The Gauntlet

The Fisher Center at Bard and the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities are teaming up to develop and present a new iteration of The Gauntlet, an immersive, community-inclusive choral work from artists Sxip Shirey and Coco Karol.

The Gauntlet is site-specific and bespoke. Each time it is performed, it takes on a new personality that reflects the performers, community, and location in which it is experienced. This iteration explores the theme “Spaces of Freedom,” in conjunction with the Hannah Arendt Center’s annual conference “Revitalizing Democracy: Sortition, Citizen Power, and Spaces of Freedom.”

Performed on and around the lawn of Bard’s Fisher Center (including on the Olafur Eliasson installation “the parliament of reality”), the libretto is comprised of text generated from 20 movement interviews with local activists, organizers, artists, scholars, elected officials, and citizens, and sung by a choir of singers assembled from all corners of the Bard College and Hudson Valley community.