Chautauqua Institution

GALLIM Preview
2025-05-22 16:00 (America/New_York) | Carnahan-Jackson: McBride/Verdy, Carnahan-Jackson: McBride/Verdy
Join celebrated interdisciplinary dance company GALLIM for an intimate glimpse of the culmination of their 3-week residency at Chautauqua. Artistic Director and choreographer Andrea Miller is creating a new work entitled MOTHER, premiering this fall. Mark your calendars to see the completed work at the Joyce Theater in New York City, November 5-9, 2025! Miller is a Guggenheim Fellow, the first Artist in Residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and part of the first female choreographer/composer team commissioned to create for New York City Ballet. Recent commissions include English National Ballet and Abraham in Motion.
Following the performance, join the artists for a meet and greet and moderated conversation at the Athenaeum Hotel Parlor, which includes heavy hors d’oeuvres with beverages available for purchase. Tickets are available for either the preview performance only, or for the preview performance plus reception.
Please note that the GALLIM Preview Performance will now take place in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall, rather than the Amphitheater as previously announced.
For patrons who have also purchased tickets to the post-performance reception, transportation to the Athenaeum Hotel will be provided following the performance.
About MOTHER
“The work reflects the heartbeat and pulses that connect us to Mother, home center for continuity of life, the profound meeting point of past, present and future. The work sets the stage for a visceral, shared experience in which the dancers are conduits for an intense and exhilarating imagined gestation of a new life.” – Andrea Miller
About GALLIM
GALLIM serves as a dynamic home for the exchange of movement wisdom through the three pillars of art-making, dance education, and community-building. Founded in 2007 by groundbreaking choreographer Andrea Miller, GALLIM is a New York City based nonprofit dance company and interdisciplinary arts organization that nurtures creative careers and stimulates the imagination of audiences worldwide through performance, the School of Movement, and innovation in dance. GALLIM’s critically acclaimed performance history of national and international seasons includes interdisciplinary dance theater and site-specific works as well as collaborations in film, theater, fashion, music, and brands. GALLIM envisions an equitable, inclusive dance landscape, where creativity and movement are accessible to all, deeply valued, and serve their timeless role as a reflection of our shared human experience.
Andrea Miller is a 2024 Princess Grace Special Project recipient, MOTHER is created with the support of the Princess Grace Foundation – USA.
MOTHER is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

CHQ Travels: Walking the Camino de Santiago
2025-05-21 00:00
Join Bishop Eugene Sutton on an unforgettable week on The Camino de Santiago, a powerful way to reconnect to
simple pleasures and reconnect to the joy of journeying. One of the most important Christian pilgrimage routes
during the Middle Ages, the Camino de Santiago (or St. James’ Way) has endured for centuries as a “bucket-list”
journey for those seeking a deeper spiritual connection, either religious or personal. Traveling paths traversed
by pilgrims for one thousand years provides a shared connection and sense of purpose not often experienced
in the modern world. Chautauqua’s senior pastor, Bishop Sutton will provide daily reflections to help enrich your
experience. Spain’s mighty Basque region unfurls through picturesque mountains and ancient villages, where
nature and history are revered, and local wine and cuisine are cherished.

CHQ Travels: Cannes Film Festival
2025-05-19 00:00 - 2025-05-25 00:00
Through special accreditation granted to the Chautauqua Institution by the Cannes Film Festival, enjoy access to dozens of screenings of some of the most daring, promising, and topical films of the year. Stay at a hotel just a short walk from the Palais des Festivals and enjoy seven days to attend as many screenings as you wish. With your Festival badge, you’ll have access to restricted areas and hear from film professionals about their craft.

Is American Civic Culture the Source of Our Challenges?
2025-04-23 12:30 | Washington, DC
Join Chautauqua Institution in Washington, D.C., or online, for a special program hosted at the American Enterprise Institute and moderated by 2024–25 Chautauqua Perry Fellow in Democracy Melody Barnes. As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, American democracy faces profound challenges in the form of declining trust in institutions and growing political and cultural divides. While policy solutions and institutional reforms are essential, they are not enough. The strength of our democracy depends on a civic culture that sustains it. Can we foster a shared set of norms, values, and beliefs that empower our institutions and help us navigate our differences?
Presented in partnership with AEI and the University of Virginia’s Karsh Institute of Democracy, this program — titled “Is American Civic Culture the Source of Our Challenges” — will be a thought-provoking conversation on what it will take to renew the foundation of American democracy. Joining the panel discussion are E.J. Dionne, senior fellow and W. Averell Harriman Chair in American Governance at Brookings; William A. Galston, senior fellow and Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies at Brookings; Hahrie Han, director of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University; Yuval Levin, director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at AEI; and Christine Rosen, senior fellow at AEI. Guiding the conversation will be Barnes, who serves as executive director of the University of Virginia’s Karsh Institute of Democracy.
Visit AEI’s website to register (for free) while seats are available, or register to watch online.
Panelists Dionne, Rosen and Barnes are all previous presenters on lecture stages at Chautauqua; AEI and Brookings are Chautauqua’s program partners for the 2025 Week Four Chautauqua Lecture Series exploration of “The Future of the American Experiment.”

Victoria Christopher Murray and Marie Benedict
2025-03-13 16:00 | Zoom, Zoom
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (CLSC) Unbound Presentation — Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray and The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict
She found the literary voices that would inspire the world…. Harlem Rhapsody (On-sale: February 4, 2025) is the extraordinary story of the woman who ignited the Harlem Renaissance, written by Victoria Christopher Murray, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian. Most of us have heard of the Harlem Renaissance, and some may even know that this movement began in 1924, one hundred years ago. However, few of us know of the woman who was at the epicenter of the literary awakening that occurred, the woman who discovered the authors synonymous with this time: Jessie Redmon Fauset.
Victoria Christopher Murray is a New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty novels, including The Personal Librarian, a Good Morning America book club pick, and The First Ladies, Target’s 2023 Book of the Year, both of which she coauthored with Marie Benedict. She is a NAACP Image Award Winner for Outstanding Literary Work for her novel Stand Your Ground, which was also a Library Journal Best Book of the Year. She holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.
The Queens of Crime (On-sale: February 11, 2025) by beloved and bestselling author Marie Benedict (The Personal Librarian, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie) is a genre-bending novel starring Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie that blends classic mystery, historical fiction, and elements of true crime into a page-turning and unforgettable story. Set in London in the 1930s and starring five of the greatest women crime writers of the interwar period, The Queens of Crime is an homage to the Golden Age of Detective Fiction that celebrates women who buck convention and seek justice for themselves—and others.
Marie Benedict is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Mitford Affair, Her Hidden Genius, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, The Only Woman in the Room, Lady Clementine, Carnegie’s Maid, The Other Einstein, and with Victoria Christopher Murray, the Good Morning America Book Club pick The Personal Librarian and the Target Book of the Year The First Ladies. All have been translated into multiple languages, and many have been selected for the Barnes & Noble Book Club, Target Book Club, Costco Book Club, Indie Next List, and LibraryReads List. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.
Newly beloved Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle authors, Victoria Christopher Murray and Marie Benedict, will join Kwame Alexander, Michael I. Rudell Artistic Director of Literary Arts, in conversation on Thursday, March 13, 2025, as part of our CLSC Unbound programming to discuss the significance of historical fiction, women in history, and each of their newest novels – and 2025 CLSC selections – Harlem Rhapsody (Penguin Random House) and The Queens of Crime (St. Martin’s Press).
Register for the Zoom Webinar here.

Winter Weekend Horse-Drawn Carriage Rides
2025-02-23 13:00, 2025-02-22 13:00, 2025-02-16 13:00, 2025-02-15 13:00 | Bestor Plaza, Bestor Plaza
The Stateline Horseman’s Association will provide sleigh and wagon rides around the grounds every weekend starting Saturday, Jan. 4 and continuing every Saturday and Sunday (weather permitting) until Feb. 28. The rides will take place from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at the Chautauqua Bookstore, with prices as follows: $5 for individuals aged 13 and older, $3 for youth aged 2 to 12, and free for those under 2 years old.
If weather conditions seem adverse, call the Bookstore ahead of your visit at 716-357-2151.

The Philosophies of the American Foundings with David French
2025-02-18 15:00 | Special Studies
Join these five-week online class on Tuesdays as we explore that the story of America is a story of a centuries-long collision between high ideals and grim reality.The words of the Declaration of Independence conflicted with the darkness of slavery. The terror of Jim Crow conflicted with the promises of the Civil War Amendments. This course will examine the philosophies that shaped the two foundings — one born out of revolution, the other out of civil war — and how those philosophies continue to call us to a higher and better version of ourselves today.
David French is an opinion columnist for The New York Times, where he writes about law, culture, religion, and armed conflict. He was previously a senior editor at The Dispatch, a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a columnist at Time and a senior writer at National Review. A frequent on stage at Chautauqua, he currently serves along with Melody Barnes as the Institution’s inaugural Perry Fellows in Democracy.
French is a former constitutional litigator, past president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and a New York Times bestselling author. His most recent book is Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation, in which he warns of the potential dangers to the country — and the world — if we don’t summon the courage to reconcile our political differences.
A graduate of Harvard Law School, French is a former major in the United States Army Reserve and a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he was awarded the Bronze Star.
