarkable people) in the National Pavilion of Qatar in the Giardini. Additionally, Josefina Barcia CCS ’24 is curating the Argentine Pavilion, Do Tuong Linh CCS ’25 is curating the Vietnamese Pavilion, and Dermis León CCS ’01 is cocurating the Chilean Pavilion.

The Venice Biennale is an international arts and cultural exhibition which has been hosted every two years in Venice, Italy, since 1895. Its 61st International Art Exhibition, Biennale Arte 2026, runs from May 9 to November 22, 2026.