Simon's Rock Celebrates Pride This March with Lecture, Dance Performance

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GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. —Simon's Rock will host their annual Pride Week in the last week of March, featuring two events open to the public. 
 
Simon's Rock observes Pride Week every year in March to honor International Transgender Day of Visibility and to allow students time to celebrate during the academic year. 
 
Alum Anne Thalheimer '91 will deliver the annual Pride Week Lecture. 
 
Anne Thalheimer has a B.A. from Simon's Rock in Literary Studies. She holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in English from the University of Delaware. Based in Western Massachusetts, she is an educator, artist, and activist, whose work in visual culture, autobio comix, and independent publishing spans three decades. Her work (both academic and graphic) has appeared in numerous collections, including the MLA's Teaching The Graphic Novel. She is a long-term reviewer for Xerography Debt and a former contributor to both Fleen and PopMatters. 
 
The Pride Week Lecture will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 28, in the McConnell Theater at the Daniel Arts Center on the Bard College at Simon's Rock campus. The event is free and open to the public. 
 
A live stream is also available at: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87103312935 
 
Simon's Rock will also host the dance performance FACES, presented by Ian Spencer Bell. This event features an interpretation of Isadora Duncan's The Many Faces of Love, Merce Cunningham's solo from Roaratorio, and Ian Spencer Bell's Rosing, with live performance by pianist Lauren Aloia. 
 
FACES presented by Ian Spencer Bell will occur at 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 1, in the McConnell Theater at the Daniel Arts Center. This event is free and will include a talkback with Ian Spencer Bell after the show.
 
Ian Spencer Bell is a dancer and a poet. His first performances were awarded a grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has danced his work at the 92nd Street Y, Boston Center for the Arts, Jacob's Pillow, National Arts Club, Poetry Foundation, and Queens Museum. His writing has been published by Ballet Review, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Dance Magazine, Movement Research, and The Yale Review.
 
For a decade throughout the United States, Bell led education and training programs for American Ballet Theatre. His work with children for ABT was danced at the Los Angeles Music Center and the Metropolitan Opera. Bell has been a visiting artist at Bard College at Simon's Rock and Vassar College. He is on faculty at Nightingale-Bamford School.
 
Bell was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in Fauquier County, Virginia. He trained at North Carolina School of the Arts, Pacific Northwest Ballet School, and School of American Ballet and was educated at Sarah Lawrence College and New York University. 

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Simon's Rock Awarded Freedom to Read Grant

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Bard College at Simon's Rock was awarded a Freedom to Read Grant by the Newburger Schwartz Family Foundation. 
 
The grant was awarded to support the Alumni Library and Bard Queer Leadership Project in building a more robust collection of queer scholarship, starting a Queer Book Club, and hosting Drag Story Time events in partnership with Drag Story Hour of the Berkshires.
 
According to a press release:
 
In response to current educational threats with book bans affecting schools and libraries across the country and further proposed legislation against LGBTQ+ people's access to basic rights and education, Simon's Rock is actively seeking to create inclusive and equitable spaces for queer individuals. 
 
The Bard Queer Leadership Project and Alumni Library will utilize the grant funding to expand the library's current collection of queer books in order to fully enable the longevity of the Queer Book Club and the Bard Queer Leadership Project. The Queer Book Club will be an intergenerational space, open to local middle school students through rainbow seniors and will partner with local community organizations, to discuss queer books and learn about LGBTQ+ issues and experiences. Bard Queer Leadership Project students will eventually help lead this initiative as part of their leadership project training. 
 
The Queer Book Club will host their first meeting on April 6 at 3:00 p.m. at the Alumni Library, with following meetings on April 27 and May 11. This semester, the selected books are "Obie is Man Enough" and "He/She/They," both by Schuyler Bailar, inspirational speaker and first openly transgender NCAA Division swimmer, who was a guest speaker in the inaugural Queer Leaders Vision Forum in fall 2023 at Simon's Rock. Schuyler Bailar will return to campus for a book signing and pool party at the Kilpatrick Athletic Center on April 19 at 7:00 p.m. Participants in the Queer Book Club will receive a free copy of either book of their choice. 
 
The first Drag Story Time will be on Saturday, March 30 at 2:00 p.m. at the Simon's Rock Alumni Library and is open to all LGBTQ+ affirming individuals. The event is in partnership with Drag Story Hour of the Berkshires with local drag queens JV and Poppy DaBubbly. The second Drag Story Time will be Saturday, April 27 with drag queen Poppy DaBubbly and drag king Sativo Green.
 
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