PERFORMANCE AND WORKSHOP – MARIA CHAVEZ
June 5, 2018 (56 Broadway) – María Chávez, solo turntable performance and workshop. Born in Lima, Peru and based in NYC, María Chávez is best known as an abstract turntablist, sound artist, and DJ. Her work combines recorded sounds from vinyl records with the electroacoustic sounds of vinyl and needle in various deteriorating phases. Accidents, coincidence, and failures are themes that unite her sound sculptures, installations, and other works with her improvised solo turntable performance practice.
DANCE HEGINBOTHAM – {Re}HAPPENING 7
Dance HeginbothamFeatured performers, {Re}HAPPENING 7Historic Black Mountain College campus at Lake EdenMarch 25, 2017 Dance Heginbotham (DH) is a New York-based contemporary dance company committed to supporting, producing, and sustaining the work of...THE TESLA QUARTET – SELECTIONS BY HUGO KAUDER
February 23, 2018 | BMCM+AC {56 Broadway} – The Tesla Quartet performed selections by composer Hugo Kauder. This special program is presented in collaboration with The Hugo Kauder Society. Kauder was a composer-in-residence at BMC in the summer of 1945. The program included Kauder’s String Quartet 4, a piece performed at BMC in 1945, as well as Bartok’s String Quartet 3 and transcriptions of works by Gesualdo and Ravel by Tesla violinist Ross Snyder. Praised for their “superb capacity to find the inner heart of everything they play, regardless of era, style, or technical demand” (The International Review of Music), the Tesla Quartet brings refinement and prowess to both new and established repertoire. The group was formed at The Juilliard School in 2008 and includes Ross Snyder (violin), Michelle Lie (violin), Edwin Kaplan (viola), and Serafim Smigelskiy (cello).
ARTIST + CURATOR TALK
Saturday, January 20, 2pm {56 Broadway} Conversation between curator Jason Andrew and Jerry van de Wiele. In association with Gerald van de Wiele: VARIATIONS Seven Decades of Painting (1951-2017) (January 19 – May 19, 2018). This historic retrospective captures...OPENING RECEPTION + ARTIST TALK: Gerald van de Wiele
Friday, January 19, 5:30 – 8pm {56 Broadway} Gerald van de Wiele: VARIATIONS Seven Decades of Painting (1951-2017) – Curated by Jason Andrew This historic retrospective captures seventy years of art by Gerald van de Wiele in an exhibition that highlights the...LISTENING SESSION: Jonathon Keats
Friday, April 20, 7pm {56 Broadway} Universal Music with Jonathon Keats and UNCA Copernican Orchestra This session will focus on Black Mountain College Legacy Fellow Jonathon Keats’ collaboration with UNCA faculty and students to create universal music, as well...POETRY READING
Saturday, April 14, 7pm {56 Broadway} Organized by poet and professor of creative writing Eric Steineger, this evening features five student poets from Mars Hill University, representing diverse styles and genres and showcasing some of the best rising talent from Mars...DANCE HEGINBOTHAM + MAIRA KALMAN – THE PRINCIPLES OF UNCERTAINTY
March 16 + 17, 2018 | The Wortham Center for the Performing Arts {Downtown, Asheville} – BMCM+AC, in partnership with UNC Asheville, presented the Southeast Premiere of Dance Heginbotham and Maira Kalman’s The Principles of Uncertainty, a new evening-length dance theater work by choreographer John Heginbotham and author/illustrator Maira Kalman. Adapted from Kalman’s New York Times column turned book of the same name and described by the two artists as an “absurdist travelogue,” Principles of Uncertainty marries the nostalgic whimsy of Kalman’s illustrations with Heginbotham’s controlled yet playful choreography to create an evening that explores life, death and everything in between. Heginbotham directs and choreographs the work, while Kalman oversees all elements of design—sets, props, projections and costumes, bringing her 2D illustrations to life on the stage. Kalman is also present on stage, alongside Dance Heginbotham, actor Daniel Pettrow and members of The Knights. Composer Colin Jacobsen—a member of string quartet Brooklyn Rider, chamber ensemble The Knights, and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble—serves as Music Director of the project. Principles of Uncertainty premiered August 17, 2017 at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival followed by a New York Premiere at BAM Next Wave Festival and travelled to Durham, North Carolina after this Southeast Premiere in Asheville.
Related Events Included:
Wednesday, March 14th – Maira Kalman Reading and Book Signing at Malaprops Bookstore for The Principles of Uncertainty (2007) and her new book, Beloved Dog (2017.)
Wednesday, March 14th – Dance Heginbotham Workshop at NC School for the Deaf
Wednesday, March 14th – Dance for PD Masterclass with John Heginbotham
Saturday, March 17th – Coffee + Conversation with John + Maira
AUTHOR EVENT: Maira Kalman at Malaprops Bookstore
Wednesday, March 14 – 6pm {Malaprops Bookstore, 55 Haywood} Maira Kalman, writer and illustrator of such books as The Principles of Uncertainty and The Pursuit of Happiness will hold a reading and signing for her new book for Penguin Press, Beloved Dog. Join us March...JONATHAN WILLIAMS CELEBRATION
Saturday, February 17, 7pm {56 Broadway} First Harvest: Celebrating the book Jonathan Williams: The Lord of Orchards This book of essays, images, and shouts aims to bring new eyes and contexts to legendary poet and publisher (and Black Mountain College student)...BOOK TALK + PERFORMANCE: Gallery Sound with Caleb Kelly, Pia van Gelder, Peter Blamey and Pete Speer
Wednesday, December 13, 7pm {69 Broadway} Australia-based scholars and artists Caleb Kelly, Pia van Gelder and Peter Blamey will make a rare North American appearance at Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center to discuss and perform works that examine the...POETRY READING
Saturday, December 16, 7:30pm {69 Broadway}
An evening of poetry, organized by Asheville-based writer/educator Eric Steineger, showcasing five of Asheville’s favorite and most celebrated poets: Richard Chess, Tommy Hays, David Hopes, Felice Lopez-Bell, and Eric Steineger.
PERFORMANCE: Aspects of Butoh
Thursday, December 7, 7pm {69 Broadway}
Presented in collaboration with the Asheville Butoh Collective, this evening includes dance performances, investigations, improvisations, and dialogue about the Butoh dance form.
MARTHA MCDONALD + LAURA BAIRD – MUSIC FOR MODERNIST SHAPES: REIMAGINING SPECTODRAMA
Commission | November 17 + 18, 2017 | BMCM+AC {69 Broadway} – ACTIVE ARCHIVE is a stream of programs that pairs the museum’s extensive collection with contemporary artists, curators, and cultural thinkers. It launches with an exhibition featuring the museum’s permanent collection curated by Philadelphia-based interdisciplinary artist Martha McDonald.
McDonald brought the ideas of Black Mountain College alive through an exhibition of artwork and ephemera from BMCM+AC’s collection and a live performance drawing on the rich history of experimental performance at BMC. The exhibition, across both galleries, focused on the importance of process and material exploration at BMC.
McDonald’s performance activated her installation of objects and costumes drawn from Xanti Schawinsky’s 1936 experimental theater piece, Spectodrama, which formed the basis of his Stage Studies course at BMC. McDonald’s piece, in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Laura Baird featured music inspired by John Evarts’ collaborations with Schawinsky at BMC from 1936-38.
FILM SCREENING: BAUHAUS: The Face of the Twentieth Century
Wednesday, November 29, 7pm {56 Broadway}
This documentary traces the story of the Bauhaus from its founding in 1919 to its closing in 1933. An understanding of the Bauhaus as one of the primary influences on Black Mountain College is essential to a full understanding of BMC.
POETRY READING: MadHat Poetry Prose & Anything Goes
Friday, November 3, 7pm {56 Broadway}
Presented in conjunction with the First Friday Art Walk, this poetry reading is organized by MadHat Poetry Prose & Anything Goes.
CARDELL DANCE THEATER – SUPPER, PEOPLE ON THE MOVE
October 27 + 28, 2017 | {22 London Rd} – Silvana Cardell’s Supper, People on the Move is a dance performance inspired by themes of migration and the complex experience of dislocation. Physical bodies moving between physical places define migration and the immigrant journey at the heart of humanity’s ability to survive. This Asheville engagement was accompanied by an exhibition of photographs and narratives by Philadelphia-based artist Jennifer Baker and local photographer Steve Mann, “Portraits of People on the Move” featuring stories of those in our WNC community. Audiences were invited to share in a group meal to discuss and connect over the themes brought forth by Cardell Dance Theatre’s performance. Supper, People on the Move was hosted at Randy Shull and Hedy Fischer’s 22 London Road Studio/ Exhibition Space.
What began for choreographer Silvana Cardell as dance borne of her personal history, evolved into an examination of the human experience of all people on the move, looking for new horizons. The immigrant journey is at the heart of a human’s ability to survive. Physical bodies moving between physical places define immigration. It is only appropriate that dance performed by virtuosic, striking dancers, is the art form to explore this experience and create a work of art from it. From the beginning of history people have migrated; it is at the soul of human evolution. Supper takes the movement of migration and transforms it into art, into a dance that transcends its literal origins yet is grounded in them. In performance, the art of the movement of human migration is revealed.
LISTENING SESSION: Experiments in Notation
Wednesday, October 11, 7pm {56 Broadway}
Listening Sessions at BMCM+AC examine the evolving culture of listening and investigate the larger lineage of music and interconnected styles. This session will investigate the relationship between time-based art forms and the highly defined and uses of musical notation.
BROOKLYN YOUTH CHORUS – BLACK MOUNTAIN SONGS
September 29 + 30, 2017 | Diana Wortham Center for the Performing Arts {Downtown Asheville} – The Southeast Premiere of the acclaimed work Black Mountain Songs. Presented as part of ReVIEWING 9. Commissioned and produced by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and BAM, and curated by Bryce Dessner (The National) and Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire), Black Mountain Songs is inspired by Black Mountain College, its prolific community of artists, and their work, and rekindles the College’s utopian spirit. The Chorus performs music written for them by eight composers: Dessner and Parry, as well as Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw, Nico Muhly, Aleksandra Vrebalov, John King, Tim Hecker, and Jherek Bischoff. Featuring contributions from filmmaker Matt Wolf (Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell), Black Mountain Songs is an expansive choral and visual work. This exquisite production premiered at BAM in 2014. New Amsterdam Records released an acclaimed recording of the work—Brooklyn Youth Chorus’ first album—earlier this year.
