FISHER CENTER LAB
Fisher Center LAB Commission/North American Premiere
Choreography by Lucinda Childs
Collaborations with John Adams, Frank Gehry, Philip Glass, Anri Sala, and Robert Wilson
Featuring Lucinda Childs Dance Company
Photo by Rita Antonioli
June 26–28
Lucinda Childs, a defining force in American dance, returns to Bard SummerScape with a one-of-a-kind program of new and iconic works.
Celebrated for choreography that is rigorous, inventive, and hypnotically precise, Childs has shaped generations of dancers and choreographers. This program includes the North American premieres of several major new works, as well as her groundbreaking collaborations with some of the most influential artists of our time. These include her work with composers Philip Glass and John Adams, and two luminaries lost in 2025—the late theater director Robert Wilson and Frank Gehry, architect of the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. Alongside new short works for her company, Childs—marking her 86th birthday—will perform a solo, offering audiences a uniquely intimate encounter with one of the great living pioneers of contemporary dance.
In 2009, Dance—Childs’s iconic 1979 collaboration with Glass and visual artist Sol LeWitt—was redeveloped and premiered at Bard SummerScape, sparking a major international revival. Today, the Fisher Center remains the place to see the Lucinda Childs Dance Company in the United States, offering an unmatched opportunity to experience her artistry, legacy, and ongoing creative vision.
The program begins with Actus, a duet set to the cantata “Actus Tragicus” by Johann Sebastian Bach, accompanied live by Russian star-pianist Anton Batagov. Then, Lucinda Childs herself performs a new adaptation of an original solo from 1965 titled Geranium ’64. The solo continues Childs’s prolific collaborative record with video work by the renowned visual artist Anri Sala. Available Light brought together three giants of postwar American culture: choreographer Lucinda Childs, composer John Adams, and architect Frank Gehry in a new production first staged in 1983, and remounted in 2015. The company will perform an excerpt of the piece in honor of the late Frank Gehry (1929–2025), architect of the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. Field Dance 2 is an ensemble piece staged in special tribute to Robert Wilson (1941–2025), excerpted from Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach, one of the most iconic stage pieces of the 20th century. The evening closes with Distant Figure, a new choreographic work for six dancers with music by Philip Glass. This final work is accompanied again live by Batagov, who will play the 2017 composition that Glass wrote for his long-standing artistic partner Lucinda Childs.
Actus (2024)*
Duet, set to “Actus Tragicus” (BWV 106) by Johann Sebastian Bach, with Anton Batagov on piano
Geranium ’64 (1964/2024)*
Solo by and with Lucinda Childs
Based on Childs’s solo Geranium (1965), with the multimedia work “For Geranium, 2024” by Anri Sala, accompanied by excerpts from a radio broadcast of the 1964 NFL Championship game between the Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Colts.
Programming Dominik Hildebrand
Sound Mix Olivier Goinard
Available Light, Part 2 (1983)
Choreography for ensemble to the composition “Light Over Water”† by John Adams
—Intermission—
Field Dance 2 (1984)
Choreography for ensemble to the composition “Dance 2” by Philip Glass, excerpted from Einstein on the Beach: “Field with Spaceship,” directed by Robert Wilson
Distant Figure (2024)*
Choreography for ensemble to the composition “Distant Figure” (Passacaglia for Solo Piano)‡ by Philip Glass, with Anton Batagov on piano
* Denotes North American Premiere
† John Adams’s “Light Over Water” used by arrangement with Hendon Music, Inc., a Boosey & Hawkes company, publisher and copyright owner.
‡ Philip Glass’s “Distant Figure” (Passacaglia for Solo Piano) © 2017 Dunvagen Music Publishers Inc., used with permission, and developed with the support of Pomegranate Arts.
Choreography Lucinda Childs
Music Philip Glass, John Adams, and Johann Sebastian Bach
Lighting Design Beverly Emmons
Visual Design/Multimedia Design Anri Sala
Piano Anton Batagov
Produced and Managed by The Blanket
Production Management Tricia Toliver
Company Management Ammara Shafqat
Video Programming Dominik Hildebrand
Born in 1940, Lucinda Childs began her career at the Judson Dance Theater in New York in 1963. Since forming her dance company ten years later, she has created over fifty works, both solo and ensemble, and received numerous awards, including the Dance Magazine Award, the Golden Lion award from the Venice Biennale, and the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival award for lifetime achievement. In 1976, she was featured in the landmark avant-garde opera Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson, for which she won an Obie Award. In 1979, Childs choreographed one of her most enduring works, Dance, with music by Philip Glass and film décor by Sol LeWitt, which toured internationally and has been added to the repertory of the Lyon Opera Ballet. Since 1981, Childs has choreographed over thirty works for major ballet companies and directed and choreographed a number of contemporary and eighteenth-century operas for the Los Angeles Opera, La Monnaie in Brussels, and the Opéra national du Rhin, among others. Most recently, Childs directed and choreographed Satyagraha for Opéra Nice Côte d’Azur, which premiered in November 2025.
The Fisher Center LAB Commission of Lucinda Childs: Momentary Reprise is made possible with the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels.
Fisher Center LAB is funded by the Lucille Lortel Foundation and the Fisher Center’s Artistic Innovation Fund, with lead support from Rebecca Gold Milikowsky and additional funding from The William and Lia G. Poorvu Family Foundation.
Actus, Geranium ’64, and Distant Figure were created in 2024 as a production of International Summer Festival Kampnagel with The Blanket in co-production with Berliner Festspiele, Chaillot Théâtre national de la Danse Paris, and La Bâtie-Festival de Genève, funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation) and the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media), and were additionally supported by Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels, James Madison University’s School of Theatre and Dance, and UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance.
Nearby villages and towns in the Hudson Valley boast a large selection of restaurants, as well as a variety of hotels, motels, inns, and bed & breakfasts.
Eat & StayBard College’s main campus is located in Annandale-on-Hudson (a hamlet of Red Hook), New York, on the east bank of the Hudson River, about 90 miles north of New York City and 220 miles southwest of Boston. The Taconic State Parkway and the New York State Thruway provide the most direct routes to our campus. Click the Google map below, or get directions by entering the following address into your GPS: 60 Manor Avenue, Red Hook, NY 12571.
From the East
If you are traveling from east of the Hudson River in New York State, take the Taconic State Parkway to the Red Hook / Route 199 exit, drive west on Route 199 through the village of Red Hook to Route 9G, turn right onto Route 9G, drive north 1.9 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
From the West
If you are traveling from west of the Hudson River, take the New York State Thruway (I-87) to exit 19 (Kingston), take Route 209 (changes to Route 199 at the Hudson River) over the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge to Route 9G, turn left onto Route 9G, drive north 3.5 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
Sosnoff Theater
Accessible Seating
Wheelchair-accessible seating is available in all seating areas for patrons in wheelchairs and their companions. There is an elevator to all levels of the Sosnoff Theater and a wheelchair lift is used to access front-row wheelchair seating.
Wheelchair-Accessible Restrooms
Restrooms at all locations are wheelchair accessible. Single-use restrooms are available at most locations.
All-Gender Restrooms
Bard College and the Fisher Center support guests of any gender identity/expression in using the restroom of their choice. Additionally, all-gender restrooms are available at all venues.
Find answers to some of the most common questions patrons have regarding our venues and performances. If you have a question not answered in our FAQs, please call 845-758-7900 or email [email protected] during regular Box Office hours.
Our “Know Before You Go” guide answers all of your pre-show accessibility and navigation questions for your next performance at the Fisher Center!
