2022 Artist Lineup

The Philip Glass Ensemble

Min Xiao-Fen and River Guerguerian 

Celebrating Michael Rumaker with Ted Pope

A tribute to the late Black Mountain College alumnus Michael Rumaker through poetry readings and a lakeside remembrance.

Amend x 19 – Kathy Leiner

The interactive installation/movement piece is a response to the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment and explores the history, the challenges, and the innovative spirit of women who keep moving and persevere. Audience members are invited to amend the ongoing installation and engage with the 19-minute performance every hour on the hour in a collaborative effort with dancer Kathy Leiner.

Bales of Waste – The Different Wrld Team (Honey Simone, Kat Tillman, and Sara Melosh)

An interactive installation & conversation about textile waste & solutions.

Geometry of Stardust – Alli Marshall and Ryan Glass 

This spoken word/theater piece is inspired by the 2009-2011 collection titled Geometry of Stardust by Black Mountain College alumna Dorothea Rockburne. Dorothea is an abstract painter whose work explores mathematics and astronomy, but is also evocative (through titles, shapes, materials, textures, etc.) of narrative. Spoken word artist Alli Marshall and playwright / musician Ryan Glass will team up to present a series of vignettes — presented mostly as monologues but sometimes in tandem or in dialogue — influenced by Dorothea’s paintings.

Cagevent 2{020}2: Sometimes it works, Sometimes it doesn’t Redux – Callous Physical Theatre (Joséphine A. Garibaldi & Paul Zmolek)

Callous Physical Theatre presents four 12 minute playful events inspired by John Cage’s theatre works. The performers follow scores utilizing chance operations to provide precise timings for sound, movement, and visual events to occur. The first iteration of Cagevent: Sometimes it works, Sometimes it doesn’t (2012) was performed in a converted shipping container placed in a busy shopping district for the Kontaining Festival in Helsinki, Finland.

Cake by the Lake – Julie Thomson and Friends

Cake by the Lake is an invitation to taste Johanna Jalowetz’s Hazelnut Torte (the cake) next to Lake Eden (the lake). Johanna Jalowetz came to Black Mountain College in Fall 1939 with her husband Heinrich Jalowetz. She taught bookbinding and voice at Black Mountain College and lived at the college for fourteen years, through the Spring of 1953. This gesture, offered by Julie J. Thomson—and made possible with the help of many friends—offers one answer to these questions:
• What did Black Mountain College taste like?
• Who was Johanna Jalowetz?
• What do you do with something small that you discover while doing Black Mountain College research that you can’t forget?

Cooking and Cleaning in the Shadows: The (Speculative) Work of BMC cook Cornelia Williams – Anna Helgeson and Lori Horvitz

As a way to honor the creative labor done by all women working in the shadows of men, behind the (metaphorical) kitchen door we will speculate/recreate Cornelia’s kitchen, a vibrant and inspiring place where creativity thrived not in spite of, but because of its darkness.

encomia abstraction – Jenni Cockrell

“encomia abstraction” is a 3 hour Butoh dance solo performance/improvisation exploring and celebrating the lives and works of various female artists who followed their own visions, pushed boundaries and experimented in their chosen mediums. The audience may come and go, watching for as long as they would like, with the option to draw an image card for dance inspiration and may select costume changes as well.

Environmental Engagement #2 – Lisa Blackburn and Mark Boyd

In the spirit of Theater Piece #1, this unscripted participatory installation will include processed live ambient and recorded sound, video projection, and various environmentally triggered elements happening in real time. These will combine with pre-recorded and audience driven poetry readings using excerpts from poems associated with Black Mountain College.

Visitors [Just Intonation Songs] – Vinesines (Ben Hjertmann and Emmalee Hunnicutt)

New songs in Just Intonation, composed by Ben Hjertmann and performed by Vinesines (Ben Hjertmann and Emmalee Hunnicutt). Open your ears to beautiful new harmonies and melodies not possible on standard-tuned instruments; performed with voices, guitars, cello, zither, pedal steel guitar, and bowed psaltery. They include original surreal lyrics, grungy Country-esque slide guitar, microtonal quasi-Medieval zither canons, Augmented “magic” tuning on pedal steel, fretless electric warped-Blues, improvised solos in alternate scales, and lush two-part vocal harmonies throughout.

Málning – Madeline Yahr and collaborators

Málning is a free space for the audience to create their own story, giving plenty of opportunities to wonder and wander mentally and physically. Málning is a meditative experience meant for both the movers and the viewers alike created by paint, translucent – sheer wrap and bodies.

Movement + Monoprint – Jamie Karolich

This performance will use human movement and pressure to create large scale monoprints. Each print pulled will be a record of time and movement-translated through marks on the page.

Musical Table – Martha Skinner

The drawing takes its form on a large table through the impromptu participation of visitors to the stop and go of music. The participants draw each other’s faces from across the table, and much like the game of Musical Chairs, shift positions when interrupted by the gaps in sound. We continue each other’s drawings, start new ones, creating a cacophony of faces on top of faces and gestures, a palimpsest of people and process, a community made : community portrait and a drawing by all of us of all of us.

Perfectly Imperfect Union – Susan Smith and students from the University of Maine

“Perfectly Imperfect Union” is a participatory project aimed at creating a collective borderless union within the ReHappening. Passport distribution, flag making, and manifesto proclamation bring us together as one. In honor of Owen Smith.

Re:Visions – Ant Lobo-Ladd

“Re:Visions” is an exhibition of works that were created in the vein of the legacies of both chance operation and photography at Black Mountain College. It looks at experimental photographs made on Lake Eden’s Campus by artist and curator, Ant Lobo-Ladd, during the ReViewing Conference in September 2019. They will also be facilitating a collaborative sun printing project throughout the day.

Road Signs – Daniel Abide, Byron Browne, Kaylee Dunn, Zach Sarvis, Katrina Ohstrom, Christopher O’Leary,  Madalyn Wofford, Carley Dergins

“Road Signs” is an interactive experiment that explores the ways in which we search for messages and meaning in the romantic notion of a road trip. Using imagery and sounds, from symbolism to the non-sequitur, and transforming space through art, light, video, and movement, we will emulate the poetry in roadside culture and leave the participants in a state of wanderlust.

Smoke & Mirrors – Geo Lynx, Cilla Vee, pax

“Smoke & Mirrors” is an intimate and immersive environment of projected imagery, movement and sound that conjures into being multi-faceted layers – quite literally with the use of smoke and mirrors!

Sound-Nature-Resonance – Two-Way Street

“Sound-Nature-Resonance” explores the inextricable link between nature and music and the nature of music. This concept is explored through several different musical processes and focuses on its presence in the environment, our instruments, and in performance/collaboration. The program includes: Alvin Lucier – Silver Streetcar for The Orchestra (c. 1988 for solo percussion), Kaija Saariaho- Sept Pappillions (c. 2009 for solo cello), and Adam Lion and Ashlee Booth- Rewilding (c. 2021 for cello/percussion duo).

String Theory – Zach Aliotta

Zach Aliotta explores the edges of sonic possibility for bowed strings with a collection of modified and altered violins. Scheduled performances will feature music by John Cage and Pauline Oliveros, interwoven with Bach, Fluxus, and other elements from a classically-rooted past and a postmodern future. Festival attendees are invited to play or interact with the instruments throughout the day and participate in an ongoing improvisatory performance.

Everything is in Order – Asheville Contemporary Dance Theater (Dancers: Sharon Cooper, Melissa Wilhoit, Angela Gorman, and Giles Collard. Musician / Vocalist: Liz Lang)

“Everything is in Order” is an interdisciplinary work about border bureaucracy, repression, hope, success, and failure. This work features dance, theatre, sculptural installation created by a Mexican artist Gildo Gonzalez, live music and voice.