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A collaborative
festival on the 50th
anniversary of John Cage's multi-media
"Theatre Piece No. 1".
September
19-22, 2002
(with events throughout September)
Asheville, Black Mountain and Cullowhee, NC
View the Festival
Program PDF
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| Under the Influence is a celebration of
the spirit, legacy, and ongoing influence of Black
Mountain College. It will feature lectures, performances,
collaborations, installations, exhibitions, and film screenings.
This event will take place on the 50th anniversary of Theatre
Piece No. 1, organized by John Cage at Black Mountain
College in 1952 and commonly regarded as the first multimedia
"happening." The festival
is being organized by the Black Mountain College Museum and
Arts Center in cooperation with numerous co-sponsors, including
educational institutions, arts councils, music venues, and performance
spaces.
The approach being taken to organizing of
this festival is perhaps best summarized by this quote from
Josef Albers, a long-term teacher at Black Mountain College
(speaking to Martin Duberman for his Black Mountain: An
Exploration of Community):
When it comes to an educational institution
like Black Mountain, where teaching was to some extent the
most important concern, let's not tell fact for fact in
order to have it done once more; as we cannot repeat the
Bauhaus, so we cannot repeat Black Mountain College…do
not become an adding machine for dates and factual facts…produce
actual facts. That's my terminology. It means giving
statements and formulations which lead further. 'Actual':
it's still 'act-ing.' You see? Alive facts. And so if you
get for yourself some experience of a new insight, by discussing
this institution…if there is an essence that was for you
providing a new experience, that has given you a new insight,
that is helping you to develop yourself further…this work
on Black Mountain must directly or indirectly state some
growth in your mind and in your looking at education.
This event is not about simply recalling
history, but creating history inspired by the arts practiced
and theories developed at Black Mountain College. In other
words, the best way to celebrate the achievements and ongoing
influence of BMC is to actively present opportunities for
participation in the unique processes of education that were
encouraged there.
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