Duke Arts

Highlights of the arts at Duke University, brought to you by the Vice Provost Office for the Arts. Our home on the web is arts.duke.edu.

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As I interact with people marginalized by this country, I need to express visually, as a demonstrator and an artist, how they are invisible and being denied basic human rights. In these photographs of "Occupy Charlotte" I use blur and movement to explore the pathos and indeterminacy of the situation. (Photograph by Annabel Manning)

This photograph is part of the first public exhibition of works by students in Duke's MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts (MFAEDA) program. Occupations will be on view from February 17-March 15 in the Corridor Gallery of the East Duke building on Duke's East Campus.

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"The Paper Hat Game in 4 minutes," a video condensation by Raquel Salvatella de Prada of a play created and directed by Torry Bend, was featured at the CHAT 2012 Festival hosted at Duke last week. The play, which premiered in Duke's Sheafer Theater last fall, told the story of "notorious Chicago prankster, Scotty Iseri, aka The Paper Hat Guy, through the language of toy theater and projection."

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Artist Bob Blake "came to Durham in 1942 and worked as a leading medical illustrator at Duke. In his spare time, he traveled around Durham County painting scenes that caught his eye." A collection of watercolors he made of downtown Durham during his first few decades here is now on display in a Duke Divinity School classroom, thanks to a long-term loan from the Duke-Semans Fine Art Foundation.

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And God said "Let there be light!" The "theme of creation" arises from the dark depths, steady, solemn and hymn-like. As the daylight gradually swells and expands, bell-like chords ring ever louder, glistening like precious stones turned in the sunlight.

This photograph by Kate Roberts won the Grand Prize in "Illuminating Messiaen," a photography competition sponsored by Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts. Members of the Duke Divinity School community were invited "to submit digital photographs as an artistic response to the music of Olivier Messiaen's spectacular work for two pianos, Visions de l’Amen."

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A China of Many Senses by Bill Seaman and Todd Berreth will be displayed on February 6, 2012 beginning at 6pm. This event marks the opening night of the 2012 Collaborations: Humanities, Arts, and Technology Festival at Duke University in Durham, NC, USA.

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imnewhere is a collaboration between new Duke Dance Program faculty Tommy DeFrantz and Ken Stewart, a graduate student in composition. When it premiered last fall both men were on stage, DeFrantz dancing and telling a story of identity and relocation, Stewart "conducting" with Xbox Kinnect, which is its own kind of dancing.

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Independent experimental filmmaker and artist Pat O'Neill will be in the lecture hall at Duke's Nasher Museum this evening at 6pm to speak and screen some of his work (image from the 2009 digital video I Put Out My Hands).

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Fayetteville Street, in the Hayti district of Durham, North Caroline, 1944. Photographer unknown.

Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies is pleased to offer "Then and Now: A Hayti Civics Course," a unique new continuing education course led by a knowledgeable and committed group of instructors. Students will record oral histories and use archival material to produce a series of short documentaries about Durham’s Hayti community, a vibrant African-American section of Durham, North Carolina, that flourished for most of the 20th century. (via Students in New Class Will Create Short Docs On Hayti, Durham's Historic African American Community)

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Jeffrey Page is an Emmy-nominated choreographer whose work, which blends African, hip-hop, funk, soul and jazz dance styles has been featured on So You Think You Can Dance?, The Beyoncé Experience Tour and the MTV’s Video Music Awards, among other television programs. This month, Page will visit Duke to create a new piece for the African Dance Repertory class, which will be performed at Choreolab, the Dance Program’s mainstage spring production, on April 21 and 22. Recess’ Michaela Dwyer chatted with Page, hoping to hone in on his choreographic approach, which actress, dancer, choreographer and Fame star Debbie Allen called “so pure and so authentic.”

(via Recess Interviews: dancer/choreographer Jeffrey Page | The Chronicle)

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From the Rueda de Casino dance workshops last weekend organized by Duke Dance faculty member Andrea E. Woods Valdés and led by the Cuban percussionist/choreographer Vladimir Espinosa. Woods Valdés and Espinosa are working together to choreograph a dance that will be performed at Choreolab later this spring. See the Duke Dance Program web site for details.