Graduate Alumni/ae

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Alexa West MFA ’14 Included in ArtNews’ “New Talent 2026”

Choreographer Alexa West MFA ’14 was featured in ArtNews as part of their “New Talent 2026” series, following the staging of her immersive dance performance Jawbreaker. After premiering at the TONO Festival in Mexico in March, Jawbreaker was staged in August at the New York Museum of Modern Art as part of the museum’s Kravis Studio artist residency program. “West’s uncanny, Rube Goldberg-esque dances have made her one of the stars of the city’s experimental dance scene,” writes Madeleine Seidel for ArtNews. “[Jawbreaker] is a near-perfect distillation of what makes West one of America’s most exciting choreographers: kinetic movement, a hypnotic soundtrack, and props that serve as objects for the dancers to work against.” West, who studied sculpture at Bard’s Milton Avery School of the Arts, says her time in Bard’s sculpture program influenced her dance practice. “I’ve learned how to make dances from a sculptural approach in terms of material, scale, and time,” she told ArtNews.

Bard’s MFA Program is a two-year multidisciplinary program focused on individual process and work in progress, as each student confronts the conceptual and practical questions at the core of all artistic production. Each MFA candidate chooses a primary field: Moving Image, Music/Sound, Painting, Photography, Sculpture, or Writing.
 

Post Date: 09-03-2026

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Bard Acting President Jonathan Becker Speaks About Student Voting Rights on the SpeechMatters Podcast 

Bard College’s Acting President Jonathan Becker appeared on the SpeechMatters podcast to discuss the ongoing struggle for youth voting rights in the United States. SpeechMatters is a project of the University of California’s National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, and features guests who are tackling the issues of free speech and democracy on college campuses. Becker was joined by host Michelle Deutchman, as well as Yael Bromburg, adjunct professor of law at the American University Washington College of Law. They addressed a range of issues, including the history of youth voting and on-campus voting, the civic impacts of student voting, and the structural and psychological challenges to broader enfranchisement of young people. Becker argued that institutions of learning should not be neutral, but explicitly and forcefully in favor of student voting. “Young people are the future of our democracy, and would we rather have engaged citizens, or passive citizens who are not involved in our democracy?" he said. "I think if you believe in civic participation, then you believe in young people voting.”

Becker, who coedited a recent book about youth voting rights, also spoke of his volunteer teaching experience in Kiev, Ukraine, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, and his dismay upon returning to New York's Hudson Valley to discover efforts by local officials to limit youth voting. “Having promoted democracy abroad, I discovered that our students here were systematically denied the right to vote locally,” he said. “As someone who spent half of their life abroad, the idea that we should be promoting democracy abroad, and coming home and some local official in Dutchess county is systematically denying students the right to vote is…outrageous.”

Post Date: 08-27-2026