2025 ReVIEWING Black Mountain College 15: International Conference

ReVIEWING Black Mountain College 15

International Conference

Co-hosted by BMCM+AC and UNC Asheville

at UNC Asheville’s Reuter Center

September 26 - 28, 2025
Thematic Focus: Performance at BMC
Keynote Speaker: Debra McCall

ReVIEWING Black Mountain College conference is a forum for scholars and artists to contribute original work on topics related to Black Mountain College and its place in cultural history.

The format is designed to be interdisciplinary, with sessions that will include panels, presentations, performances, and workshops. BMC itself was a uniquely interdisciplinary organization, generating output from its faculty and students that often involved the melding of the visual, performing, and literary arts. Each year, conference participation reflects this; past presentations have explored wide-ranging, fruitful intersections such as (to name just a few of the most recent examples) how Charles Olson’s “projectivist” poetics inspired works on the stage and screen; the influence of choreographer Merce Cunningham on Abstract Expressionist painters trained at BMC such as Pat Passlof and James Bishop; the photography of poet-publisher-artist Jonathan Williams; the path from BMC’s first Summer Institute in honor of Arnold Schoenberg, to the design and philosophy of contemporary summer arts programs today; a performance connecting Ruth Asawa’s sculpture to contemporary dance; and a workshop offering attendees the opportunity to weave on looms with found materials, as Anni Albers’ BMC students did.

ReVIEWING 15 will take place September 26 – 28th, 2025, presented in conjunction with BMCM+AC’s fall 2025 exhibition, Points in Space: Performance at Black Mountain College, organized by Jeff Arnal, curator, and Adolfo Alzuphar, curatorial assistant. Black Mountain College’s interdisciplinary and collaborative philosophy fostered groundbreaking time-based experiments across disciplines, significantly influencing performance, theater, film, music, dance, and visual art worldwide. The exhibition will feature visual and time-based artworks that echo BMC’s innovative spirit from 1933 to 1957 including historical and contemporary works, interactive installations, performances, and immersive experiences that bring the past into conversation with the present.

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 NEA and the NEH, 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.

Ticket information:

-- Attendance to the conference and any of its events is FREE for UNCA students, faculty, and staff. Members of the UNCA community do not have to pre-register online. --

FULL CONFERENCE PASS: The conference fee is $85* and includes lunch on Saturday and a 1-year membership to the museum.
The fee for current members and students is $50.

KEYNOTE ONLY: This ticket covers ONLY the Keynote Address on 9/26 by Debra McCall. (Included in Conference Full + Day Passes). Keynote only tickets are $10 for BMCM+AC members and students, $25 for non-members.

FRIDAY DAY PASS: A day pass ONLY for Friday, 9/26. This includes admission to the Keynote Address and the reception at BMCM+AC Friday evening. The Friday day pass is $15 for BMCM+AC members and students, $30 for non-members.

SATURDAY DAY PASS: A day pass ONLY for Saturday, 9/27 - $25 for BMCM+AC members and students, $55 for non-members. Includes lunch.

Tour of BMC Campus on Sunday, September 28: The tour group will meet from BMCM+AC on Sunday morning (exact time TBD, please stay tuned). After coffee and conversation at the museum, carpools will depart for a special tour of the BMC Lake Eden Campus. This special event is not included in full or day conference passes and costs $20.

*Online pre-registration ends at 5pm on Thursday, September 25th. For at-the-door tickets, the registration fee will increase to $100 for non-members, so online pre-registration is highly encouraged.

For more information, visit: www.blackmountaincollege.org/reviewing/