Type: Visiting Fellow
In this project, Craig Quintero and Torry Bend will guide a focused discussion and creative exploration of interdisciplinary collaboration in the arts culminating in the creation of a theatrical performance. In our research, they ask the question, “What can contemporary artists learn from the collaborative art-making approaches of the avant-garde?” We will use the curriculum and creative work developed at Black Mountain College as the initial starting point for our investigation. Black Mountain College was an experimental college that emphasized the central role of interdisciplinarity and art making in a liberal arts education in Black Mountain, North Carolina (1933-1957).
In addition to a series of lectures and workshops open to the campus, core members of the collaborative team will also organize “beehives” in which they facilitate evening-length creative exchanges open to the university. All of these preliminary activities will provide the foundation for developing the new production Black Mountain in collaboration with members of the Taiwan-based Riverbed Theatre Company, adding a cross-cultural perspective to our creative work.
The performance will premiere at Duke University and be remounted at Grinnell College and at the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts in Taiwan.