March 4, 2026
For immediate release
Kira Houston, Outreach Manager
828.350.8484 | kira@blackmountaincollege.org
Left: slu by Gavin Stewart & Vanessa Owen, Douglas Carr, Colston Byrd & Early Gima. Right: Ode to a Pond by Madeleine Sis. Both photos © Jesse Kitt.
{Re}HAPPENING 14
Saturday, April 25th, 2026 | 3PM – 10PM
At the Historic Campus of Black Mountain College
{Re}HAPPENING 14
Since 2010, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) has hosted the {Re}HAPPENING inspired by John Cage’s 1952 Theatre Piece No. 1, an unscripted performance at Black Mountain College considered by many to be the first Happening. The annual {Re}HAPPENING brings together dozens of contemporary artists whose work responds to and extends the legacy of Black Mountain College visionaries such as John Cage, David Tudor, Merce Cunningham, Anni Albers, M.C. Richards, Ruth Asawa, Buckminster Fuller, Josef Albers, and Robert Rauschenberg.
The 2026 {Re}HAPPENING will celebrate the event’s 14th anniversary. This year’s boundary-pushing projects will engage visitors deeply with the living legacy of Black Mountain College. From installations to participatory workshops, the 2026 program is defined by radical experiments in movement, sound, and collective presence.
SELECTED PROJECTS
Still from The Country Dwellers installation by Stefani Byrd.
This year, multiple artists will engage with the legacy of BMC alum Stan Vanderbeek and contemporary permutations of expanded cinema. Pictured above, The Country Dwellers by Stefani Byrd is an immersive video installation which traces the connections between Appalachian folk magic and the rise of Neo-Paganism or revivalist practices. Consisting of two projections, three monitors, and two audio channels, the work is presented as a collage of visual material and voices from both the past and present.
Live experimental performances make the {Re}HAPPENING a one-of-a-kind experience where chance encounters create powerful moments of connection. In 2026, the 25-person Charlie Boss Orchestra will perform a new work entitled “Soul Bell.” The acoustic string and wind ensemble combines careful attention to phrasing, harmony, and structure with spontaneous interaction, allowing each musician to contribute to the unfolding music alongside the audience itself. The result is a series of performances that are structured yet fluid, precise yet alive, with every note actively shaping the evolving soundscape.
Charlie Boss Orchestra performs at Revolve in Asheville. Photo © Travis Bordley.
Combining dance with visual arts, choreographer Ava Desiderio and artist Elisabeth Condon will present Vermilion | 10, an 11-minute duet. Desiderio’s choreography features sculptural relationships that embody complex, layered emotions, as intertwined bodies and colloquial gestures represent the unfolding stages of a relationship. Condon’s visual works are densely collaged polymer pours illuminated from behind, which underscore the play of light and dark that unfolds throughout the dance, extending to the dancers’ bodies as wearable art. The duet was first performed on pointe for Norte Maar’s acclaimed Counterpointe dance series, and later at Dancewave in Brooklyn. Desiderio and Condon will now bring the work to North Carolina as a site-specific adaptation performed at the {Re}HAPPENING.
Image: Still from Vermilion | 10. Photo © Julie Lemberger. Dancers: Manami Ando and Lucia Beletu.
COMPLETE ARTIST LINEUP
{Re}HAPPENING 14 features an exciting lineup of contemporary time-based works from artists across the nation. Expanded cinema works will include The Country Dwellers by Stefani Byrd, a video installation exploring Appalachian folk magic; Sphere by Ivana Larrosa and Lee Tussman, a performance inspired by Merce Cunningham’s “Beach Birds”; How to build a boat by Jake Parker Scott, featuring aluminum gamelan instruments, electronics and 16mm film projections; and 35mm Multi Image Slideshow by Alexandria Jarvis, an installation using randomized slide projections to mirror the subconscious desire to construct meaning.
Projects exploring movement and dance will include Vermilion | 10, an 11-minute duet created by choreographer Ava Desiderio and visual artist Elisabeth Condon; Bodies Written in Smoke, a Butoh Fu Workshop by Sarah Bernstein and Eunoia Jean Close; a durational performance entitled Passing By, where Hesam Salehbeig creates the presence of a river without water; la/do, a brief ritual of sound and movement by Deisha Oliver and Luciana Arias that passes through various intimate, unconventional spaces; and Pace Investigations No. 14 by Sandrine Schaefer, a performance that contracts and expands, causing actions to shift, accelerate, merge, or disappear.
In the realm of sound and collective listening, projects will include Matt Robidoux’s Spiral Worker, a synth system built around two aluminum corn ears; Ben Hjertmann’s Empath II, a new instrument that sympathetically resonates with the sounds of the {Re}HAPPENING; a performance of Soul Bell by the Charlie Boss Orchestra, a 25-person acoustic string and wind ensemble; A Room for Dreaming and Memory by Xor (Matthew Boman) and Mica Rutkowski where sound and color respond to movement; a web of kinetic fabrics with an interactive soundscape by Eric Rodent Cheslak and Mark Crowley; an immersive tape loop soundfield entitled Radio Infrequencies: Time Tape Space by Christopher Hamilton and Steve Pescatore; a prayer of gratitude entitled Thank You Water, played across Lake Eden, organized by Severn Eaton; and Portrait, an installation by Carlos Rigau that explores and reveals sounds of everyday violence.
Other projects invite hands-on participation to spark creativity, including Quack! An interactive chance poem for Black Mountain presented by Wendell M. Kling and Ben Miller; an installation by Carson Whitmore and Jason Lord, titled Catch and Release, which calls upon the desire and chance inherent to the act of fishing; The Star Loom, a community weaving project by Elliot Moonstone; an Expanded Drawing by Martha Skinner, CillaVee, Liz Lang, and Rebecca MacNeice—an architect, a dancer and a sound artist in dialogue with each other; REDACTED, an installation by R Stein Wexler exploring censorship and taboo; and “At Hand” or “Creatures From a Door to Perception,” a wooden wonderland of giant birds, moths, and horses inviting collaborative play on homemade instruments within the imaginative space by Fred Merrill, Matthew Carey and Carolyn Zaldivar.
Finally, other projects will unfold throughout the day, engaging with text and material, procession and celebration. The {Re}HAPPENING will host a Solidarity March and Crankie Sing-A-long by the marching band Brass Your Heart led by Leslie Rosenberg; Lost Voyage Lake Eden, a live performance and journey undertaken across the campus by the Lost Voyage Collective (Miriam Parker, Jo Wood-Brown, Jean Carla Rodea, and Alystyre Julian); a project inspired by BMC poet Robert Duncan, Opening the Field: Return to the Meadow by Barbara Roether and Linda Larsen, that will slowly create a meadow blooming with poetry; and Matière: Improvised Typography from the Bauhaus to Black Mountain, a functional font designed in real time by Drew Sisk.
To see the complete lineup page, visit:
About the {Re}HAPPENING
The {Re}HAPPENING is a one-day event at the historic campus of Black Mountain College, 20 minutes from Asheville. It is part art event, part fundraiser, and part community instigator, providing a platform for contemporary artists to share their responses to the vital legacy of Black Mountain College by activating the buildings and grounds of the BMC campus with installations, new media, music, and performance projects.
General admission brings in hundreds of visitors annually. In addition to providing a forum for regional artists and an accessible, immersive, educational experience for attendees, every year the event is a community collaboration between local businesses and arts organizations.
General Information
{Re}HAPPENING 14 will take place April 25th, 2026 from 3-10pm
TICKETS:
$30 Advance Adult Admission (ends at noon on 4/24)
$37 Regular Adult Admission
$15 for Youth 10-17 + Students w/ID
(Children under 10 free with ticket holding adult)
PARKING:
$15 – Parking Pass
The $15 parking pass charge covers one vehicle to park on-site at the grounds. We highly encourage visitors to carpool whenever possible. Parking on the grounds is limited.
Purchase tickets online:
Food and Beverage
{Re}HAPPENING will feature local food trucks including Cecilia’s Kitchen and The Blue Cardinal, with beverages provided by the Bridge & Tunnel Coffee Truck, Burial Beer Co., and Highland Brewing.
About Black Mountain College
Founded in 1933, Black Mountain College was one of the leading experimental liberal arts schools in America until its closure in 1957. After the Bauhaus in Germany closed due to mounting antagonism from the Nazi Party, Josef and Anni Albers readily accepted an offer to join the Black Mountain College faculty. During their 16-year tenure in North Carolina, the Alberses helped model the college’s interdisciplinary curriculum on that of the Bauhaus, attracting an unmatched roster of teachers and students including R. Buckminster Fuller, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Mary Caroline (M.C.) Richards, Ruth Asawa, and Robert Rauschenberg.
The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) was founded in 1993 to preserve the history of Black Mountain College as a forerunner in progressive interdisciplinary education and to celebrate its extraordinary impact on modern and contemporary art, dance, theater, music, and performance.
The Museum is committed to educating the public about the history of Black Mountain College and promoting awareness of its extensive legacy through exhibitions, publications, lectures, films, seminars, and oral histories. Through our permanent collection, special exhibitions, publications, and research archive, we provide access to historical materials related to the College and its influence on the field.
BMCM+AC provides a forum for multifaceted programming in a dynamic environment in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. Our goal is to provide a gathering point for people from a variety of backgrounds to interact – integrating art, ideas, and discourse.
More about BMCM+AC: https://www.blackmountaincollege.org/