Bradley Simmons, director of the Duke Djembe and Afro-Cuban Ensembles, passed away on May 22, 2025. Since 1998, Simmons taught West African and Afro-Cuban music at Duke, using instructional methods steeped in a rich oral tradition passed down through generations of musicians. “We are deeply saddened,” said Verena Mösenbichler-Bryant, chair of the department of Music. “Bradley’s extraordinary passion, rhythmic brilliance and generous spirit left an indelible mark on generations of students and on our department.… read more about In Memoriam: Bradley Simmons (November 14, 1951 – May 22, 2025) »
The following is a partial list of national, university, school and departmental awards presented to the members of the Class of 2025. In some awards where there are multiple winners, only members of the Class of 2025 are included. read more about Department Honors and Laurels for the Class of 2025 »
In March, the Dance Program made a strong impression at the Mid-Atlantic regional conference for the American College Dance Association (ACDA), held this year at the University of Maryland. MFA in Dance candidates Sadé Jones and Tristian Griffin, along with Associate Professor of the Practice Iyun Ashani Harrison, represented the Program.“ACDA offers an invaluable platform for artists to share their research and engage with the work of their peers,” Harrison explainsJones and Griffin co-created and performed “UBUNTU,”… read more about Students Showcase Work at ACDA Conference »
The arts play an important part of the Duke student educational experience, providing exceptional performing opportunities. The benefits extend to the wider community outside of Duke, from the many community members who are entertained by the students’ concerts, plays, dances, films and exhibits.Some of these young artists are heading into career in the arts; most will head into other fields. But all student artists will carry the memories of the art they did at Duke for the rest of their lives.Below are snapshots of a few… read more about The Class of 2025’s Got Talent »
Duke Dance terminal degree, MFA in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis provides an exclusive opportunity for graduate student-artists to devise interdisciplinary academic and artistic project works in their respective fields of expertise supported with significant coursework within and outside of Dance. This year, the Dance Program will celebrate five graduating artists, Natalia Cervantes, Indigo Cook, Sade Jones, emily liptow, and Chania Wilson, who bolstered the cultural, social, ritual, diasporic, and artistic… read more about Congratulations to the MFA in Dance Class of 2025 »
Indigo is a digger for, and bearer of, treasures—fragments of knowledge left behind by avant-garde artists over the past century. They gathered a wild weave of voices, methodologies, and propositions from those who came before, crafting a new tapestry of ideas that gently invites the curious passerby into the poetry of everyday life and the potential of sensing as deeply as playfully. From this broad and resonant field of influence, Indigo wrought an opera—not the kind we are accustomed to, but one unfolding within a… read more about Indigo Cook, MFA in Dance ’25: And You Ghosts Rise Blue »
Sadé M. Jones is a choreographer, a social psychologist, an alchemist, and in her own words “a healer”. She approaches her work with a rare and profoundly embodied wisdom—one that doesn’t simply interpret theory, but breathes it into being. Her research is rooted where dance, Black Feminist thought, and embodied knowledge converge, and she treats movement as a powerful methodology for both rethinking the past and imagining liberated futures. What I find most powerful about Sadé’s work is how she treats the body as a… read more about Sadé Jones, MFA in Dance ’25: Melanated Chrysalis »
How can whole-bodied listening, intentional touch, intimacy, and care be cultivated through intergenerational artmaking? It has been a fantastic journey witnessing em liptow cultivate a responsive approach to collective movement and sound facilitation called thresholding—a creative process borne from personal experiences of grief and loss, and a desire to intertwine distinct movement forms: Contact Improvisation, a partnered dance practice exploring movement through sustained physical contact, and Threshold… read more about emily liptow, MFA in Dance ’25: Thresholding »
Chania Wilson, thought-provoking and pensive, passionate and curious, gave us a thesis project that released her inner experiences, created community, and moved the six vivacious dancers to an aesthetic of endurance and palpable desire. In her collaborative project, There is a ladder: Reckoning the Contemporary Black Woman Perspective in Post/Modern Dance, Chania worked out identity, vulnerability, anger, physical exertion, and play to embody what she refers to as liberatory archival practices that… read more about Chania Wilson, MFA in Dance ’25: There is a ladder »
Natalia’s MFA Thesis, titled “welding borderlands | soldando las tierras fronterizas,” invites us to witness how our body can be a potent site where individual, familial, and communal experiences and memories can be evoked, accessed, and materialized. Adopting a multimodal approach, her project presented an unforgettable border crossing experience for the campus community and local Latinx communities. read more about Natalia Cervantes, MFA in Dance ’25: welding borderlands | soldando las tierras fronterizas »
Each year, Duke University awards Benenson Awards in the Arts, which provide funding for arts-centered projects proposed by undergraduates, including graduating seniors. This year, the Student Arts Award Committee awarded prizes to fifteen students for creative projects spanning film, theater, creative writing, music, dance, and visual art. read more about Announcing the 2025 Benenson Award Winners »
How can we learn to heal from systemic violence in ways that are not suppressive, but expressive? This is the fundamental question that Lenora Lee posed in her talk titled Stories in Motion: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Dance Making on February 28 in the Pink Parlor in the East Duke building. Professor Jingqui Guan, Assistant Professor of the Practice of Dance invited Lee, the Artistic Director of Lenora Lee Dance, to discuss how she combines dance, history, and community as an artist.In her talk, Lee… read more about Stories in Motion: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Dance Making »
The Duke Dance Program's former and current directors and faculty joined for a lunchtime chat to share the program's history at Duke, which spans almost five decades. Taking place over a delicious lunch, the roundtable included faculty, students and the Duke and Durham community, all sharing memories and stories about the evolution of the Dance Program from a student club, to its association with the African American Dance Ensemble and the American Dance Festival, to one of the gems of Duke's humanities and arts programs.… read more about Duke Dance Program Centennial Series: Preserving Dance Legacies and Preparing Dance Future »
In honor of Duke's Centennial, in the fall 2024 the Duke Dance Program threw a party celebrating the history and legacy of the Ark Studio. With live music from the Willie Painter Band, the celebration gathered faculty, students and alumni in an evening of laughter, fun, and — of course — dance!Built in 1898, the Ark Studio is considered the site of the Duke Dance Program's beginnings in 1982. In the past 100 years, it has been a gymnasium, bowling alley, laundry, photography studio, cafeteria, site for social dance and… read more about The Ark Party: Duke Dance Legacies & Futures »
The Dance Program celebrated its graduates with a breakfast reception on Saturday, May 11 at the Ruby Lounge, in the Rubenstein Arts Center. The program included live music from pianist Mark Wells and percussionist John Hanks, and a welcome speech from Associate Professor of the Practice and department Chair Andrea E. Woods-Valdés, followed by tributes to the undergraduates majors and minors. Following an introduction by Associate Professor of the Practice and Director of Undergraduate Studies Iyun Harrison,… read more about Congratulations, 2024 Graduates! »
Tristian Griffin, Asili Johnson and Johanna Kepler are the latest multi-faceted artists to join the Master of Fine Arts in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis Program (MFAEIP). The MFAEIP is a two-year, full-time terminal degree program dedicated to expanding dance and embodied knowledge across cultures, communities and contexts. The program endorses dance as a transformative force in society and engages students whose research centers around interdisciplinary experimentation.From Director Sarah Wilbur:… read more about Sixth MFAEIP Cohort Joins Dance Program »
The Dance Program faculty has a long history of inviting visiting artists and arts researchers to campus. Through masterclasses, lectures, residencies, workshops and performances, these art-centered guests share their time and talents to further enrich the research and scholarship taking place within the Rubenstein Arts Center studios, classrooms and stages. Dancer, choreographer and scholar Angelica Burgos spent time with the Dance Program for a five-day choreography residency. Working with student dancers Sarah… read more about En Pointe Inspirations from Guest Choreographer Angelica Burgos »
Nestled among the trees and Georgian architecture on East Campus stands a self-effacing, white clapboard building that predates the century-old Duke we know today. Hiding behind the Wilson Residence Hall, the Ark quietly watches students as they pass by, its austerity of design and understated elegance belying the richness of stories and traditions retained within its walls.One of the oldest buildings on campus, the Ark witnessed the birth of Duke basketball, helped feed and clothe our students and provided a haven for… read more about The Ark: 125 Years of Service »
The Julia Wray Memorial Dance Award 2024: Leah Esemuede This Award celebrates the memory of Julia Wray who for many years was the leader and passionate protagonist for dance at Duke and in North Carolina. It is awarded to a faculty-nominated senior who has shown outstanding leadership in the Dance Program during their term at Duke University. Leah Abieyuwa Esemuede received The Julia Wray Memorial Dance Award 2024. Earlier, Leah received the Clay Taliaferro Dance Award, the Dance… read more about 2024 Undergraduate Dance Award Winners »
As he reflected on the turmoil in 2020, Harrison explored how he could facilitate socially conscious artmaking in the classroom. (Photo courtesy of Iyun Ashani Harrison) It was 2020, and Iyun Ashani Harrison was still one year away from accepting his position with the Dance Program. He spent most of his time in his California hills apartment on lockdown from the pandemic and surrounded by wildfires — while the rest of the country was also on fire. “The intersections of COVID-19, the… read more about When Isolation Ignites Change: New Course Fuses Arts Activism with Technology »
When Andrea E. Woods Valdés, chair of the Dance Program, extended a residency to Juel D. Lane this Fall, she gave the choreographer carte blanche with his creative process. What materialized was an original work contemplating what dance classes will look like in the future and addressing how to maintain the authenticity that defines our individuality. “Discovering Your Voice: A Dance Class” debuted at the fall concert November Dances and featured eight student dancers: Michela Annamaria Arietti, Alyah Burnett-Baker, Indigo… read more about Juel D. Lane’s Residency Imagines the Future of Dance Classes »
