14th Annual {Re}HAPPENING Set to Transform Black Mountain College Museum

Since 2010, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) has hosted the {Re}HAPPENING inspired by John Cage's 1952 Theatre Piece No. 1, an unscripted performance at Black Mountain College considered by many to be the first Happening. The annual {Re}HAPPENING brings together dozens of contemporary artists whose work responds to and extends the legacy of Black Mountain College visionaries such as John Cage, David Tudor, Merce Cunningham, Anni Albers, M.C. Richards, Ruth Asawa, Buckminster Fuller, Josef Albers, and Robert Rauschenberg. 

The 2026 {Re}HAPPENING will celebrate the event's 14th anniversary. This year's boundary-pushing projects will engage visitors deeply with the living legacy of Black Mountain College. From installations to participatory workshops, the 2026 program is defined by radical experiments in movement, sound, and collective presence.

SELECTED PROJECTS

This year, multiple artists will engage with the legacy of BMC alum Stan Vanderbeek and contemporary permutations of expanded cinema. Pictured above, The Country Dwellers by Stefani Byrd is an immersive video installation which traces the connections between Appalachian folk magic and the rise of Neo-Paganism or revivalist practices. Consisting of two projections, three monitors, and two audio channels, the work is presented as a collage of visual material and voices from both the past and present.

Live experimental performances make the {Re}HAPPENING a one-of-a-kind experience where chance encounters create powerful moments of connection. In 2026, the 25-person Charlie Boss Orchestra will perform a new work entitled “Soul Bell.” The acoustic string and wind ensemble combines careful attention to phrasing, harmony, and structure with spontaneous interaction, allowing each musician to contribute to the unfolding music alongside the audience itself. The result is a series of performances that are structured yet fluid, precise yet alive, with every note actively shaping the evolving soundscape.

Combining dance with visual arts, choreographer Ava Desiderio and artist Elisabeth Condon will present Vermilion | 10, an 11-minute duet. Desiderio's choreography features sculptural relationships that embody complex, layered emotions, as intertwined bodies and colloquial gestures represent the unfolding stages of a relationship. Condon's visual works are densely collaged polymer pours illuminated from behind, which underscore the play of light and dark that unfolds throughout the dance, extending to the dancers' bodies as wearable art. The duet was first performed on pointe for Norte Maar's acclaimed Counterpointe dance series, and later at Dancewave in Brooklyn. Desiderio and Condon will now bring the work to North Carolina as a site-specific adaptation performed at the {Re}HAPPENING.

COMPLETE ARTIST LINEUP

{Re}HAPPENING 14 features an exciting lineup of contemporary time-based works from artists across the nation. Expanded cinema works will include The Country Dwellers by Stefani Byrd, a video installation exploring Appalachian folk magic; Sphere by Ivana Larrosa and Lee Tussman, a performance inspired by Merce Cunningham's “Beach Birds”; How to build a boat by Jake Parker Scott, featuring aluminum gamelan instruments, electronics and 16mm film projections; and 35mm Multi Image Slideshow by Alexandria Jarvis, an installation using randomized slide projections to mirror the subconscious desire to construct meaning.

Projects exploring movement and dance will include Vermilion | 10, an 11-minute duet created by choreographer Ava Desiderio and visual artist Elisabeth Condon; Bodies Written in Smoke, a Butoh Fu Workshop by Sarah Bernstein and Eunoia Jean Close; a durational performance entitled Passing By, where Hesam Salehbeig creates the presence of a river without water; la/do, a brief ritual of sound and movement by Deisha Oliver and Luciana Arias that passes through various intimate, unconventional spaces; and Pace Investigations No. 14 by Sandrine Schaefer, a performance that contracts and expands, causing actions to shift, accelerate, merge, or disappear.

In the realm of sound and collective listening, projects will include Matt Robidoux's Spiral Worker, a synth system built around two aluminum corn ears; Ben Hjertmann's Empath II, a new instrument that sympathetically resonates with the sounds of the {Re}HAPPENING; a performance of Soul Bell by the Charlie Boss Orchestra, a 25-person acoustic string and wind ensemble; A Room for Dreaming and Memory by Xor (Matthew Boman) and Mica Rutkowski where sound and color respond to movement; a web of kinetic fabrics with an interactive soundscape by Eric Rodent Cheslak and Mark Crowley; an immersive tape loop soundfield entitled Radio Infrequencies: Time Tape Space by Christopher Hamilton and Steve Pescatore; a prayer of gratitude entitled Thank You Water, played across Lake Eden, organized by Severn Eaton; and Portrait, an installation by Carlos Rigau that explores and reveals sounds of everyday violence. 

Other projects invite hands-on participation to spark creativity, including Quack! An interactive chance poem for Black Mountain presented by Wendell M. Kling and Ben Miller; an installation by Carson Whitmore and Jason Lord, titled Catch and Release, which calls upon the desire and chance inherent to the act of fishing; The Star Loom, a community weaving project by Elliot Moonstone; an Expanded Drawing by Martha Skinner, CillaVee, Liz Lang, and Rebecca MacNeice—an architect, a dancer and a sound artist in dialogue with each other; REDACTED, an installation by R Stein Wexler exploring censorship and taboo; and "At Hand" or "Creatures From a Door to Perception," a wooden wonderland of giant birds, moths, and horses inviting collaborative play on homemade instruments within the imaginative space by Fred Merrill, Matthew Carey and Carolyn Zaldivar.