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Celebrating Master’s Graduates
The Dance Program will celebrate five graduating artists in the class of 2025
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News

  • Congratulations to the MFA in Dance Class of 2025
    Congratulations to the MFA in Dance Class of 2025 (clicking this link will take you away from this site)
  • Iyun, Sade, and Tristian at the ACDA 2025
    Students Showcase Work at ACDA Conference
  • Announcing the 2025 Benenson Award Winners
    Announcing the 2025 Benenson Award Winners (clicking this link will take you away from this site)
  • Stories in Motion: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Dance Making
    Stories in Motion: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Dance Making (clicking this link will take you away from this site)
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Duke University Dance Program

The Duke University Dance Program focuses on dance as an integral part of the human experience and a medium for rigorous intellectual creativity. Our program prepares exceptionally aware, creative and socially responsible individuals. Our aim is to engage students in the profound potential for dance as embodied knowledge in the service of society. The Dance Program curriculum is designed to encourage the exploration of dance from interdisciplinary perspectives: historical, cultural, aesthetic, literary, technological, musical, scientific and creative.

Undergraduate Program

Offering a major and minor, our provides unique opportunities to encounter global dance traditions and movement experimentation for discovery, inquiry and discourse. The curriculum is designed to suit the interests of students with varied levels of experience in dance, encouraging them in multi- and inter-disciplinary engagements.

Read more about the undergraduate program

Featured Courses

Featured Course
Dance
DANCE 335SL
West African Rootholds in Dance

Lecture and dance laboratory exploring three West African traditional dance forms and their relationship to religious and social life in Africa and the Diaspora. Continuity and transformation of… read more about West African Rootholds in Dance »

Dance 432
DANCE 432
Performance: African

The study of choreography and performance through participation in the mounting of a dance work from inception through rehearsal to performance. Separate enrollment in dance technique is encouraged.… read more about Performance: African »

dance
DANCE 230
African Dance Technique II

Continuation of Dance 130. Dances from selected African ethnic groups providing increasingly complex movement sequences and rhythmic structures. Emphasis on greater technical proficiency, clarity of… read more about African Dance Technique II »

See All Courses

Graduate Program

The Master of Fine Arts in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis is a 2-year, full-time terminal degree in Dance. The program endorses dance as a politically, socially and spiritually transformative force in society. The MFA encourages practice-based, interdisciplinary research that has the potential to result in tangible contributions to society at large.

Read more about the graduate program

Faculty & Student Research

Iyun Harrison and Leah Esemuede
Duets Episode 4: Turn the Lights On
August 13, 2024
When Isolation Ignites Change: New Course Fuses Arts Activism with Technology
When Isolation Ignites Change: New Course Fuses Arts Activism with Technology
March 11, 2024
Iyun Harrison
Iyun Ashani Harrison: ADF 2024 Made in NC artist
December 19, 2023
SarahAnne Perel
SarahAnne Perel is pursuing a career without limits
November 17, 2023
Michael Klein
Michael Kliën reflects on ethical questions in his work
November 14, 2023
mfa 2023
Congratulations, MFA in Dance Class of 2023
May 2, 2023
Iyun Harrison ACC
Iyun Ashani Harrison to speak on antiracist teaching and professional practices
October 10, 2022
sarah wilbur image
Sarah Wilbur: How Dance Works, Now
July 22, 2022
Leo, Miki, Lee
Duke Dance Program launches summer intensives to support MFA artistic research
May 27, 2022
funding bodies book jacket
Sarah Wilbur's new book connects NEA arts funding policies to dance organizational ideals
November 11, 2021
Alyah Baker, MFA in Dance '21, discusses gender norms in NYT article
June 2, 2021
DeFrantz
NEA supports project led by Duke Dance professor
May 20, 2021

Alumni Highlights

Maurice Ivy Dowell, T'16
Maurice Ivy Dowell, T'16
Kara Medoff Barnett, T'2000
Kara Medoff Barnett, T'2000
Rebecca Pham, T14
Rebecca Pham, T14
Anna Hevia T'12
Anna Hevia T'12
Elisa Schreiber, T'05
Elisa Schreiber, T'05
Stephanie Joe, T'16
Stephanie Joe, T'16
Anne Talkington, T'15
Anne Talkington, T'15
Lexy Lattimore, T'14
Lexy Lattimore, T'14
Spencer Paez T'13
Spencer Paez T'13

Read All Alumni Highlights

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Dance Program

2020 Campus Drive
Rubenstein Arts Center, Suite 209
Box 90686
Durham, NC 27705
Phn: 919.660.3354
Fax: 919.668.7858

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