Calendar of Events

11am roundtable conversation | 7pm performances

This event brings together accomplished dance artists Eleanor Hullihan, Rashaun Mitchell, Silas Riener and Mina Nishimura for a series of performances and conversations that examine Black Mountain College’s continuing influence on the world of dance. Join us for a roundtable conversation at 11am and dance performances beginning at 7pm.

BMC Dance is curated by Eleanor Hullihan.

Performances:

Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener
Performed by Mitchell and Riener, this performance draws from their embodied “Desire Lines” practice that combines movement, vocalization, and object manipulation into site-responsive, community-oriented performance installations. A desire line in landscape architecture refers to an unofficial route or social trail that breaks protocol with prescribed pathways, sometimes the shortest distance between two points, sometimes simply a good way to follow one’s curiosity. Desire lines represent an accumulated record of transformation in public space, a model for a permissive dance-making process that invites us to reimagine the self and its environment.

Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener are New York-based dance artists who create collaborative performance installations using improvisational techniques, digital technologies, audio scores, and material construction. They use movement to build speculative worlds which expose and reconcile the unfamiliar. Their physical practice synthesizes improvisation, formal dance training, athletic sports, building and construction. Their collaborative process involves the blurring of a professional and romantic relationship. Two very different sensibilities and experiences of race and culture synthesize and clash in ways that suggest comparative models for how to co-exist, assimilate, or reimagine society.

Since 2010 they have created over 25 multidisciplinary dance works including site-responsive installations, concert dances, gallery performances and dances for film. They have been artists-in-residence at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Mt Tremper Arts, pieter, Jacob’s Pillow, New York City Center, The Watermill Center, MANCC, Headlands Center for the Arts, BOFFO, Center for Ballet and the Arts, Petronio Residency Center, and Baryshnikov Arts Center. Their work has been commissioned by BAM/Next Wave, The Barbican, REDCAT, EMPAC, The Walker Art Center, MCA Chicago, The Wexner, On The Boards, Danspace Project, Madison Square Park Conservancy, The Joyce Theater, The LAB, Marfa Sounding, Gagosian Premieres, SFMOMA, and MoMA PS1. Mitchell and Riener are currently Caroline Hearst Artists in Residence, and inaugural members of NCC Akron’s multi-year Creative Administration Residency.

Photos of Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener by Paula Lobo and Alex John Beck.

Mina Nishimura
Untitled (confined madness / glorious zombie/ colored lines) is a practice of becoming a glorious zombie. No will power. No tangling thoughts. Supported by astral projection practice, peripherals of a performance site and images of marginalized beings, a body will keep being moved around without establishing anything. The work may incorporate colored line drawing in order to dig a well while flying high.

Mina Nishimura is a dance artist originally from Tokyo. Buddhism-influenced philosophical concepts are reflected across her somatic, performance and choreographic practices. She has been performing and collaborating with a number of groundbreaking artists, most recently including John Jasperse, Kota Yamazaki, Dean Moss, Yasuko Yokoshi and Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener. Nishimura is a recipient of Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award 2019, and was the 2021-22 Renewal Residency Artist at Danspace Project in NY, where she premiered Mapping a Forest while Searching for an Opposite Term of Exorcist in 2022. She currently teaches at Bennington College where she completed her MFA fellowship in 2021.

Photos of Mina Nishimura by Shane Prudente.

Eleanor Hullihan + Zach Cooper
miniatures 2023
A series of miniature studies performed by Eleanor Hullihan and Zach Cooper.

Eleanor Hullihan is a movement artist living in Asheville after many years dancing, teaching and creating performances in NYC. Her work is a journey of uncovering and physicalizing the delicate and magical internal world. She has performed with John Jasperse, Beth Gill, Andrew Ondrejcak, Sufjan Stevens, Jessica Dessner, Sarah Michelson, Miguel Gutierrez,  Jennifer Monson, Tere O’Connor, The Merce Cunningham Trust and Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener among others. Eleanor makes performances with Katy Pyle, Asli Bulbul, Emma Judkins, Adam Schatz, Zach Cooper and Jimmy Jolliff. She has been a contributing writer and curator for Movement Research. She is a movement coach for musicians and actors and maintains a pilates-based teaching practice for professional dancers and non dancers alike who seek deep and subtle support. Eleanor owned and operated two pilates studios in NYC and was on faculty at the American Ballet Theatre’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School and Sarah Lawrence College. Eleanor attended UNCSA as a high school student and has a BFA from NYU Tisch Dance.

Zach Cooper is a Grammy award winning composer, producer and songwriter based in Black Mountain, North Carolina. He has contributed to works by Leon Bridges, Jazmine Sullivan, Jon Batiste, Moses Sumney, Billy Porter, and Ellie Goulding, among others. Zach is also a founding member of experimental soul group King Garbage. His work has been featured in Pitchfork, The Fader, Rolling Stone, and Guitar World magazine, and he’s released records with RVNG Int’l, Styles Upon Styles and Mike Patton’s Ipecac Recordings.

Black Box Dance Theatre’s PATRIOT returns to the Diana Wortham Theatre at the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts with Asheville’s Brothers and Sisters Like These and local veterans for an encore performance of an evening length work of multimedia dance, theatre and story-telling that examines the service and sacrifice of veterans, active-duty military, their families and those they serve.

The last of our 3 Fringe Summer Nights will have pop up performances, Asheville Fringe announcements, cold beverages and weirdo camaraderie. Join us!
Featuring:
Strange Daughters Butoh
The Accidentals
Justin Evans

Donations go to artists. Donate to Asheville Fringe at https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?donation=afs

Beginner’s workshop lesson at 7:30 P.M., then 8-11 P.M. Contra Dance with Country Waltzing at the break and the final dance. This is a partner dance but it’s not necessary to come with a partner. We have different live bands and callers.

Shrek Rave Tickets | Asheville, NC | The Orange Peel (etix.com)

Ages 18+

IT’S DUMB JUST COME HAVE FUN. WHO CARES. COOL IS DEAD.

It’s time to raise the barn roof, shake the tailfeathers and Boogi! We welcome for the first time BOOGI THERAPI to the Big Barn here at Hickory Nut Gap Farm in gorgeous Fairview, NC! Come out from 6pm-9pm to to enjoy some R&B, Funk & More from one of Asheville’s best funk party bands in the area, fronted by Ryan ‘R&B’ Barber this group of talented entertainers will keep y’all

You’re gonna need fuel to get down- we have ROOT DOWN FARM food truck! Headed by Ben Holt out of Yancey County and his family, this food truck will be slinging some truly fabulous farm-to-table fare featuring all local and seasonal delights from the area.

Hickory Nut Gap will have a bar serving local beers, ciders, seltzers and non-alcoholic beverages to slake your thirst between bumps. We cannot wait to get down and have some Boogi Therapi at the farm, it’s gonna be a booty-ful night…

PET POLICY: While we normally allow leashed pets on the grounds, we ask you leave your furry friends at home for the Barn Dances.

Learn more about the Band & their music HERE

Learn more about the Food Truck & their food HERE

SILENT DISCO: HEY YA! OUTKAST DANCE PARTY

DJ CAMARO & DJ SPENCE

Ages 18+ (under 18 must be accompanied by a parent)

Join us for the final installment of our summertime series, the History of WNC/Appalachian Music with Buncombe County Special Collections.

We’ll have two dance classes at Pack Memorial Library to teach you how to Appalachian clog/flat foot dance. Learn from one of the best instructors in the area, Linda Block, from the Green Grass Cloggers.

Classes are free to attend, but registration is required. Adults and families are welcome.

The programs are held in the Pack Memorial Library auditorium on Tuesday, August 8 from 6-7 PM and Tuesday, August 29 from 6-7 PM.

Please wear comfortable clothing, water bottles with lids are welcome.

DJ ERIK MATTOX

Ages 18+ (under 18 must be accompanied by a parent)

The brilliant colors of traditional costumes and the songs and folkloric dance of Mexico by local, talented youth will fill The White Horse Black Mountain on Friday, September 8. Ballet Folklórico Raíces, a program of Raíces Emma-Erwin, a local Latine cultural arts organization, will share the stage with musician David LaMotte and the Indigenous Mä hñäkihu musical group.

Ballet Folklórico Raíces was organized just last fall by Latine teens, some of whom had been dancing with Raíces Emma Erwin programs for almost 10 years. They applied for and received grant funding to hire professional folklorico dancer, Daniel Vega Vazquez, as their instructor and creative director. He is the founder of Ballet Folklorico Asheville. Verner Learning Center in Emma provides space for their weekly and intensive rehearsals and they have performed six times in the last year including at the Hola Carolina festival in downtown Asheville.

“I think it’s something beautiful,” Yoltzin Alviter Hernandez, 16, says. She started folklorico dancing in the first grade and loves how it allows her to embrace her culture and share it with other people. “All the colors and each dance has a meaning behind it.”

David LaMotte is a big fan of Ballet Folklórico Raíces and traditional cultural art, dance and music. He proposed the event to create awareness about the youth dance group, to support their funding needs, and to have fun. He is contributing his talent to the evening–including a song in Spanish– and a portion of ticket proceeds will benefit the program. Mä hñäkihu, the namesake of a language and cultural preservation project based in Emma, is composed mostly of Hñähñu musicians who are Indigenous to the Mezquital Valley in Mexico. 

DJ JAZE & DJ ERIK MATTOX

Ages 18+ (under 18 must be accompanied by a parent)

Class cost: $150

Min students: 6

Max students: 12

Class Dates: Saturdays, July 22 – September 9 (8 weeks)

Time: 1 pm to 2 pm

Must be 18+ to attend

The last day to receive a full refund is June 22, 2023. After June 22, 2023, no refund will be issued.

Class Description:
Does tap dancing seem a little daunting? Is it something you always wanted to try but didn’t have the time to commit to months of classes at a time? Whether you are preparing for a show that has tap involved or you are just interested in a new skill for fun, this class is for you. Allison Starling will break down the basics of tap into easy to catch on to moves that build the foundation of any tap number. This 8 week class is a comprehensive basics course that you don’t want to miss!

DJ SPENCE & DJ CAMARO

Virgos get in free

Ages 18+ (under 18 must be accompanied by a parent)

Imagine this: it’s 2001 and you’re seeing No Doubt’s video for Hella Good for the first time. Maybe you’re sitting on a carpeted floor eating pop tarts and watching cable TV when it happens. Your aesthetic ideals have shifted since the matrix came out a couple years back and you find yourself wondering what it takes to become a badass. Quickly you determine that it has a lot to do with motorcycles, jet skis, wet looking hair and wearing black. You don’t even know about Evenescence yet but pop music is about to take some real dips into heavy riffs and darker themes. You’re for it—it makes you feel alive. Let’s run that one back, shall we?

⚡️Saturday, September 16th⚡️

☠️10pm-1am☠️

🏍️DJ Lil Meow Meow🏍️

⛓️at @littlejumbobar ⛓️

♥️$5 suggested donation♥️

Beginner’s workshop lesson at 7:30 P.M., then 8-11 P.M. Contra Dance with Country Waltzing at the break and the final dance. This is a partner dance but it’s not necessary to come with a partner. We have different live bands and callers.

Ballet Hispánico is the largest Latine/Latinx/Hispanic cultural organization in the United States and one of America’s Cultural Treasures. Through its exemplary artistry, distinguished training program, and deep-rooted community engagement, Ballet Hispánico champions and amplifies Latinx voices in the field. As it looks to the future, Ballet Hispánico is pushing the culture forward on issues of dance and Hispanic creative expression.

This electrifying combination of theatre, dance, and technology brings classic tales to new light.

We begin with Aesop’s classic fable of The Tortoise and the Hare but continue the story — which finds them 10 years down the road, now with children of their own and exploring modern day distractions. Smart phones and video games create a new landscape of lost connections to life experiences. The Next Gen features Tortoise Junior and Li’l Hare in a whole new kind of race, where their adventures lead them into unexpected territory. Old Man Tortoise and Big Daddy Hare must come together despite their differences to find and save their children. What hurdles will they have to overcome to make it to the finish line?

With dazzling visuals, poignant storytelling and the creative use of music from classical to pop, this production brings this tale into a new brilliant light. Recommended for grades K-5. Connect with the artists in a post-show Q&A.

The Student Series is open to school groups, homeschoolers, community groups and families.

*This production contains lasers and strobe lights.

This electrifying combination of theatre, dance, and technology brings classic tales to new light.

We begin with Aesop’s classic fable of The Tortoise and the Hare but continue the story — which finds them 10 years down the road, now with children of their own and exploring modern day distractions. Smart phones and video games create a new landscape of lost connections to life experiences. The Next Gen features Tortoise Junior and Li’l Hare in a whole new kind of race, where their adventures lead them into unexpected territory. Old Man Tortoise and Big Daddy Hare must come together despite their differences to find and save their children. What hurdles will they have to overcome to make it to the finish line?

With dazzling visuals, poignant storytelling and the creative use of music from classical to pop, this production brings this tale into a new brilliant light. Recommended for grades K-5. Connect with the artists in a post-show Q&A.

The Student Series is open to school groups, homeschoolers, community groups and families.

*This production contains lasers and strobe lights.

Come Join us this Sunday for our Spooky Drag Brunch at Little Louie’s! We are super excited to Host Katarina Synclaire. We have Josie Glamoure, Leo Scott, & Nova Jynah.

Still from McCall’s Bauhaus Dances, Formentanz (Form Dance), photo by Debra McCall.

The Lecture and Film: Bauhaus Dances

As Master of the Theater Workshop at the Dessau Bauhaus in the 1920s, Oskar Schlemmer delivered a series of avant-garde lecture dances on the body in space, his lifelong opus. Schlemmer’s revolutionary ideas for a humanistic theater in the new technology age were transported to the US  with the arrival of Bauhauslers Josef and Anni Albers and Xanti Schawinsky, a Theater Workshop performer, to Black Mountain. Their ideas impacted the work of Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, and Merce Cunningham at Black Mountain, who in turn disseminated Schlemmer’s emphasis on  pedestrian movement and “chance composition” to shape work of the Judson Dance Theater and New York’s downtown performance scene.

Believing Schlemmer’s Bauhaus lecture dances to be the tabula rosa of avant-garde performance art and dance of the late 1960s-70s, Debra McCall set out to East and West Germany in 1981 in search  of Schlemmer’s original notes and sketches for the dances, and to walk the stage of the then recently restored Bauhaus. She was challenged to complete these two tasks by the only surviving performer of Schlemmer’s pieces at the time, Andreas Weininger, and by Ise Gropius, Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius’s widow, who insisted McCall could only understand the architectonic nature of Schlemmer’s work by walking the stage Gropius designed for him. A series of fortuitous and occasionally harrowing events led to the premiere of her reconstructions, “Oskar Schlemmer’s 1920s  Bauhaus Dances,” at The Kitchen in New York in 1982. With the addition of more reconstructions, a second premiere occurred at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in conjunction with  the exhibition, “Kandinsky: Russian and Bauhaus Years 1915-1933.” Critical acclaim and sold-out houses led to tours of major museums and venues in the US, Europe, and Japan, including the first International Biennale de la Dance in Lyon, France, and a return to the original Dessau Bauhaus stage in 1994.

A narrative within a narrative, McCall will present the story of her reconstruction followed by a screening of a film of the reconstructions, premiered at New York’s Goethe House in 1987, featured  in American Dance Festival’s First International Festival of Film and Video Dance, and presently  residing at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.

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 National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the  Humanities, 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.” She also directs  Performing Matters (www.performingmaters.org), an organization dedicated to the preservation of  endangered dance and dancers’ rights.

Watch a recording: vimeo.com/142663982

https://www.blackmountaincollege.org/film_screening/bauhaus_dances/

This is a family friendly event where you can bring the whole crew to dance-it-out with DJ Virtuous at The Regeneration Station! All are welcome to attend this “Glow Dance” and support one of your local nonprofits.

Coco Live-to-Film Concert features a screening of the complete Disney Pixar film with Oscar® and Grammy®-winning composer Michael Giacchino’s musical score performed live by the 20-member Orquesta Folclórica Nacional de México. In addition to the original score by Giacchino, “Coco” also features the Oscar®-winning song “Remember Me” by Oscar-winning songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez and additional songs co-written by Germaine Franco and co-director and screenwriter Adrian Molina. Audiences will travel with Miguel (voice of Anthony Gonzalez) on his extraordinary journey to the colorful Land of the Dead to unlock the real story behind his family’s history set to a live orchestra.

Disney Pixar Coco es un evento especial que no te puedes perder. El evento consta de la proyección de la película, mientras la Orquesta Folclórica Nacional de México interpreta la música  del compositor ganador del Oscar® y el Grammy®, Michael Giacchino, en vivo. Además de la música original de Giacchino, “Coco” también incluye la canción ganadora del Oscar® “Remember Me” de los compositores ganadores del Oscar Kristen Anderson-Lopez y Robert Lopez, así como otras canciones coescritas por Germaine Franco y el codirector y guionista Adrian Molina. La voz original de Miguel, Anthony Gonzalez, transportara a los espectadores a la colorida Tierra de los Muertos, para descubrir la verdadera historia de su familia.

About the Movie: Despite his family’s baffling generations-old ban on music, Miguel (voice of Anthony Gonzalez) dreams of becoming an accomplished musician like his idol, Ernesto de la Cruz (voice of Benjamin Bratt). Desperate to prove his talent, Miguel finds himself in the stunning and colorful Land of the Dead following a mysterious chain of events. Along the way, he meets charming trickster Héctor (voice of Gael García Bernal), and together, they set off on an extraordinary journey to unlock the real story behind Miguel’s family history. Disney and Pixar’s Coco is directed by Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3), co-directed by Adrian Molina (story artist Monsters University) and produced by Darla K. Anderson (Toy Story 3).

The Orquesta Folclórica Nacional de México of the Ballet Folclórico Nacional de México by Silvia Lozano, is a musical group that stands out for its ability to fuse pre-Hispanic instruments with instruments from the colonial era, thus creating a unique and distinctive sound that evokes the rich history and culture of Mexico.

This orchestra is made up of expert musicians who are highly trained in the interpretation of a wide variety of genres and styles of Mexican folk music, such as Mariachi music, Jarana music, Son music, and Huapango music, among others. In addition, their repertoire includes songs and instrumental pieces dating from pre-Hispanic and colonial times, which allows them to connect with the country’s historical and cultural roots.

Among the instruments used by the Orquesta Folclórica Nacional de México are traditional pre-Hispanic drums, such as the “Huehuetl “and “Tepobaztli”, as well as flutes, “Ocarinas” and other pre-Hispanic wind instruments. They also use guitars, violins, double basses, and other stringed instruments that date back to colonial times, resulting in a unique and surprising sound combination.

In conjunction with the dancers of the Ballet Folclórico Nacional de México by Silvia Lozano, the Orquesta Folclórica manages to transmit to the public the energy, passion, and diversity of Mexican culture through its music and dance, creating an authentic and exciting experience for all those who have the pleasure of enjoying the show.

Coco Live-to-Film Concert features a screening of the complete Disney Pixar film with Oscar® and Grammy®-winning composer Michael Giacchino’s musical score performed live by the 20-member Orquesta Folclórica Nacional de México. In addition to the original score by Giacchino, “Coco” also features the Oscar®-winning song “Remember Me” by Oscar-winning songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez and additional songs co-written by Germaine Franco and co-director and screenwriter Adrian Molina. Audiences will travel with Miguel (voice of Anthony Gonzalez) on his extraordinary journey to the colorful Land of the Dead to unlock the real story behind his family’s history set to a live orchestra.

Disney Pixar Coco es un evento especial que no te puedes perder. El evento consta de la proyección de la película, mientras la Orquesta Folclórica Nacional de México interpreta la música  del compositor ganador del Oscar® y el Grammy®, Michael Giacchino, en vivo. Además de la música original de Giacchino, “Coco” también incluye la canción ganadora del Oscar® “Remember Me” de los compositores ganadores del Oscar Kristen Anderson-Lopez y Robert Lopez, así como otras canciones coescritas por Germaine Franco y el codirector y guionista Adrian Molina. La voz original de Miguel, Anthony Gonzalez, transportara a los espectadores a la colorida Tierra de los Muertos, para descubrir la verdadera historia de su familia.

About the Movie: Despite his family’s baffling generations-old ban on music, Miguel (voice of Anthony Gonzalez) dreams of becoming an accomplished musician like his idol, Ernesto de la Cruz (voice of Benjamin Bratt). Desperate to prove his talent, Miguel finds himself in the stunning and colorful Land of the Dead following a mysterious chain of events. Along the way, he meets charming trickster Héctor (voice of Gael García Bernal), and together, they set off on an extraordinary journey to unlock the real story behind Miguel’s family history. Disney and Pixar’s Coco is directed by Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3), co-directed by Adrian Molina (story artist Monsters University) and produced by Darla K. Anderson (Toy Story 3).

The Orquesta Folclórica Nacional de México of the Ballet Folclórico Nacional de México by Silvia Lozano, is a musical group that stands out for its ability to fuse pre-Hispanic instruments with instruments from the colonial era, thus creating a unique and distinctive sound that evokes the rich history and culture of Mexico.

This orchestra is made up of expert musicians who are highly trained in the interpretation of a wide variety of genres and styles of Mexican folk music, such as Mariachi music, Jarana music, Son music, and Huapango music, among others. In addition, their repertoire includes songs and instrumental pieces dating from pre-Hispanic and colonial times, which allows them to connect with the country’s historical and cultural roots.

Among the instruments used by the Orquesta Folclórica Nacional de México are traditional pre-Hispanic drums, such as the “Huehuetl “and “Tepobaztli”, as well as flutes, “Ocarinas” and other pre-Hispanic wind instruments. They also use guitars, violins, double basses, and other stringed instruments that date back to colonial times, resulting in a unique and surprising sound combination.

In conjunction with the dancers of the Ballet Folclórico Nacional de México by Silvia Lozano, the Orquesta Folclórica manages to transmit to the public the energy, passion, and diversity of Mexican culture through its music and dance, creating an authentic and exciting experience for all those who have the pleasure of enjoying the show.