Triangle: July 2022
Issue 155
Hello from Annandale
Happy Summer from Annandale. I hope you are well and staying cool. Pretty soon the first-years will be here discovering Bard and will no doubt be spending time in our beloved waterfalls.
Last week I was on an excellent Bardian field trip to see Paradise Square, a new Broadway musical produced by Walter Swett '96. The Alumni/ae Association Board of Governors Events Committee and the Bard Performing Artists of Color co-hosted with Walter and my office. It was a treat to get together with 22 fellow Bardians (and guests) for a rousing night of singing, dancing, and history. It's a great story of the Five Points area in the Lower East Side during the Civil War, which was fascinating - and..I'd love to have a bar like Paradise Square in my neighborhood.
As June is now in the rear-view mirror, I have to thank everyone who stepped up to support Bard by the end of our fiscal year. We know today, more than ever, there are many places that need you and we are grateful to make it to your list. Thank you!
It was already two months ago that we had the biggest Commencement and Reunion ever - over 4,500 alumni/ae and families back on campus - and we are still talking about it. There were three graduating classes and forty-five reunion classes! See photos here.
Congratulations especially to classes of 2007, 2012 and 2017 - you BROKE THE RECORD for reunion attendance. Lots of recent graduates in Newsmakers on our new website: alums.bard.edu #bardianandproud
We celebrated twenty-five amazing years of the TLS program with lunch and meaningful conversation; chez Paul Marienthal and TLS alumni/ae walked in the procession with special sashes. After a stormy start, which found the class of 2022 lining up in the Stevenson Gym, everyone got settled in the tent and were thrilled to welcome Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland as Commencement speaker. You can hear all the speeches here.
After Commencement alumni/ae, new graduates and families filled the Blithewood lawn BBQ, dancing and an epic fireworks display.
The alumni/ae late-night after-party Stereo Moonrise Vinyl Lounge, in front of Fisher/Proctor in the Anna Jones Memorial Garden was probably my favorite event: s'more dancing, s'mores, and the s'magic bus!
Annandale was not the only place where Bard graduations happened. You can see highlights of the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) graduations that happened this spring here.
Save the Date for Reunion 2023: May 26th-28th. Everyone with a 3 or 8 it's your turn next. Email me if you want to get involved, make your plans NOW.
Annandale never sleeps - SummerScape is in full swing. I saw Dom Juan, Pam Tamowitz Dance Company, and this weekend I am going to see the students from the Jazz at Lincoln Center Summer Academy perform in the Spiegeltent. The Strauss opera The Silent Woman opens on July 22nd and the 32nd Bard Music Festival, Rachmaninoff and his World, starts August 5th.
Please come up for a show. There's an alumni/ae discount (Promo code: BARDALUM) and on certain days there is even a bus from NYC. You can find all the information here.
But...I think the highlight for me is going to be seeing the Sun Ra Arkestra at Opus 40 on July 29th - I can't wait.
I remember seeing Sun Ra and his Arkestra play in Kline in 1986 - amazing. My pal Raissa St. Pierre '87 brought them to Bard with the Musical Activities Group (MAG) and the Bard Entertainment Committee. Sun Ra's rider stipulated two things - a grand piano and a candelabra. Natalie Lunn, Technical Director of the Theater, came to the rescue and produced an enormous gilt candelabra from the archives of the scene shop. After the show, Sun Ra and the Arkestra ate french fries in the coffee shop and drove off to stay at the Super 8 in Hyde Park.
I wish I had some photos of them. Please send if you do, or photos of any bands at Bard for us to post.
We are also collecting Bardian videos for our YouTube playlists, so please send, too, and follow our channel.
Stay cool, as for me, I'm heading north next month to Nova Scotia. If, in your travels this summer, you link up with other Bardians, send us your photos for Instagram. #bardiansareeverywhere
Be seeing you,
Jane '89
P.S. We are moving Cities Parties to September this year - let us know if you want to host one. And save the date for Family and Alumni/ae Weekend, October 21st -22nd. Come back to see Bard in session, take classes and tours, catch up with faculty, and enjoy the crispy-apple fall in the HV.
Dates to Remember
September 3, 2022: Adam Conover '04 at The Bell House in Brooklyn
October 21-22, 2022: Family and Alumni/ae Weekend
Newsmakers
Bard College Faculty Member Felicia Keesing Wins the 2022 International Cosmos Prize
Dr. Felicia Keesing, Bard College’s David and Rosalie Rose Distinguished Professor of Science, Mathematics, and Computing, has been selected as the winner of the 2022 International Cosmos Prize by the Expo ’90 Foundation. Dr. Keesing will receive a certificate of merit, a medallion, and a monetary prize of 40 million yen (approximately $290,000 USD) at the award ceremony, which will be held in Osaka, Japan, on November 9. Dr. Keesing will also give a commemorative lecture, participate in a symposium held in her honor, and have an audience with the Emperor and Empress of Japan.
Full Story“With Sign Language and Sound, an Artist Upends Audience Perceptions”: Christine Sun Kim MFA ’13 Profiled in the New York Times
“I’m finally at the point where I can do whatever I want, and I am going for it,” says Christine Sun Kim MFA ’13, who is a recent music/sound faculty member in Bard’s MFA program, where experimental approaches to the medium are encouraged. Born deaf, Kim is acutely aware of the opportunities afforded to the hearing that she was denied as a child and later as an aspiring artist. Now, Kim’s work is sought after by museums and collectors around the world, and she has become a role model for deaf children. “Over the past decade, working in wry drawings (charts, text and musical notation), video, audio, performance and the odd airplane banner, Ms. Kim, 42, has made work that is poetic and political, charismatic and candid, and that upends the conventions of language and sound,” writes Andrew Russeth in the New York Times profile.
Full StoryThe Mary Sue Runs Primer on Bechdel-Wallace Test and the Work of Alison Bechdel SR ’77
Alison Bechdel SR ’77, alumna of Bard College at Simon’s Rock, is known for many things, from her Macarthur “genius” grant to the enduring popularity of Fun Home, but the “Bechdel-Wallace Test,” which she first outlined in her serial cartoon Dykes to Watch Out For, remains an important media metric to this day, writes Madeline Carpou for the Mary Sue. Tracing the origins of the Bechdel-Wallace Test, Bechdel’s career is outlined as a primer to those unfamiliar with her work.
Full StoryCivil Rights Lawyer Cynthia Conti-Cook ’03 Discusses the Precedent of Using Personal Digital Data to Criminalize Pregnant People
In the New York Times, Cynthia Conti-Cook ’03, civil rights lawyer and technology fellow in gender, racial, and ethnic justice at the Ford Foundation, discusses how data from personal digital devices can be weaponized to prosecute pregnant people accused of feticide or endangering their fetuses. “It’s hard to say what will happen where and how and when, but the possibilities are pretty perilous,” Conti-Cook said. “It can be very easy to be overwhelmed by all the possibilities, which is why I try to emphasize focusing on what we have seen used against people.” She adds that types of data that have already been used in courts to criminalize pregnant people include Google searches, text and email receipts, website visits. “The text to your sister that says, ‘Expletive, I’m pregnant.’ The search history for abortion pills or the visitation of websites that have information about abortion.”
Full StoryWhen Supporting Displaced Persons Seeking Education, “There Is Strength in Numbers,” Writes Rebecca Granato ’99 in Times Higher Education
“Universities have a role to play in humanizing refugees and helping them establish new lives in new countries,” writes Rebecca Granato ’99, associate vice president for global initiatives at Bard College and the director of the Open Society University Network (OSUN) Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives. In an essay for Times Higher Education, Granato offers four simple ways universities can support displaced persons and students, using OSUN as an example of the efficacy of collaboration across networks.
Full StoryLil’ Deb’s Oasis, James Beard–Nominated Chef Carla Perez-Gallardo ’10’s Celebrated Restaurant, Profiled in the Washington Post
“Lil’ Deb’s is a sensory explosion of queer exuberance and kitsch . . . ” writes Von Diaz for the Washington Post. “Deb’s is not a gay bar; it’s a restaurant. Food is the focus, and the menu is innovative, experimental and incredibly memorable. And as its name suggests, Deb’s is a place where people from all walks of life convene, where the only thing that’s illicit is how sinfully sumptuous the food is, where the staffers can take pride in preparing meals that are as unique as they are and where deliciousness becomes an extension of queer resistance.”
Full StoryBard College Appoints Lucas Blalock ’02 as Assistant Professor of Photography in the Division of Arts
Bard College’s Division of Arts is pleased to announce the appointment of Lucas Blalock ’02 as assistant professor of photography. His tenure-track appointment begins in the 2022–23 academic year. Blalock is a photographer and writer whose work explores the potentials of mannerism in photography. He has been included in exhibitions at The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Walker Art Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Malmo Kunsthall. He has also staged solo exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the Museum Kurhaus in Kleve, Germany as well as in galleries in the US and in Europe, including Ramiken Crucible, White Cube, Eva Presenhuber, and Rodolphe Janssen.
Full StoryRebeca Huntt ’12 Interviewed by TIME for Her New Autobiographical Documentary Beba
For Rebeca Huntt ’12, the release of Beba, her debut, autobiographical documentary, came with some worry about how the film would be received. Members of her family are interviewed extensively throughout, with her own life serving as the subject of the film. After seeing audiences respond to the work, however, these fears have receded. “This film is bigger than my fear and what I think people are gonna think of me,” Huntt said in an interview with TIME.
Full Story
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