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75-670: The theatre opened in 1962 as the Village South Theatre with the original production of Jean Erdman 's musical play The Coach with the Six Insides which was based upon James Joyce 's last novel Finnegans Wake . The following year Edward Albee used profits from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to establish the Playwrights' Unit at the Village South Theatre; an organization which provided

150-634: A $ 5 million gift from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. The largest single gift ever awarded by the foundation has helped establish the Helen Frankenthaler Fund for the Visual Arts and provides support for all aspects of the school's visual arts program including curricula, facilities, programs, and faculty. In recognition of the gift, the visual arts wing of the college's 120,000-square-foot arts facility

225-768: A New Nation (1954) at Bard College . The newly named Jean Erdman Theater of Dance toured the U.S. and gave concerts in New York City. Among the notable works of this period are Twenty Poems (1960), a cycle of E. E. Cummings 's poems for eight dancers and one actor with a commissioned score by Teiji Ito , performed in the round at the Circle in the Square Theatre in Greenwich Village and The Castle , an exploration of improvised and structured movement with jazz clarinetist-saxophonist Jimmy Giuffre at

300-492: A board of trustees formed for Bennington College. One of the trustees, John Dewey , helped shape many of the college's signature programs such as The Plan Process and Field Work Term through his educational principles. In 1928, six years before the college would begin, Robert Devore Leigh was recruited by the Bennington College executive committee to serve as the first president of Bennington. Leigh presided over

375-628: A building or structure in Manhattan is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a theater building in the United States is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Jean Erdman Jean Erdman (February 20, 1916 – May 4, 2020) was an American dancer and choreographer of modern dance as well as an avant-garde theater director. Erdman was born in Honolulu. Erdman's father, John Piney Erdman,

450-462: A doctor of divinity and missionary from New England, settled in Honolulu as a minister at the non-denominational Protestant Church of the Crossroads where he preached, in both English and Japanese, to a multi-ethnic congregation. Her mother, Marion Dillingham Erdman, was a member of one of the founding industrialist families of Hawaii. Erdman's earliest dance experience was the hula. She attended

525-488: A faculty member who assists with course selection, internship and job applications, graduate school preparation, and more. Bennington does not have traditional academic majors for undergraduate students. Instead, the Plan Process is an alternative to majors, which encourages students to lead their own education, rather than choosing from pre-existing paths. Within the Plan Process, there are no required courses, so from

600-494: A high student suicide rate. The college goes to great lengths not to involve local media when this occurs, however, there have been at least 6 student suicides in the last 7 years. Bennington has annual events. The Silo is a student-run and produced journal of arts and letters at Bennington College. It has been published since 1943. The Bennington Free Press is the student-run and produced newspaper of Bennington College. It has been published since 2003. "Footnotes"

675-477: A metal sculpture by Carlus Dyer, and Four Portraits from Duke Ellington 's "Shakespeare Album" (1958), a suite of comic portrayals of Shakespearean heroines. Jean Erdman in libraries ( WorldCat catalog) In 1960, Erdman reorganized and renamed her dance company to reflect her explorations of the inter-relationship of movement, music, visual arts and spoken text. As noted above this interest began much earlier for Erdman. As early as 1946, John Martin noted, "She

750-638: A moving sculptural set by Carlus Dyer and was selected as one of the Best New Works of the Season by Dance Magazine , Doris Hering wrote, "When the dance was over one realized that by means of purely physical and visual elements, Miss Erdman had succeeded in giving a moving picture of the experience of an artist through phases of isolation and realization." Other dance critics of the time noted her unique approach to dance making. New York Times dance critic John Martin remarked, "that Erdman's movement

825-619: A number of Pulitzer Prize -winning and acclaimed poets including W. H. Auden , Stanley Kunitz , Mary Oliver , Theodore Roethke , Donald Hall , and Anne Waldman , and educator Joseph S. Murphy , the future Chancellor of the City University of New York . In 2017, Bennington College acquired the Robert Frost Stone House Museum through a gift from the Friends of Robert Frost . Robert Frost lived in

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900-614: A nursing facility in Honolulu on May 4, 2020. Nominations Bennington College Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont , United States. Founded as a women’s college in 1932, it became co-educational in 1969. It is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education . The planning for the establishment of Bennington College began in 1924 and took nine years to be realized. While many people were involved,

975-471: A platform for untested new playwrights to premiere their works. The theatre closed in 1970, with its last production being Michael Preston Barr and Dion McGregor 's musical Who's Happy Now? . It did still house plays for various off-Broadway productions under the simple name of 15 Van Dam . The theatre was home to the New York Academy of Theatrical Arts from 1970 until 1974. It reopened in as

1050-604: A professor of comparative literature who later became an authority on mythology, was her tutorial advisor. This began a dialogue about the process of individual psycho-spiritual transformation and the nature of art that was to continue throughout their lives. Erdman was also interested in the modern dance technique she learned in Martha Graham's classes at Sarah Lawrence and at the Bennington College Summer School of Dance that she attended during

1125-478: A short study of the two-dimensional form into a complete dance of three sections. Erdman described the year long evolution of the piece as the process through which she came to understand that every posture contains "a whole state of being or attitude toward life." The dance evolved as she attuned herself to the physical sensations of the stylized positions and followed where they led her. It was Campbell, informed by his deep well of mythological imagery, who identified

1200-422: A total undergraduate enrollment of 785, with a gender distribution of 34 percent male students and 66 percent female students. 94 percent of the students live in college-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing and 6 percent of students live off campus. In 2021 the director of campus security resigned after hiring a white supremacist to the campus safety staff. Unfortunately, in the past ten years Bennington has had

1275-612: A two-room apartment in Greenwich Village in New York City. In the 1980s they also purchased an apartment in Honolulu and divided their time between the two cities. Campbell died in 1987. In 1990, Erdman became the founding president of the Joseph Campbell Foundation and continued as its president emerita until her death. Since 1995 Erdman had lived exclusively in Hawaii. Erdman died at the age of 104 in

1350-980: Is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education . In 2024, the college accepted 45.3% of undergraduate applicants, with those admitted having an average 3.51 GPA . The college does not require submission of standardized test scores, Bennington being a test optional school. Those submitting test scores had an average 1260-1370 SAT score (13% submitting scores) or average 29-33 ACT score (5% submitting scores). In 2024, U.S. News & World Report ranked Bennington tied for #112 in National Liberal Arts Colleges, tied for #19 in Most Innovative Schools, and tied for #96 in Top Performers on Social Mobility out of 211 National Liberal Arts Colleges. At Bennington, students receive graduate-style advising from

1425-1075: Is an academic journal created by the Student Educational Policies Committee, beginning in spring 2016. Faculty has included Wharton and James biographer R. W. B. Lewis , essayist Edward Hoagland , literary critics Camille Paglia and Stanley Hyman (whose wife Shirley Jackson referenced Bennington College in her writing, particularly Hangsaman ), rhetorician Kenneth Burke , former United Artists' senior vice-president Steven Bach , novelists Arturo Vivante , Bernard Malamud and John Gardner , trumpeter/composer Bill Dixon , saxophonist and pianist Charles Gayle , composers Allen Shawn , Henry Brant , and Vivian Fine , painters Kenneth Noland , Mary Lum and Jules Olitski , politicians Mansour Farhang and Mac Maharaj , poets Léonie Adams and Howard Nemerov , sculptor Anthony Caro , dancer/choreographer Martha Graham , drummer Milford Graves , author William Butler (author of The Butterfly Revolution ), economist Karl Polanyi and

1500-615: Is designed as a two-year, four-term program; however, those who cannot commit to four consecutive terms are encouraged to propose an alternative schedule when applying. Like the MFA in Dance program, the MFA in Music is a two-year, four-term program. Students pursue work at an advanced level in either composition or voice. (In exceptional cases, students wishing to pursue postgraduate work in other performance areas may be considered.) The Center for

1575-439: Is keenly alert to modern experiments in the other arts music, poetry, visual design and employs them freely." Her musical collaborations with composer Ezra Laderman which had begun in 1956 with Duet for Flute and Dancer , inspired by Erdman's interpretation of Debussy's solo flute composition Syrinx in her 1948 solo Hamadryad and culminating in the 1957 group work Harlequinade , featuring dancer Donald McKayle , were

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1650-456: Is perhaps as near to being non-associative as movement can be, yet it is freely creative. The method of composition, though naturally without story content, avoids any connotation of being merely decorative, much as non-objective painting avoids it, and manages to be just as strongly evocative." Reporting on a group concert at the 92nd St YM/YWHA in which Erdman participated Edwin Denby wrote in

1725-842: Is the only college that has required an annual internship for students since its founding. Bennington college offers the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in multiple disciplines and the Postbaccalaureate Premedical Program. Previously an MAT or BA/MAT was offered in Education through the Center for Creative Teaching, until discontinued around 2012. Bennington Writing Seminars is a low-residency Master of Fine Arts program in writing founded by Poet Liam Rector in 1994. After Rector's death in August 2007, Sven Birkerts

1800-487: Is told from the perspective of the male barkeeper Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, Erdman's work a combination of dance, mime, and Joycean stream of consciousness language focuses on the female psyche, as seen through the many incarnations of the main female character Anna Livia Plurabelle. She danced all the aspects of Anna Livia from young woman, to old crone, to the rain itself that becomes the River Liffey flowing through

1875-664: The Arts Club of Chicago . Cunningham's solos included "Totem Ancestor", "In the Name of the Holocaust", and "Shimmera", all with scores by Cage. The two collaborative duets were, "Credo in US", a dramatic dance with a text by Cunningham and a commissioned score by Cage, and "Ad Lib" with a commissioned score by Gregory Tucker. According to Erdman, Ad Lib "was considered rather shocking because it incorporated improvisations. At that time it

1950-535: The Bennington College 's Summer Festival of the Arts in 1942, began as an assignment for his class. The final version, with a commissioned score by Horst, remained in her repertory through the 1990s. Erdman's performance of this dance was the subject of Maya Deren's unfinished 1949 film, Medusa . Originally an exploration of primitive style or archaic style, The Transformations of Medusa developed from

2025-673: The Brooklyn Academy of Music (1970). In 1962 with the aid of a grant from the Ingram Merrill Foundation , Erdman began what was to become her best-known work, The Coach with the Six Insides , an adaptation of James Joyce 's, Finnegans Wake . The title is a line from the text found in episode 11.3.359. She became acquainted with the novel during the four-and-a-half-year period that her husband collaborated with Henry Morton Robinson to write A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake (1944). While Joyce's story

2100-664: The NEA -funded Jean Erdman Retrospective at the Hunter Playhouse in 1985, New York City. New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff wrote, "anyone wishing to know something about where modern dance is today can find the roots in this retrospective." From 1987 to 1993, Erdman served as artistic director of an NEA funded project to create a three volume video archive of these early dance works, Dance and Myth: The World of Jean Erdman . Erdman and Campbell had no children. For most of their forty-nine years of marriage they shared

2175-614: The New York Herald Tribune , "Miss Erdman's (approach) is a more original and refreshing one to encounter. There was a lightness in the rhythm, a quality of generosity and spaciousness in the movement that struck me as a dance should, as a poetic presence." Walter Terry also writing for the Tribune commented, "(Her dance) attracts through rare beauty of pattern, through gently shaded dynamics and through that intangible essence we call quality. It does not appeal directly to

2250-681: The New York Shakespeare Festival production of the rock-opera Two Gentlemen of Verona (1971–72), which ran on Broadway for two years and for which Erdman received the Drama Desk Award and a Tony nomination. Erdman was an active teacher throughout her career. In 1948 she opened her own studio where she taught a style-neutral, concept-based technique she developed by combining her study of world dance with anatomical principles. She described it as, "a basic dance training that would, in its most elementary form give

2325-563: The Punahou School in Honolulu where she learned, as a form of physical education, Isadora Duncan interpretive dance. Reflecting on her early dance training Erdman said these two influences taught her that dancing is an "expression of something meaningful to the dancer, not a mere series of lively steps." From Hawaii, Erdman went to Miss Hall's School for Girls in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, from which she graduated in 1934. She

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2400-705: The Advancement of Public Action at Bennington College established a Master of Fine Arts in Public Action in 2018. Directed by Susan Sgorbati, the program aims to support artists working in social justice . Bennington's PostBac program was suspended indefinitely in 2021. It was a one-year program, beginning and ending in June, and it covered the basic requirements for medical school and other health profession tracks. The groundbreaking ceremony for Bennington College took place on August 16, 1931, and construction of

2475-541: The Bennington College Board of Trustees initiated a process known as "The Symposium". Arguing that the college suffered from "a growing attachment to the status quo that, if unattended, is lethal to Bennington's purpose and pedagogy", the board of trustees "solicit[ed] ... concerns and proposals on a wide and open-ended range of issues from every member of the faculty, every student, every staff member, every alumna and alumnus, and dozens of friends of

2550-536: The Bennington faculty, Dr. Lewis Webster Jones, economist and labor mediator. In 1946, Paula Jean Welden , a sophomore at the college, disappeared while on a hike of the nearby Long Trail. She was living in Dewey House at the time and had traveled alone. Many students assisted in the search, but Paula was never found. Frederick H. Burkhardt , who had been ready to decline an invitation to become president of

2625-609: The Coach with the Six Insides . Many dance historians continue to regard The Coach with the Six Insides as "the most successful—and celebrated—attempt to unite dance and words." Other theater productions Erdman choreographed during this period include the Helen Hayes Repertory production of Hamlet (1964), the Lincoln Center Repertory production of Federico García Lorca 's Yerma (1962) and

2700-484: The College." According to the trustees, the process was intended to reinvent the college, and the board said it received over 600 contributions to this end. The results of the process were published in June 1994 in a 36-page document titled Symposium Report of the Bennington College Board of Trustees . Recommended changes included the following: Near the end of June 1994, 27 faculty members (approximately one-third of

2775-681: The Edward Clark Crossett Library was designed by the modernist architect Pietro Belluschi . After opening, Crossett Library was featured in Architectural Forum and became a focus of study for many architecture students in the 1960s. Crossett Library went on to win the 1963 Honor Award for library design. In 1968, three new student houses were completed to help house the growing student population and were named in honor of William C. Fels , Jessie Smith Noyes, and Margaret Smith Sawtell. These houses were designed by

2850-606: The Far East. From 1955 to 1960, she toured extensively as a solo artist throughout the U.S. Notable works from her repertory of that period include Portrait of a Lady created to jazz recordings that were layered by John Cage into his eight-track commissioned score, Dawn Song , a lyrical solo with commissioned score by Alan Hovhaness , Fearful Symmetry (1956; an allegory in six visions inspired by William Blake 's poem, " The Tyger ") to Ezra Laderman 's Sonata for Violoncello , in which Erdman emerged from and interacted with

2925-917: The Ideal Spectator in Every Soul is a Circus , the Speaking Fate in Punch and the Judy and the One Who Speaks in Letter to the World , Graham's ode to the American poet, Emily Dickinson . Dance critic Margaret Lloyd of The Christian Science Monitor praised the "felicitous humor" Erdman brought to her role as the Speaking Fate and called her "irreplaceable" in the 1941 revival of Letter to

3000-552: The Plan committee each fall to discuss their progress towards completion. Because of the Plan Process, no two students at Bennington will graduate with the same exact mix of learning. Field Work Term is a required annual internship program that gives students the opportunity to gain professional experience beyond the classroom before graduating. Field Work Term experiences often inform students' decisions about career planning and can even lead to job opportunities post graduation. Bennington

3075-554: The Princeton Review's 2018 Best Northeastern Colleges List, which includes the schools that it considers "academically outstanding and well worth consideration in your college search". Bennington also appeared on Princeton's "Green Schools" list. Notably, Bennington was also featured in a 2016 article by Forbes as one of "Tomorrow's Hot Colleges" highlighting the institution's recent flourishing "under bold, entrepreneurial leadership". In 2015 Bennington College announced

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3150-791: The SoHo Playhouse in 1994 with a production of the play Grandma Sylvia's Funeral , which ran for four years. It has since served as an Off-Broadway receiving house . In recent years, Soho Playhouse serves to incubate and produce intimate new works. In 2023, this included the psychological thriller, Job , featuring Peter Friedman and Sydney Lemmon ; Ed Byrne 's comedic solo show titled Tragedy Plus Time , Martin Dockery's absurdist thriller Inescapable and Florencia Iriondo 's one-woman folk-pop musical, South . 40°43′35″N 74°00′16″W  /  40.726449°N 74.004359°W  / 40.726449; -74.004359 This article about

3225-459: The Symposium was essentially a sham, designed to provide a pretext for the removal of faculty members to whom the college's president, Elizabeth Coleman, was hostile. Some have questioned the timing of the firings, arguing that by waiting until the end of June, the college made it impossible for students affected by the firings to transfer to other institutions. President Coleman responded that

3300-572: The Winter Field & Reading Period, the two-month term was described by President Robert Devore Leigh in his 1928 Bennington College Prospectus as "a long winter recess giving students and faculty opportunity for travel, field work, and educational advantages of metropolitan life". This internship was renamed twice, as Non-Resident term and, as it is called today, Field Work Term. In 1934 the Bennington School of Dance summer program

3375-399: The World. Working with Graham, Erdman had re-shaped the role, originally played by actress Margaret Meredith, from that of a static seated figure to a moving, integrated element in the groundbreaking dance-theater work. In The Complete Guide to Modern Dance , historian Don McDonagh writes of the "profound effect" that these speaking roles had on Erdman. He attributes her many explorations of

3450-581: The college, visited the campus was impressed with the cohesion and support of the community in the face of this tragedy and accepted the offer. At age 35, he became the youngest college president in the nation. In 1951 the U.S. State Department issued a documentary on Bennington highlighting its unique educational approach as a model for the Allied rebuilding of German society after the War. The college continued to expand its physical infrastructure. Built in 1959,

3525-502: The college. In the immediate wake of the controversy, for the 1994–1995 academic year, the college's enrollment dropped to a record low of 370 undergraduates, and the following year (1995–1996), undergraduate enrollment declined to 285. According to Coleman, a student body of 600 undergraduates was required for the college to break even. As of 2015 , the college reports a total enrollment of 755 students with steady increases in quality student applications. Bennington College appeared on

3600-411: The dance character in the first short study as Medusa , the beautiful Greek priestess of Athena who became the hideous snake-headed gorgon. Erdman developed the second and third sections following the development of the mythological archetype. In 1943, at the urging of Campbell and composer, John Cage , Erdman and fellow Graham Company member, Merce Cunningham , presented a joint concert sponsored by

3675-522: The dance department at the University of Colorado in Boulder. From 1954 to 1957 she was the chairman of the dance department at Bard College . She was founding director of the dance program at NYU 's Tisch School of the Arts and taught there from 1966 to 1971. In the 1980s, Erdman began reviving her early dance repertory and presenting it annually at The Open Eye. These performances culminated in

3750-425: The decision was fundamentally "about ideas", stating that "Bennington became mediocre over time" and that the college was in need of radical change. Coleman argued that the college was in dire financial straits, saying that "had Bennington done nothing ... the future of this institution was seriously in doubt." In a letter to The New York Times , John Barr, chairman of the board of trustees, asserted that Coleman

3825-635: The distinguished modernist architect, Edward Larrabee Barnes , who posthumously earned the 2007 American Institute of Architects Gold Medal. In 1969, Bennington became fully coeducational , a move that attracted major national attention, including a major feature story in The New York Times Magazine . The presidency of Gail Thain Parker from 1972 to 1976 was marked by controversy over curriculum reform, affirmative action, and relations between faculty and administration. In 1993,

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3900-425: The dynamic between word and movement to these early experiences. As all female Graham dancers of the period Erdman was required to study choreography with Louis Horst , Graham's musical director. Horst presented lecture-demonstrations on his principles in pre-classic dance forms, and his students demonstrated his ideas through their own compositions. Her first solo, The Transformations of Medusa , which premiered at

3975-420: The existing disciplines such as Society, Culture and Thought, Advancement of Public Action, Dance, Environmental Studies, Visual Arts, and others ( see , ) Students then meet with a committee of faculty members and their academic adviser to review the proposed Plan and make any necessary changes. After their Plan is improved, students regularly meet with their adviser to choose relevant courses and meet again with

4050-644: The first New York season it began a world tour including engagements in Spoleto , Paris , Dublin and Tokyo . Three other North American tours as well as another New York season in 1967 followed, at the East 74th Street Theater on the Upper East Side. In 1964 the work was featured on the CBS's Camera Three series and in 1966 WNET Channel 13 produced an interview with both Erdman and Campbell, A Viewer's Guide to

4125-605: The forging of Bennington's structure and its early operation. In 1929 Leigh authored the Bennington College Prospectus which outlined the "Bennington idea". The first class of eighty-seven women arrived on campus in 1932. The college was the first to include the visual and performing arts as full-fledged elements of the liberal arts curriculum. Every year since the college began in 1932, every Bennington College student has engaged in internships and volunteer opportunities each winter term. Originally called

4200-404: The four central figures in the founding of Bennington were Vincent Ravi Booth, Mr. and Mrs. Hall Park McCullough, and William Heard Kilpatrick . A Women's Committee, headed by Mrs. Hall Park McCullough, organized the Colony Club Meeting in 1924, which brought together some 500 civic leaders and educators from across the country. As a result of the Colony Club Meeting, a charter was secured and

4275-479: The heart of Dublin. Teiji Ito was the musical director and composed the musical score on a vast array of instruments from around the world including among others, Japanese bass drums, Tibetan cymbals, a violin and an accordion. The Coach with the Six Insides premiered at the Village South Theatre in Greenwich Village on November 26, 1962. It ran for 114 performances and received the Obie and Vernon Rice Awards for Outstanding Achievement in theater. Following

4350-405: The institution with no form of tenure . The firings attracted considerable media attention. Some students and alumni protested, and the college was censured for its actions by the American Association of University Professors , who said, "academic freedom is insecure, and academic tenure is nonexistent today at Bennington College." Critics of the Symposium, and the 1994 firings, have alleged that

4425-431: The intellect nor to the emotions, but rather it seems to carry its message on its own short-wave system to the senses themselves." From 1950 to 1954, she toured the US annually with her company. From 1954 to 1955 she toured India and Japan as a solo artist, the first dancer to do so since World War II. The report she filed with U.S. State Department helped initiate cultural exchange programs with India and many countries in

4500-413: The moment students arrive, they are free to begin crafting their plan of study to meet their interests and explore new fields. In their second year, students must submit an essay-style Plan proposal, which details their desired primary and secondary areas of study, a summary of their interests and previous coursework, and a framework for how their studies should progress to culminate in senior work in one of

4575-407: The novice an essential experience of the art form, and in more complex variations create a professional dance artist with a completely articulate instrument capable of responding in movement to any choreographic impulse." From 1949 to 1951 she directed the modern dance department at Teachers College of Columbia University . In the summers from 1949 to 1955 she was the artist in residence and head of

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4650-473: The original Bennington College campus was completed by 1936. The Boston architectural firm, J.W. Ames and E.S. Dodge designed Commons, the 12 original student houses, as well as the reconfiguration of the Barn from a working farm building into classrooms and administrative offices. The original student houses were named for the people integral to the founding of the college. The campus was built by more than 100 local craftsmen, many of whom had been out of work since

4725-458: The particular dance of each culture is the perfect expression of that culture's world view and is achieved by deliberate choices drawn from the unlimited possibilities of movement". Shortly after Erdman returned to New York, she married Campbell on May 5, 1938, and following a brief honeymoon began rehearsal as a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company . Erdman distinguished herself as a principal dancer in Graham's company in solo roles such as

4800-432: The program include Bill Ayers , Lisa Brennan-Jobs , Jasmin Darznik , Amy Gerstler , Tod Goldberg , Nathalie Handal , Erica Hunt , Angela Jackson , Suleika Jaouad , Morgan Jerkins , Molly Jong-Fast , Fedwa Malti-Douglas , Megan Mayhew Bergman , Susan Scarf Merrell , Marie Mutsuki Mockett , Ivy Pochoda , Rolf Potts , Jamie Quatro , Mark Sarvas , Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney , and Sarai Walker . The MFA in Dance

4875-572: The stock market crash of 1929. The campus stretches 440 acres with main campus centered on 10 acres. There are 300 wooded acres, 15 acres of wetland, and 5 acres of tilled farmland. Historic elements of the campus were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2022. 94% of students live on campus. There are 21 student houses and all dorms are co-educational. Each dorm hosts a weekly "Coffee Hour" on Sunday evenings where students discuss campus and house issues together. There are also 15 staff/faculty houses. In 2024, Bennington College had

4950-416: The subject of a feature story in Time magazine in April 1957. In the theater Erdman had choreographed a production of Jean-Paul Sartre 's The Flies (1947) for the Vassar Experimental Theatre , the Broadway production of Jean Giraudoux 's The Enchanted (1950) and collaborating with writer William Saroyan and composer Alan Hovhaness , she directed and choreographed Otherman or The Beginning of

5025-416: The summers of 1935–1944. In 1937 Erdman joined her parents and younger sister on a trip around the world during which she saw the traditional dance and theater of many countries including Bali, Java and India. Speaking of her experiences on this trip and of her later study of world dance cultures inspired by it Erdman said, "by studying and analyzing the traditional dance styles of the world, I discovered that

5100-416: The total faculty body) were notified by certified mail that their contracts would not be renewed. (The exact number of fired faculty members is listed as 25 or 26 in some reports, a discrepancy partly because at least one faculty member, photographer Neil Rappaport, was reinstated on appeal shortly after his firing.) As recommended in the Symposium, the trustees abolished the presumptive tenure system, leaving

5175-436: Was "not responsible for the redesign of the college ... It was the board of trustees". In May 1996, 17 of the faculty members terminated in the 1994 firings filed a lawsuit against Bennington College, seeking $ 3.7 million in damages and reinstatement to their former positions. In December 2000, the case was settled out of court; as part of the settlement, the fired faculty members received $ 1.89 million and an apology from

5250-831: Was director until 2017. Poet Mark Wunderlich is the current director of Bennington Writing Seminars. U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall was a long time writer-in-residence. In 2007, The Atlantic named it one of the nation's best, and Poets & Writers Magazine named it one of the top three low-residency programs in the world in 2011. Core faculty has included fiction writers David Gates , Amy Hempel , Alice Mattison , Jill McCorkle , Rick Moody , Lynne Sharon Schwartz , and Paul Yoon ; nonfiction writers Eula Biss , Jenny Boully , Susan Cheever , Melissa Febos , Phillip Lopate , and James Wood ; and poets April Bernard , Jennifer Chang , Amy Gerstler , Major Jackson , Timothy Liu , Ed Ochester , Carmen Giménez Smith , Craig Morgan Teicher , and Mark Wunderlich . Notable alumni of

5325-411: Was founded by Martha Hill . Martha Graham , Doris Humphrey , Hanya Holm , and Charles Weidman all taught at this laboratory. The program gained attendance by José Limón , Bessie Schonberg , Merce Cunningham , and Betty Ford . In 1935 the administration agreed to admit young men into the Bennington Theater Studio program, since men were needed for theatrical performances. Among the men who attended

5400-570: Was not considered acceptable to perform improvs in public. That was for the privacy of your studio." Erdman's other important works of the 1940s were Daughters of the Lonesome Isle (1945) and Ophelia (1946) with commissioned scores by John Cage on prepared and standard piano respectively, Passage (1946), Hamadryad (1948) to Debussy 's " Syrinx ", The Perilous Chapel (1949), and Solstice (1950), both with commissioned scores by Lou Harrison . Of The Perilous Chapel which featured

5475-565: Was renamed the Helen Frankenthaler Visual Arts Center. In October 2016 the faculty adopted an open-access policy to make its scholarship publicly accessible online. In the summer of 2020, the board of trustees announced that Laura Walker would be the next college president. Bennington College has an acceptance rate of 45%. In 2024, the college had a student to faculty ratio of 9:1 with 63% of classes with fewer than 20 students. Bennington College

5550-463: Was the actor Alan Arkin . Between 1935 and 1939 the famous social psychologist Theodore Newcomb conducted a study about the change of political attitude during the New Deal period. President Leigh resigned in 1941, at the age of 50, saying he thought no college should be "shackled by executive leadership gradually growing stale, feeble or lacking in initiative". He was succeeded by a member of

5625-412: Was troubled by the attitude towards dancing that caused her to be disciplined for teaching the hula to her classmates. Later, at Sarah Lawrence College , which she attended from 1934 to 1937, she was able to explore more freely her multiple interests in theater, dance, and aesthetic philosophy. At Sarah Lawrence she encountered her two greatest influences: Joseph Campbell and Martha Graham . Campbell,

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