
Explore snapshots of work-in-progress, performance, assignments, and other snippets of the classroom experience at Bennington. This section represents a sampling of areas of study and courses, for a bigger picture, you can delve into the full range of Areas of Study and the Curriculum from Spring 2023 and beyond.
If you are interested in learning more about a particular area of study, our students would love to meet with you to share their work, answer your questions, and help you envision how your passions might fit into the Bennington curriculum. Request a conversation with our current students here!
Animation and Video
- Explore student works from animation classes, compiled by faculty member Sue Rees, alongside some projects in progress this semester.
- Moving Image at Bennington College: watch a trailer of film/video and animation works from 2018-2019.
Earth Science
Go on a virtual field trip with faculty member Tim Schroeder.
Listen in on an outcomes-focused conversation with faculty and recent alumni from our Fall for Bennington event.
Science and Math
- Explore student work across the sciences at Bennington. “Discover the Unknown,” or check out this field course in Coral Reef Biology, taught by Betsy Sherman. To learn more about our science and math courses, please take a look at the curriculum.
- Watch an interview with Naima Starkloff '15 about her science studies at Bennington.
- Listen in on this conversation between faculty and alumni.
- Watch this video of Blake Jones' Ornithology class.
Society, Culture, and Thought (SCT)
Explore student work in the social sciences through these examples of senior work and theses.
- An English Town's Pilgrimage to Brexit: Coal Mining, New Labour, and White Working-Class Decay
Thesis by Francesca Edwards '18 -
Black Ain’t Lack, but Education Ain’t Black: A look at Black American undergraduate students and alumni of Bennington College
Thesis by Mardryka Adzick '18 -
Bulleh ki jaana main kaun: Politicisation of Sufi Shrines in Pakistan
Thesis-novel by Syeda Rumana Mehdi '18
Music
Watch the Sing class, taught by Kerry Ryer-Parke, in action.
Take a listen to a selection of the class of 2020's senior work: Senior MusicFest 2020 and Lorem Ipsum by Maeve Bustell.
Watch the first episode of The Lens, featuring an interview with musician and Music SEPC representative Maddy Wood '22.
Theater
In the course The History of Directing, taught by Jean Randich, students work semi-chronologically from the late 19th to the early 21st century, examining how culture and theater interact and change each other. These are examples of the oral slide show presentations students prepare when they report on individual directors.
- Jacob Sanders | F. T. Marinetti presentation
- Biborka Beres | Alfred Jarry presentation
- George Li | Bertolt Brecht presentation
Take a look at this costume design project by Taz Meyers '19.
In this class assignment from Directing I: The Director’s Vision, taught by Jean Randich, students respond to the exercise: Take one minute and find something in your room to create a tableau of a character you either play or direct in Anton Chekhov's The Seagull. Assume an expressive gestural pose for that character and hold it in stillness for 30 seconds while maintaining active thought and emotion inside. Watch now.
The course Bennington Plays: Playwrights, taught by Sherry Kramer, supports playwrights engaged in the process and techniques of rewriting and staging their plays. Here are two examples of works in progress:
- "Uprooted, A Dark Comedy" by Evan Grey Caldwell
- "Grandpa Dave" by Edie Salas-Miller
Dance
Selections from Advanced Projects in Dance, taught by David Thomson:
- Lou Brownlee, Railroad #3
- Anna Demchenko, Breath in/Breath out
- Anna Demchenko, Isolation Sketches Series (#1) Climbing the Walls
- Nora Littell, I'm not Gene Kelly
- Kari Ostensen, Lexicon of Movement
In an assignment for Finding Form: Dance, taught by Dana Reitz, students find a passage of literature or music, find aspects of form within it, and use something of the form to make a short movement study.
- Veda Carmine-Ritchie, Inspired by We Will Always Love You by The Avalanches feat. Blood Orange
- Sophia Grimani, Inspired by Dirge by Death in Vegas
- Hanna Stebbins, Inspired by Liver Room, passage by Carolee Schneemann
- Triston Walker, Inspired by This Is All I Have For You by Makoto Matushita
- Emma Williams, Inspired by “Cello Concerto in E Minor, RV 409: (III. Allegro)” by Antonio Vivaldi
In the course Introduction To Phrasemaking & Performing taught by Dana Reitz, students find a specific location to use as a stimulus for making a movement study, all phrasing influenced by the environment. Here are a few examples:
In Dance Making: The Ephemeral Artifact taught by Hilary Clark, students compose using percussive and sustained qualities as source material. Here is a sample of work from this course: Isabel San Millan.
Visual Art
In the course Delights of Ephemera, taught by faculty member and Director and Curator of the Suzanne Lemberg Usdan Gallery Anne Thompson, the class wrote a blog that was compiled by students Charlotte Zinsser and Alex Terjak Wall.
12:00pm: Welcome Session Begins
12:05-12:30pm: First Year Experience Panel
12:30-1:30pm: Creating at Bennington: Faculty Sessions
1:30-2:00pm: Let's Chat!
- An informal opportunity for students and parents to chat with Bennington College community members
2:00-3:00pm: Take a Walk With Us
- Bennington College Admissions Interns will take you on a live virtual tour of campus. As they move through campus, there will also be the opportunities to ask them questions that you may have.
As we get closer to the event note that some sessions may change or be added.