Filmmakers Adam Khalil ’11 and Zack Khalil ’14 Are Core Collaborators of the New Red Order (NRO), “a Public Secret Society . . . Working to Channel Complicity Towards Indigenous Futures”
“Since working with and as NRO, the artists routinely publicly acknowledge their complicity as informants, leveraging their status to broker power and effect institutional change that goes beyond symbolic platitude,” writes Emily Kaplan in CulturedMagazine. “NRO utilizes their position as informants to push institutions to broaden their land acknowledgments to include commitments to support Indigenous communities materially and to work to dismantle the ongoing effects of settler colonialism.”
Filmmakers Adam Khalil ’11 and Zack Khalil ’14 Are Core Collaborators of the New Red Order (NRO), “a Public Secret Society . . . Working to Channel Complicity Towards Indigenous Futures”
“Since working with and as NRO, the artists routinely publicly acknowledge their complicity as informants, leveraging their status to broker power and effect institutional change that goes beyond symbolic platitude,” writes Emily Kaplan in CulturedMagazine. “NRO utilizes their position as informants to push institutions to broaden their land acknowledgments to include commitments to support Indigenous communities materially and to work to dismantle the ongoing effects of settler colonialism.”
As Far as Isolation Goes “has no political agenda, only an emotional and physical one, built on the idea that you are the canvas—and now, to some extent, the artist,” writes Jesse Green. “Even if your line is wobbly and your figures feeble in comparison to Zaraa’s—his own artwork has the boldly graphic quality of graffiti—drawing them yourself inscribes them in some small way on your conscience. Indeed, days later, though pandemic hand washing had nearly erased my refugees, I kept checking my arm to see who was left.”
Review: New York Times Names Artist in Residence Tania El Khoury and Basel Zaraa’s As Far as Isolation Goes at the Fisher Center a Critic’s Pick
As Far as Isolation Goes “has no political agenda, only an emotional and physical one, built on the idea that you are the canvas—and now, to some extent, the artist,” writes Jesse Green. “Even if your line is wobbly and your figures feeble in comparison to Zaraa’s—his own artwork has the boldly graphic quality of graffiti—drawing them yourself inscribes them in some small way on your conscience. Indeed, days later, though pandemic hand washing had nearly erased my refugees, I kept checking my arm to see who was left.” Tania El Khoury is a distinguished artist in residence in the Theater and Performance Program and director of the OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College (CHRA). Visit the CHRA website to learn more about their ongoing event series.
Radical listening, electricity blackouts in Lebanon, participatory art and political art—Tania El Khoury talks with DRAFF about her artistic practice in this mini-documentary. Tania El Khoury is a distinguished artist in residence in the Theater and Performance Program and director of the new OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard.
Distinguished Artist in Residence Tania El Khoury Talks with DRAFF about Participatory Art
Radical listening, electricity blackouts in Lebanon, participatory art and political art—Tania El Khoury talks with DRAFF about her artistic practice in this mini-documentary. Tania El Khoury is a distinguished artist in residence in the Theater and Performance Program and director of the new OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard.
Fisher Center at Bard’s Spring 2021 Season Presents New Music and Performance Programs Through Its Virtual Stage, UPSTREAMING
Continuing its commitment to bring the world’s boldest artists and most exciting projects to audiences beyond the walls of our building, the Fisher Center at Bard announces its spring 2021 season of music and performance. The Fisher Center’s virtual stage, UPSTREAMING, extends its programming into the new year with As Far As Isolation Goes (Online), an interactive, one-on-one performance from live artist Tania El Khoury, cocurator of last season’s Live Arts Bard Biennial, and the new director of the OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts, based at Bard; The Future Is Present, a project intended to model community building with a focus on intimacy and discourse; as well as streamed concerts from The Orchestra Now and the Bard Conservatory College Orchestra;The Sound of Spring, a Chinese New Year celebration, from the US-China Music Institute,and a recital of French music with Piers Lane and Danny Driver,commissioned by the Bard Music Festival.
All events are available on UPSTREAMING, the Fisher Center’s virtual stage, adding to an already robust selection of archival HD opera recordings and contextual materials.
Reserve online or call the box office at 845-758-7900. Box office hours: Monday–Friday, 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. EST.
Program information
THE FUTURE IS PRESENT Ongoing
In late 2020, artists Charlotte Brathwaite, Justin Hicks, Janani Balasubramanian, Sunder Ganglani, June Cross, and Alyssa Simmons initiated The Future Is Present: A Casting the Vote Project, a high-impact, liberatory media project. Across seven weeks, a small community of Black and Indigenous young artists/activists and a small community of young artists from Bard College (Adrian Costa, Megan Lacy, Cam Orr, Anya Petkovich, Taty Rozetta, Hakima SmithStone, Dani Wilder, and Mengchen Zhang) virtually cultivated intimacy and discourse. Over the course of these weeks, the youth cohort created demands on our collective future; now a process of amplifying those demands is underway. Using the youth cohort’s words to inspire scenes, animations, and other moving-image fragments, the Bard artists created a film for the youth cohort, to be released in February, as part of an ongoing collaborative process.
An introductory video, released on UPSTREAMING following the 2021 presidential inauguration, is an invitation for people to participate on terms that make sense in their communities.
TANIA EL KHOURY AND BASEL ZARAA AS FAR AS ISOLATION GOES (ONLINE) February 24 – March 21 Very limited availability ZOOM $20 ($5 Bard student tickets available through the Passloff Pass)
An online, interactive, one-on-one performance brings audience members into contact with people experiencing inhumane detention centers and a mental health system that disregards their political and emotional humanity. A collaboration between live artist Tania El Khoury and musician and street artist Basel Zaraa, and reimagined for an online context during the coronavirus lockdown, the piece builds on an earlier collaboration, As Far As My Fingertips Take Me, in which El Khoury commissioned Zaraa to record a rap song inspired by the journey his sisters made from Damascus to Sweden.
In As Far As Isolation Goes, Zaraa and El Khoury worked together to create another iteration of their previous piece focused on the mental and physical health experiences of refugees in the United Kingdom. Zaraa created a song inspired by conversations with friends and colleagues who have recently claimed refuge in the UK.
THE ORCHESTRA NOW (TŌN) The Orchestra Now’s 2021 Season features livestreamed virtual concerts including a world premiere by Sarah Hennies, visiting assistant professor of music at Bard; Popcorn Superhet Receiver by Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead); Maestro Leon Botstein conducting Schoenberg and Bach; and more. All concerts, which are livestreamed from the Sosnoff Theater at the Fisher Center at Bard, are free, but reservations are required.
SCHOENBERG & BACH Sunday, February 7 at 2 p.m. EST Leon Botstein conductor
TŌN Music Director Leon Botstein kicks off the spring season with J.S. Bach’s third Brandenburg Concerto and Arnold Schoenberg’s romantic tone poem Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night). Also on the program are works for string orchestra by Venezuelan composer Teresa Carreño and Polish composer Witold Lutosławski.
J.S. Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 Witold Lutosławski Funeral Music Teresa Carreño Serenade for Strings Arnold Schoenberg Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night)
NEW & CLASSIC WORKS FOR STRINGS Sunday, February 21 at 2 p.m. EST James Bagwell conductor
This concert features the world premiere of a new work by composer Sarah Hennies, visiting assistant professor of music at Bard; and the 2005 piece Popcorn Superhet Receiver by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, which was used in the film There Will Be Blood. The program also includes Edvard Grieg’s classic Holberg Suite and a popular work by Vaughan Williams.
Sarah Hennies New Work TBA Jonny Greenwood Popcorn Superhet Receiver Ralph Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis Edvard Grieg Holberg Suite
ANDRÉS RIVAS CONDUCTS THE ORCHESTRA NOW Sunday, March 7 at 2 p.m. EST
TŌN Assistant Conductor Andrés Rivas leads this March concert by The Orchestra Now, livestreamed online for free from the Sosnoff Theater at the Fisher Center at Bard. Music on the program will be announced in the weeks preceding the concert.
ZACHARY SCHWARTZMAN CONDUCTS THE ORCHESTRA NOW Saturday, March 20 at 8 p.m. EST
TŌN Resident Conductor Zachary Schwartzman leads this March concert by The Orchestra Now, livestreamed online for free from the Sosnoff Theater at the Fisher Center at Bard. Music on the program will be announced in the weeks preceding the concert.
AN APRIL CONCERT WITH LEON BOTSTEIN Saturday, April 10 at 8 p.m. EST
TŌN Music Director Leon Botstein leads this April concert by The Orchestra Now, livestreamed online for free from the Sosnoff Theater at the Fisher Center at Bard. Music on the program will be announced in the weeks preceding the concert.
A MAY CONCERT WITH LEON BOTSTEIN Saturday, May 1 at 8 p.m. EST
TŌN Music Director Leon Botstein leads this May concert by The Orchestra Now, livestreamed online for free from the Sosnoff Theater at the Fisher Center at Bard. Music on the program will be announced in the weeks preceding the concert.
THE US-CHINA MUSIC INSTITUTE THE SOUND OF SPRING Saturday, February 13 at 8 p.m. EST Prerecorded concert streamed online Free; reservations required
A concert of symphonic music to celebrate the Lunar New Year, featuring a new performance by The Orchestra Now conducted by Jindong Cai, along with performances from orchestras in Asia including the China NCPA Orchestra and the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra.
This year’s concert will carry a message of hope, renewal, and new beginnings, in the spirit of the Chinese New Year tradition of the spring festival.
BARD MUSIC FESTIVAL FRENCH MUSIC RECITAL Pre-recorded recital streamed on demand February 19–25 $15, $25, $35 ($5 Bard student tickets available through the Passloff Pass)
A recital of French music with Danny Driver and Piers Lane commissioned by the Bard Music Festival, featuring works by César Franck, Lili Boulanger, Gabriel Fauré, and Camille Saint-Saëns.
BARD COLLEGE CONSERVATORY ORCHESTRA Saturday, March 13 at 8 p.m. EST Livestreamed from the Sosnoff Theater Free; reservations required
Leon Botstein and Andrés Rivas lead the Bard College Conservatory of Music in a program with works by Richard Strauss, William Grant Still, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and Peter Illych Tchaikovsky.
About UPSTREAMING, the Fisher Center’s virtual stage, Archival Discoveries, and New Commissions for the Digital Sphere UPSTREAMING broadens the Fisher Center’s commitment to reaching audiences far beyond the physical walls of our building, and offers new ways for us to engage with artists. Launched in April 2020, UPSTREAMING has released new content, including digital commissions, virtual events, and beloved performances and rich contextual materials from the archives of the SummerScape Opera, as well as Bard Music Festival’s 30-year history. UPSTREAMING highlights different aspects of the breadth of programming the Fisher Center offers. New releases are announced via the Fisher Center’s weekly newsletter. To receive those updates and stay connected to UPSTREAMING, join the mailing list here. #UPSTREAMINGFC
ABOUT THE FISHER CENTER AT BARD The Fisher Center at Bard develops, produces, and presents performing arts across disciplines through new productions and context-rich programs that challenge and inspire. As a premier professional performing arts center and a hub for research and education, the Fisher Center supports artists, students, and audiences in the development and examination of artistic ideas, offering perspectives from the past and present, as well as visions of the future. The Fisher Center demonstrates Bard’s commitment to the performing arts as a cultural and educational necessity. Home is the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Frank Gehry and located on the campus of Bard College in New York’s Hudson Valley. The Fisher Center offers outstanding programs to many communities, including the students and faculty of Bard College, and audiences in the Hudson Valley, New York City, across the country, and around the world. Building on a 160-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders.
Adam Khalil ’11 and Fellow Filmmaker Bayley Sweitzer Receive 2021 Creative Capital Award for “Boundary-pushing” Work
Khalil and Sweitzer will receive up to $50,000 in funding for their joint film project Nosferasta, one of 35 proposals chosen from more than 4,000 entries. The winning artists range in age from 20 to 80, with 76 percent identifying as BIPOC, 55 percent as female, and 10 percent as having a disability. In addition to project funding, winners are given access to career development services across fields, with the goal of fostering sustainable practices on which the artists may build.
Associated Press Praises Direction, Cinematography, and “Hugely Entertaining” Relationship at Core of Dreamland, the New Film Directed by Miles Joris-Peyrafitte ’14 and Costarring Lola Kirke ’12
“Also to be admired is the evocative period cinematography by Lyle Vincent—you can practically feel the dust smart in your eyes—and the sure-handed direction by Joris-Peyrafitte, all the more noteworthy in that it’s only his second feature and he’s still in his 20s,” writes AP’s Jocelyn Noveck.
Bard College Names Miriam Felton-Dansky Director of Undergraduate Theater and Performance Program
Bard College has named Miriam Felton-Dansky director of its undergraduate Theater and Performance Program. A longtime faculty member in the program as well as in Bard’s Experimental Humanities concentration, Felton-Dansky will take her position as director in spring 2021. Gideon Lester, who has served as director of the Theater and Performance Program since 2012, will become senior curator of the newly formed Center for Human Rights and the Arts, part of the Open Society University Network, alongside his work as artistic director of the Fisher Center at Bard.
“Miriam Felton-Dansky steps into this key leadership role at a moment when the College's Theater and Performance Program is poised to enact important curricular changes,” said Dean of the College Deirdre d’Albertis. “The theater and performance faculty are engaged in collaborative work with students past and present to develop and strengthen opportunities for undergraduate theatermaking based in the program's affirmed commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.” She added, “Gideon Lester will join with Tania El Khoury in building the new Center for Human Rights and the Arts and its allied MA program, bringing his artistic vision and experience to this important new leadership position in Bard's graduate programs.”
Miriam Felton-Dansky is associate professor of theater and performance at Bard. She has also been a core faculty member of the Experimental Humanities concentration since 2012 and served as its interim director in 2015–16. A scholar and critic of contemporary performance, her first book, Viral Performance: Contagious Theaters from Modernism to the Digital Age, was published by Northwestern University Press in 2018. Her criticism has appeared in Theatre Survey, Theatre Journal, TDR, Theater, PAJ, ASAP/J, Artforum.com, and the Walker Art Center’s magazine; from 2009 to 2018 she was a theater critic for the Village Voice. She is a cohost of the theater studies podcast On TAP and a contributing editor to Theater, where she served as guest coeditor for the Digital Dramaturgies trilogy (2012-–18). Her current research focuses on the history and politics of spectatorship in experimental performance. She holds a BA summa cum laude in theater and history from Barnard College and a doctorate of fine arts from the Yale School of Drama.
Gideon Lester, artistic director of the Fisher Center at Bard, has been named senior curator, OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts. Through its public, research, and academic programs, the OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts seeks to confront the current practical and conceptual challenges of human rights discourse by stimulating new ways of thinking, developing new strategies of activism and engagement, and working meaningfully on a global scale. The Center is finalizing an MA program in human rights and the arts, which will unite artists, scholars, and activists in an international, comparative, and interdisciplinary curriculum. The MA program will be based at Bard College, a founding member of the Open Society University Network (OSUN), and is expected to welcome its first class in fall 2021.
A festival director, creative producer, and dramaturg, Lester has collaborated with and commissioned leading American and international artists across disciplines, including Romeo Castellucci, Justin Vivian Bond, Krystian Lupa, Brice Marden, Sarah Michelson, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Claudia Rankine, Kaija Saariaho, Peter Sellars, and Anna Deavere Smith. Recent projects include Where No Wall Remains, an international festival on borders (cocurated with Tania El Khoury); Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma! (Tony Award); Pam Tanowitz’s Four Quartets; and Ronald K. Brown and Meshell Ndegeocello’s Grace and Mercy. He founded and directs Live Arts Bard, the Fisher Center’s residency and commissioning program, and directed Bard’s undergraduate Theater and Performance Program from 2012 to 2020. He was previously cocurator of the Crossing the Line Festival and acting artistic director at the American Repertory Theatre. He has taught at Harvard and Columbia, has a BA in English literature from Oxford University, and was a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard’s Institute for Advanced Theater Training. #
About Bard College Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 160-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
Actor Patrick Vaill ’07 Writes About His New Netflix Series Dash & Lily and Filming in His Hometown of NYC during the Pandemic
“As a proud native New Yorker, to see my hometown in full flower, flexing and showing off as only New York can feels exultant. New York City is not, has never been, and never will be a ghost town,” writes Vaill, who plays an employee of the Strand bookstore in the series. “New York has a starring role, and in the show’s deft, kind hands, what could feel like loss feels like a promise of what can return.”
Bard Alumni Filmmakers Adam Khalil ’11 and Zack Khalil ’14 Named 2020–22 Firelight Documentary Lab Fellows
Firelight Media has named Bard alumni Adam Khalil ’11 and Zack Khalil ’14 among the 14 Fellows selected for the 2020–22 Firelight Documentary Lab. The 18-month program supporting Black, indigenous, and other filmmakers of color is now in its 11th year. The two brothers will receive support for their film Aanikoobijigan (ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild), of which they write, “Locked away in the sterile storage of museums and archives, our ancestor’s remains struggle to find their way home. This film follows eleven Indigenous repatriation specialists that make up MACPRA (Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation & Repatriation Alliance), fighting to rebury and return ancestors from settler-colonial libraries, archives, and museums.”
Image Courtesy of the ArtistsThursday, January 21, 2021 – Friday, December 31, 2021 Various “We projected ourselves into a future in which we are loved absolutely and we rehearsed our lives there.”
The Future Is Present is a process and a practice, it’s a model for building community in a very small and incredibly powerful way. Led by artists Charlotte Brathwaite, Justin Hicks, Janani Balasubramanian, Sunder Ganglani, June Cross, and Alyssa Simmons, the project built a small community of Black and Indigenous young people* and a small community of young artists from Bard College** to spend seven weeks cultivating intimacy and discourse.
The youth cohort created demands on our collective future. The Bard community members listened, deeply.
Now, a process of amplifying those demands is underway. The artists at Bard have made a series of short films for the youth cohort, available to view here.
This is an invitation to you to participate, somehow, on terms that make sense in your community. We would love to talk about what that might mean for you. Reach out to coordinator@thefutureispresent.xyz.
** Adrian Costa, Megan Lacy, Cam Orr, Anya Petkovich, Taty Rozetta, Hakima Alem, Dani Wilder, and Mengchen Zhang
To read a transcript of the video above, click here.
The Future is Present is supported by Live Arts Bard, the Fisher Center’s commissioning and residency program. Additional commissioning support provided by New York Live Arts.
A Staged Reading by the Bard POC Theatre Ensemble Online Event2:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 by Suzan-Lori Parks Vocal Arrangements by Faith Amrapali Williams ‘22 Directed by Morgan Barnes-Whitehead ‘21 Produced by Taty Rozetta ‘21, Immanuel Williams ‘22, POC Theatre Ensemble
Featuring Skye Carter ‘22, Ogechi Egonu ‘22, Maya Lavender ‘23, Sophia Lawder ‘23, Isis Pinheiro ‘21, Taty Rozetta ‘21, Morgan Barnes-Whitehead ‘21, Faith Amrapali Williams ‘22, and Immanuel Williams ‘22Hester, a reviled and revered abortionist, sets out on a quest to buy her son’s freedom. Branded with the letter “A” on her chest, riffing from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, her journey of vengeance, sacrifice, and the pursuit of justice in a system that has failed her leads the audience on a poetic exploration of social and political injustice.
This staged reading of one of Suzan-Lori Parks’s seldom-staged early works is led by Bard’s POC Theatre Ensemble, a student-run organization created by Jadyn Gray-Hough ‘20 and Immanuel Williams ‘22 which aims to facilitate an environment of inclusion within the Bard theatre community- particularly for people of color. POC Theatre Ensemble is primarily focused on theater written for and by people of color.
Friday, April 9, 2021
A Staged Reading by the Bard POC Theatre Ensemble Online Event7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 by Suzan-Lori Parks Vocal Arrangements by Faith Amrapali Williams ‘22 Directed by Morgan Barnes-Whitehead ‘21 Produced by Taty Rozetta ‘21, Immanuel Williams ‘22, POC Theatre Ensemble
Featuring Skye Carter ‘22, Ogechi Egonu ‘22, Maya Lavender ‘23, Sophia Lawder ‘23, Isis Pinheiro ‘21, Taty Rozetta ‘21, Morgan Barnes-Whitehead ‘21, Faith Amrapali Williams ‘22, and Immanuel Williams ‘22Hester, a reviled and revered abortionist, sets out on a quest to buy her son’s freedom. Branded with the letter “A” on her chest, riffing from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, her journey of vengeance, sacrifice, and the pursuit of justice in a system that has failed her leads the audience on a poetic exploration of social and political injustice.
This staged reading of one of Suzan-Lori Parks’s seldom-staged early works is led by Bard’s POC Theatre Ensemble, a student-run organization created by Jadyn Gray-Hough ‘20 and Immanuel Williams ‘22 which aims to facilitate an environment of inclusion within the Bard theatre community- particularly for people of color. POC Theatre Ensemble is primarily focused on theater written for and by people of color.
Monday, March 29, 2021
The Natalie Lunn Technical Theater Award supports Bard students interested in summer internships in technical theater and design. Awards: $3,000 or $2,000. Projects/internships include working with a professional theater company on technical projects or independent tech theater and design projects will also be considered due to possible internship limitations this year. Apply to be considered. Applications are due on March 29, 2021 for mid-April Interviews.
Thursday, January 21, 2021 – Friday, December 31, 2021
Various “We projected ourselves into a future in which we are loved absolutely and we rehearsed our lives there.”
The Future Is Present is a process and a practice, it’s a model for building community in a very small and incredibly powerful way. Led by artists Charlotte Brathwaite, Justin Hicks, Janani Balasubramanian, Sunder Ganglani, June Cross, and Alyssa Simmons, the project built a small community of Black and Indigenous young people* and a small community of young artists from Bard College** to spend seven weeks cultivating intimacy and discourse.
The youth cohort created demands on our collective future. The Bard community members listened, deeply.
Now, a process of amplifying those demands is underway. The artists at Bard have made a series of short films for the youth cohort, available to view here.
This is an invitation to you to participate, somehow, on terms that make sense in your community. We would love to talk about what that might mean for you. Reach out to coordinator@thefutureispresent.xyz.
** Adrian Costa, Megan Lacy, Cam Orr, Anya Petkovich, Taty Rozetta, Hakima Alem, Dani Wilder, and Mengchen Zhang
To read a transcript of the video above, click here.
The Future is Present is supported by Live Arts Bard, the Fisher Center’s commissioning and residency program. Additional commissioning support provided by New York Live Arts.