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For over 30 years, Bard MFA chair and Bard College alum Nayland Blake '82 has been a critical figure in American art, working between sculpture, drawing, performance, and video. No Wrong Holes marks the most comprehensive survey of Blake’s work to date and their first solo institutional presentation in Los Angeles.

“Undone is something fresh,” writes Merrill Barr in Forbes. “Something that pushes every boundary television has to offer while still playing like a true entrant to the medium it's playing in. This show doesn’t think it’s better than television. Rather, it opts to try and push the idea of where the medium can go in a way that won’t alienate audiences just out for a decent character drama.” Raphael Bob-Waksberg, creator of Undone and the critically acclaimed BoJack Horseman, graduated from the Theater Program at Bard College in 2006.

“Most of the schools I applied to wanted me to switch from the dulcimer to the vibes or marimba or something else. They were very stuck in their conservative mentality of what music is. Bard, fortunately, had the mindset to want to support me in something that I was passionate about. They were more interested in what they could do as an institution to support my passion.” 

The Resonant Bodies Festival, founded by Bard Conservatory of Music alumna and faculty member Lucy Dhegrae MM ’12, is an annual highlight because it gives some of the world’s most adventurous vocal artists full freedom to program their sets. This year’s lineup includes powerhouse mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, artistic director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at the Bard Conservatory, who likes to wield her punch of a voice in mustachioed drag as the tenor divo Blythely Oratonio—“a dramatic tenor who dreams of being a rock star,” says Blythe. “It’s a cabaret-opera-rock ’n’ roll-disco mash-up, and basically gives me an opportunity to sing all the music I have dreamed of singing my whole life.” September 3–5.

Lola Kirke talks about her new movie and new album, staying grounded as a performer, and how film roles for women have regressed—with a nod to Bard and her experience volunteering in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

In the annals of dance history, 2019 may go down as the year Bard Choreographer in Residence Pam Tanowitz got the attention she deserved. In the past six months she has brought her imaginative formalism to the Martha Graham Dance Company, New York City Ballet, the Paul Taylor Dance Company, and the Kennedy Center’s Ballet Across America festival. The recent recipient of an Alpert Award in the Arts, Tanowitz is not slowing down, with new works on deck for Vail Dance Festival this month and the Royal Ballet’s Merce Cunningham celebration in October.

Conservatory Advanced Performance Studies alumnus Tomoki Park and second-year Vocal Arts Program student Margaret Tigue recently performed at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts, as part of the Tanglewood Music Center's Festival of Contemporary Music. In a concert dedicated to former Tanglewood Music Center director of contemporary music Oliver Knussen, Tomoki Park's "sensitive" performance of Knussen's distinctive "Prayer Bell Sketch" was one of the highlights of the program. Margaret Tigue offered a very fine performance as a soprano soloist in Knussen's "Whitman Settings."

His melodic gift rivaled Puccini’s—but his reputation suffered when he began writing movie scores. Now Bard is giving him a fresh listen. Weekend Two: August 16–18.

Bardians Abby Bender and Anna Luckey cofounded the Built on Stilts dance festival on Martha’s Vineyard not long after graduation. It has evolved into an all-inclusive, grassroots performance venue for local and visiting artists, featuring more than 50 original works and dance workshops for both children and adults.

“For Johns, factual certainties, such as the American flag or a plaster cast of a body part, enable him to dwell in ‘uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts,’ and not reach after ‘fact,’ which would be redundant,” writes Yau in this two-part essay. “This is the pleasure that Johns gives us. He does not tell us what to see or think. He shows what seeing and thinking can be.”

In honor of the 30th anniversary of their Paul’s Boutique album, Beastie Boys (inspired by the late member Adam Yauch ’86, who went vegan after being diagnosed with cancer) have collaborated with Adidas on a vegan shoe.
 

Titled After Preparing the Altar, the Ghosts Feast Feverishly, the exhibition is based on a series of poems by Wong on hunger, food, silence, and family. Wong, a first-generation Chinese American, talks to KUOW Public Radio producer Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong about the meal she imagines her ancestors might have today.
 

President Botstein talks about the U.S. premiere of Erich Korngold’s The Miracle of Heliane, and why Bard is the perfect place to revive overlooked works.
 

"Bard is a great place because we are not interested in commercial performance. We want to make a contribution to knowledge and scholarship. We are interested in the future of music both in new music but also in the past.

If the past is only about 20 operas, then the future of the art form is going to be condemned. The way you tell the story of the past influences the way you tell the future. Our mission is not to compete with anyone but to show different repertoire." —Leon Botstein

Globally recognized modern dancer and Bard alumnus Ainesh Madan ’15 observes that art comes to the rescue of the mundane. In this interview, he talks about the importance of a daily artistic practice, his most recent work focusing on his return to India after eight years in New York, and pieces he choreographed at Bard now coming to fruition. “Once I went to Bard College,” he tells the Hindu. “I started discovering my artistic side. I dedicated the majority of my day in the studio, even when I was not in class. I made (choreographed/composed) a lot of work. Once the studios were closed, I would come back to my room and work on music.”

The Bard Music Festival turns its focus on Erich Wolfgang Korngold, the preeminent film composer of the 1930s and ’40s whose art music long went overlooked. August 9–11 and 16–18 at the Fisher Center.

By Barrymore Laurence Scherer

Now that film music enjoys an unequivocal presence on contemporary orchestral programs, it’s no surprise that the Bard Music Festival, that bastion of imaginative programming, is marking its 30th anniversary season by turning to a figure somewhat unfamiliar as a “serious” composer: Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957). Korngold was arguably the pre-eminent film composer during Hollywood’s “Golden Age.” Yet, by the time he died, his work there during the 1930s and ’40s had effectively obliterated the exceptional stature he had achieved in Europe’s concert halls and opera houses.

“With Heliane, Korngold was sharpening the talents he would use later in the United States,” says Times critic Seth Walls. Even though his most enduring legacy may be in film, “his take on 1920s Viennese opera is well worth a trip to take in.” Through August 4.
 

Set in an unnamed totalitarian state, The Miracle of Heliane (Das Wunder der Heliane) features an intricate, erotic triangle between a ruthless despot, The Ruler; his beautiful and neglected wife, Heliane; and a young, messianic Stranger. An allegorical tale about the destruction of a dictatorship by a woman, Heliane premiered to great acclaim in Hamburg in 1927, and remains extraordinarily relevant today. This new production is directed by Christian Räth, with sets and costumes by Esther Bialas, both making their SummerScape debuts. The consistently excellent cast includes the stunning Lithuanian soprano Ausrine Stundyte in an all-too-rare U.S. appearance alongside rising star tenor Daniel Brenna, and the heralded bass-baritone Alfred Walker. Opening Friday, July 26, at the Fisher Center.

On Sunday, July 28, at 6 pm, the Spiegeltent at Bard’s Fisher Center will host a showcase of Bard alumni/ae making their mark on the music scene. Bardians near and far come together for a celebration led by Bard alumni/ae musicians, with performances by: Odetta Hartman ’11; Bree and the Reeds, featuring Brianna Reed ’12; Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez '16; and a new musical project by Dan Vernam ’13, Wyatt Bertz ’13, and Joe Tisdall ’13; with Alex Friedman ’12, Jesse Featherstone ’14, Luke McCrosson ’16, Zach Berns, and more.

Erich Korngold almost single-handedly created the concept of the Hollywood soundtrack, so why isn’t his music better known? A child prodigy born in Austria in 1897, Korngold was in the public eye from a young age. He moved his family to the United States to escape the Nazis and began composing for American movies. His opera The Miracle of Heliane will have its U.S. premiere at Bard’s Fisher Center this weekend. His life and work will be the focus of the Bard Music Festival next month.
 

The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard) is pleased to announce that distinguished scholar, curator, and educator Nana Adusei-Poku will join CCS Bard as senior academic adviser and Luma Foundation Fellow. In this role, Adusei-Poku will collaborate with the staff and faculty to develop and advise on the curriculum, which centers around the study of contemporary art, the institutions and practices of exhibition-making, and the theory and criticism of the visual arts. She will also work with Executive Director Tom Eccles, Chief Curator and Graduate Program Director Lauren Cornell, and faculty to develop the curatorial and publishing program at CCS Bard, including symposia, conferences, performance, and exhibitions at the Center for Curatorial Studies and in collaboration with partners, including departments across Bard College and contemporary art institutions.

“Nana Adusei-Poku is an exceptional scholar, curator, and teacher. Her intellectual rigor and commitment to original research will be invaluable to our program and to future classes of CCS Bard graduate students,” said Cornell. Previously, Adusei-Poku served as visiting professor at The Cooper Union, and as a guest lecturer in the Department of Art and Media at the University of the Arts, Zurich. She was research professor for visual cultures (2015–17) and for cultural diversity (2013–14) at the Hogeschool Rotterdam with affiliation to the Piet Zwart Institute and Willem de Kooning Academy. She received her PhD from Humboldt University Berlin following degrees in African and gender studies, and in media and communications at Goldsmiths College London. She has also been a visiting scholar at the University of Ghana, Legon, London School of Economics, and Columbia University, New York.

She is the curator of the program Longing on a Large Scale in conjunction with Todd Gray's exhibition Eucledian Gris Gris at Pomona College Museum of Art, which starts in September 2019 and will run until May 2020. In 2018, Adusei-Poku curated the immersive event performance of No-thingness at the Academy of Arts Berlin and, in 2015, she co-curated the exhibition NO HUMANS INVOLVED at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art Rotterdam. She has published in artist monographs about Leslie Hewitt, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, and Todd Gray, among others, and in publications such as e-flux, multitudes, Le Journal des Laboratoires, Kunstforum International, as well as peer-reviewed journals such as Nka Journal for Contemporary African Art, Feministische Studien, and Dark Matter.

Adusei-Poku replaces Jeannine Tang, who joins Eugene Lang College at The New School as assistant professor in modern and contemporary art history, after nearly a decade at CCS Bard. In 2018, Tang co-curated The Conditions of Being Art: Pat Hearn Gallery and American Fine Arts. Co, (1983–2004) at the Hessel Museum of Art, a project that exemplified her commitment to building groundbreaking scholarship in contemporary art and curatorial history.
 

General information on the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College can be found at: