PRESS RELEASE: Points in Space: Performance at Black Mountain College – Exhibition and Programs

Kira Houston, Outreach Coordinator
828.350.8484 | kira@blackmountaincollege.org

Points in Space: Performance at Black Mountain College

September 5, 2025 – January 10, 2026 | Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center

EXHIBITION

Black Mountain College was a nexus of avant-garde activity, fostering groundbreaking time-based experiments across disciplines and significantly influencing performance, theater, film, music, dance, and visual art worldwide. A new exhibition at Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Points in Space: Performance at Black Mountain College, will feature visual and time-based artworks that echo BMC’s innovative spirit from 1933 to 1957. 

The exhibition will highlight key events and figures, such as John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Lou Harrison, Roland Hayes, Ray Johnson, Hugo Kauder, Ursula Mamlok, Robert Rauschenberg, David Tudor, Alma Stone Williams, Stan Vanderbeek, and Stefan Wolpe, alongside movements like Bauhaus, Dada, and Fluxus. 

Points in Space also aims to bridge the past and present. Through performance-integrated exhibitions and public programs, the exhibition will foster a dynamic dialogue between historical and contemporary artistic practices, expanding the reach and relevance of BMC’s radical approach to art, education, and community engagement.

Points in Space: Performance at Black Mountain College is organized by Jeff Arnal and Adolfo Alzuphar. Support is provided by the Lyle Bongé Fund (in memory of Lyle Bongé), John Cage Trust, Merce Cunningham Trust, Jade Dellinger, Thomas E. Frank, Ray Johnson Estate, The Johnson Collection, Hugo Kauder Society, Ben Maiden and Karen Bell, Dwight and Ursula Mamlok Foundation, North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Western Regional Archives, and the Windgate Foundation. Special thanks to the BMCM+AC Board of Directors and staff, Jeff Kinzel, Susan Rhew Design, Diana Stoll, and all who help carry forward the experimental legacy of Black Mountain College.

Renowned for its avant-garde ethos, BMC became a hub for pioneering musical experimentation influenced significantly by European émigrés fleeing Nazi Germany. Xanti Schawinsky, who studied under Oskar Schlemmer at the Bauhaus, connected the undercurrent of Bauhaus theater to BMC through theater classes. 

Music and performance were integral to life at Black Mountain College, with concerts and student productions woven throughout its history. The college’s summer music institutes, beginning in 1944, attracted luminaries like Heinrich Jalowetz and Edward Lowinsky, both affiliated with Arnold Schoenberg’s circle. Lowinsky’s focus on Early Music enriched BMC’s program, fostering an in-depth exploration of Renaissance polyphony. The college was also ahead of its time in desegregation, with Alma Stone Williams, the first African American student, studying music and participating in the inaugural 1944 Summer Music Institute. That summer also hosted the largest gathering celebrating Schoenberg’s work.

Ursula Mamlok attended Black Mountain College in 1944, marking a pivotal moment in both her life and the college’s history. The summer institute, launched in response to the challenges of World War II, gathered students and faculty from across the country for an intensive exchange of ideas. Emphasizing a democratic way of life and physical development—described in the Black Mountain College Bulletin as vital for building moral and physical stamina during such trying times—the program provided a rich environment for Mamlok to explore new musical languages and philosophies. During her time at BMC, she encountered progressive musicians like Ernst Krenek, Eduard Steuermann, Rudolf Kolisch, and Roger Sessions, whose influence would significantly shape her own musical voice in the years to come.

One of BMC’s most significant interdisciplinary collaborations was The Glyph Exchange (1951), uniting choreographer Katherine Litz, composer Lou Harrison, painter Ben Shahn, and poet Charles Olson. Rooted in Olson’s studies of Mayan glyphs, the work embodied BMC’s commitment to artistic experimentation. This lineage extended from Bauhaus influences through the Light, Sound, Movement Workshop of the 1940s, culminating in Cage’s Theater Piece No. 1.

In 1952, John Cage’s Theater Piece No. 1, held in the BMC dining hall, became a groundbreaking event. Featuring David Tudor on piano, poetry readings by M.C. Richards and Charles Olson, a dance by Merce Cunningham, and Robert Rauschenberg’s white paintings suspended from the ceiling, it solidified BMC’s role as a cornerstone of avant-garde performance. BMC’s legacy carried into the 1960s and 1970s, influencing movements like Fluxus, Judson Dance Theater, and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, which was founded at BMC in 1953. The college also nurtured the work of notable figures like Stefan Wolpe, whose compositions, shaped by Taoism and responding to Cage’s indeterminacy, embodied BMC’s innovative spirit. Wolpe served as the college’s music director from 1952 to 1956. A German-born American composer, Wolpe’s work spanned interdisciplinary modernism, with ties to movements as diverse as the Bauhaus, Berlin agitprop theater, the kibbutz movement, the Eighth Street Artists’ Club, and the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music.

BMCM+AC will present a dynamic lineup of public programs in conjunction with the exhibition. To see the full roster of events, visit blackmountaincollege.org/events.

15th Annual ReViewing Black Mountain College International Conference 
with Debra McCall and the Bauhaus Dancers
September 26-28, 2025 | Located at UNC Asheville and BMCM+AC

The ReVIEWING Black Mountain College International Conference is a forum for scholars and artists to contribute original work on topics related to Black Mountain College and its place in cultural history. This three-day program, open to the public, celebrates the exhibition Points in Space: Performance at Black Mountain College. 

The 15th Annual ReVIEWING Conference will feature a keynote speech by Debra McCall, titled Steps to Modernity: Reconstructing the 1920s Bauhaus Dances of Oskar Schlemmer.

Debra McCall is a dance historian, choreographer, Certified Movement Analyst, and performer best known for her reconstructions of Oskar Schlemmer’s 1920s Bauhaus Dances. Recipient of fellowships from the NEA and the NEH, she also received the Rome Prize in Design from the American Academy in Rome and a Fulbright-Nehru Professional and Academic Excellence Award for her documentation of medieval reliefs of sacred dancers at the Thillai Nataraja Temple in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu. McCall served on the graduate faculties of New York University and Pratt Institute where she was Mellon Lecturer. Her Bauhaus work has been presented in a variety of venues including Performa 09, Artissima 17 Torino, and Harvard University’s The Bauhaus and Harvard: 100 years.

To learn more about McCall, visit bauhausdances.org. The full conference schedule is available at blackmountaincollege.org/reviewing.

Lea Bertucci + Olivia Block 
September 10, 2025 at 7PM | Live at BMCM+AC {120 College St, Asheville NC 28801}

This event brings together experimental musicians Lea Bertucci and Olivia Block for a live performance exploring immersive soundscapes. Featuring electronic and magnetic tape music, the performance invites audiences to experience the radical sonic innovations rooted in Black Mountain College’s enduring legacy.

Stereolab Artist Talk
September 20, 2025 at 1PM | Live at BMCM+AC {120 College St, Asheville NC 28801}

Acclaimed avant-pop band Stereolab’s layered soundscapes embody a spirit of interdisciplinary play. This artist talk with Tim Gane, Laetitia Sadier, and Joe Watson is presented at BMCM+AC on the afternoon of September 20.

flux in time: a heterotopic theater from the aborted future
September 27, 2025, 8:00 – 9:00pm | Live at BMCM+AC {120 College St, Asheville NC 28801}

Presented in conjunction with the ReVIEWING BMC Conference is flux in time, an evening performance at the museum. Kyriakos Apostolidis, gordon fung, Kim Nucci, Che Pai, and Kyle Price of //sense, a Chicago-based neo-Fluxus theater troupe, stage an immersive “theater of mixed means” that weaves a metaphorical and metaphysical network through history, art, and life, paying homage to the legacy of Black Mountain College.

Aphorisms, A Tribute to Ursula Mamlok
Tuesday, October 14th, 2025 at 7PM + Wednesday, October 15th, 2025 at 7PM
Live at BMCM+AC {120 College St, Asheville NC 28801}
Aphorisms is a dance tribute to composer and Black Mountain College student Ursula Mamlok (1923 – 2016), inspired by her life, art, and triumph over persecution and oppression. The performance is choreographed by Miro Magloire and performed by the Momenta Quartet, flutist Roberta Michel, and the New Chamber Ballet. Presented here as a new performance iteration created especially for BMCM+AC, this event integrates live chamber music and dance to celebrate Mamlok’s work and legacy.

The Momenta Quartet pays tribute to the groundbreaking musical legacy of Black Mountain College with a program of modernist works by its two most iconic American composers: Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972) who was Music Director of Black Mountain College from 1952 through 1956, and John Cage (1912-1992) who taught there in the summer of 1952 and was in residence is the summer of 1953. Momenta will open the program with two works written in 1950: Wolpe’s Set of 12 Pieces for String Quartet which the group premiered after it was transcribed from manuscript by the Stefan Wolpe Society, and John Cage’s String Quartet in Four Parts (1950). They will close the program with one of Wolpe’s late works, his String Quartet (1969).

Asheville Symphony – Chamber Evening with Amy Williams & Masterworks Concerts (Featuring works by John Cage, Erik Satie, Béla Bartók, Johannes Brahms, and more)
October 21st (Chamber Concert) + October 25th (Masterworks Concerts, 2PM and 8PM)
Live at First Baptist Church of Asheville {5 Oak St, Asheville, NC 28801}
The Asheville Symphony will present three performances celebrating the history of Black Mountain College. First, a concert on Oct. 21 featuring Amy Williams (piano) performing John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes, and the ASO string quartet and percussion quartet performing additional music by Arnold Schoenberg, John Cage, and Lou Harrison.  Next, the Oct. 25th Masterworks Concert (2PM and 8PM showtimes) traces a journey from European romanticism to American avant-garde with Brahms’s mountain-inspired Second Symphony, Bartók’s ethereal Viola Concerto (written in part during his time in Asheville), and more alongside groundbreaking works by John Cage that emerged from this transformative haven for creatives in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Conducted by Darko Butorac and featuring violist Natalie Brennecke, the program includes Satie’s Gymnopédies No. 3, Cage’s Seventy-Four, Version II and 4’33”, alongside the Bartók and Brahms masterworks.

Asheville Butoh Festival, in collaboration with Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and the University of North Carolina at Asheville, presents its 15th annual festival from October 30 – November 2. BMCM+AC will host Frequency in Motion, an audiovisual performance featuring butoh dancers: Atsushi Takenouchi, Jenni Cockrell, Julie Becton Gillum, and Constance Humphries. Dancers will be accompanied by live sounds, field recordings, and objects by Chris H.Lynn and Hiroko Komiya. Visuals, including Super 8 and digital film, are by Chris H.Lynn.

Jennie MaryTai Liu: Living Female Respondent or 53 Yakshi
Saturday, November 8, 2025 | Live at BMCM+AC {120 College St, Asheville NC 28801}

Jennie MaryTai Liu’s Living Female Respondent or 53 Yakshi, created with devika wickremesinghe and Hannah Heller, draws from Merce Cunningham’s use of chance operations in his 1976 work Torse. Using the I Ching, Liu and wickremesinghe selected 64 short video clips from across the internet to build a movement vocabulary. The resulting performance explores how digital media, randomness, and embodied movement intersect. 

When We Were Queens… A Performance by Murielle Elizéon and Shana Tucker
November 13, 2025 | Live at BMCM+AC {120 College St, Asheville NC 28801}

Acclaimed Durham-based cellist Shana Tucker and Saxapahaw-based French choreographer Murielle Elizéon (co-creator of Culture Mill) create a powerful multidisciplinary performance presented as a diptych—two solos in conversation. Commissioned by NC State Live, the original development of the work began in 2022 and after subsequent series of museum and gallery residencies, When We were Queens… held its world premiere in February 2024, co-presented by NC State Live and the North Carolina Museum of Art.

Sandbox Percussion
November 19, 2025 | Live at BMCM+AC {120 College St, Asheville NC 28801}

Sandbox Percussion (Jonathan Allen, Victor Caccese, Ian Rosenbaum, and Terry Sweeney) is a quartet that shares meaningful musical experiences with communities worldwide through performance, collaboration, and education.

Tesla Quartet: The Music of Hugo Kauder
December 4, 2025 | Live at BMCM+AC {120 College St, Asheville NC 28801}

This special performance will bring to life the music of Hugo Kauder, who served as composer-in-residence at Black Mountain College during the summer of 1945. The program will feature Kauder’s Seventh String Quartet, the same work first performed at BMC in 1945, offering audiences a rare chance to experience this historic piece in a contemporary setting.

Will Alexander Poetry Reading/Performance
December 10, 2025 | Live at BMCM+AC {120 College St, Asheville NC 28801}

BMCM+AC presents a performance by LA-based writer, artist, philosopher, and pianist Will Alexander. His surreal, oracular poetics—a fusion of automatic writing, jazz improvisation, and mystical metaphor—echo the experimental spirit championed at Black Mountain College, where poetry, music, and visual art were deeply intertwined. Though Alexander did not study there, his engagement with avant-garde figures like Robert Creeley reveals a clear aesthetic kinship with the Black Mountain tradition.

David Tudor Lecture by You Nakai and Dustin Hurt
December 2025, Date TBA | Live at BMCM+AC {120 College St, Asheville NC 28801}

BMCM+AC presents an evening celebrating Tudor’s avant-garde compositions and collaborations. You Nakai is the author of “Reminded by the Instruments: David Tudor’s Music.” In the book, Nakai deftly patches together instruments, electronic circuits, sketches, diagrams, recordings, letters, receipts, customs declaration forms, and testimonies like modular pieces of a giant puzzle to reveal the long-hidden nature of Tudor’s creative process.

Johnny Loves Johann – Music and Dance
December 18, 2025 | Live at BMCM+AC {120 College St, Asheville NC 28801}

Johnny Loves Johann is an evening-length collaboration that unites the artistry of world-renowned violinist Johnny Gandelsman with new choreography by some of the US’s most exciting choreographers – John Heginbotham, Caili Quan, Jamar Roberts, and Melissa Toogood. Together, they present a transformative interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s complete Cello Suites, bridging music and dance to create a vivid, contemporary experience that brings Bach’s timeless compositions to life in new and unexpected ways.

Cunningham Dances / Rauschenberg Celebration with music by John Cage
January 7-8, 2026 (Two day event) | Live at BMCM+AC {120 College St, Asheville NC 28801}

BMCM+AC will present three live performances of historic collaborations between Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg, and John Cage: Suite for Two (1958), Changeling (1957), and Antic Meet (1958). This two-day program is presented in partnership with The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

Natacha Diels / Cleek Schrey
January 10, 2026 | Live at BMCM+AC {120 College St, Asheville NC 28801}

On the final day of the Points in Space exhibition, BMCM+AC presents a duo performance by Natacha Diels and Cleek Schrey. Natacha Diels’ work blends choreographed movement, video animation, instrumental practice, and cynical play to construct worlds that are equal parts wonder and unease. Cleek Schrey is a fiddler, improviser, and composer from Virginia who plays traditional music from Appalachia and Ireland and makes experimental work using composition, film, and field recordings.

BMCM+AC will present three film screenings which will foreground the historic collaboration between Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, and Merce Cunningham. These screenings are presented in partnership with The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

Cunningham (2019)
Screening at BMCM+AC {120 College St, Asheville NC 28801} – Date TBA

The iconic Merce Cunningham and the last generation of his dance company is stunningly profiled in Alla Kovgan’s documentary, through recreations of his landmark works and archival footage of Cunningham, John Cage, and Robert Rauschenberg.

Winterbranch (1964)
Screening at BMCM+AC {120 College St, Asheville NC 28801} – Date TBA

A filmed reconstruction of Merce Cunningham’s 1964 dance Winterbranch, with set, costumes, and lighting by Robert Rauschenberg and a score by La Monte Young.

Taking Venice (2024)
Screening at BMCM+AC {120 College St, Asheville NC 28801} – Date TBA

This 2024 documentary tells the story of the 1964 Venice Biennale. A cast of influential figures—Alice Denney, Washington insider; Alan Solomon, ambitious curator; and Leo Castelli, a powerful New York art dealer—embark on a daring plan to make American artist Robert Rauschenberg the winner of the Grand Prize. Their deft maneuvers leave the international press crying foul and Rauschenberg questioning the politics of nationalism that sent him to Venice in the first place.