News

read more about How Duke Dance Changed in Fall 2020 »

Andrea E. Woods Valdés will be a featured speaker at this event.  About The Event: The Black Religion, Spirituality & Culture Fifth Annual Conference aims to create a safe and meaningful space for B.I.P.O.C. cultural-heritages and traditions of being and becoming. We will facilitate much-needed conversations around the global militarization of police and police brutality against Black and Brown folx across the African Diaspora. Students will engage in high-… read more about Fifth Annual Black Religion Spirituality & Culture Conference »

As part of its event series tgiFHI, the Franklin Humanities Institute is conducting interviews with its faculty speakers in order to familiarize broader audiences with the diversity of research approaches in the humanities, arts, and interpretive social sciences at Duke University. Michael Kliën is Professor of the Practice of Dance and Director of Graduate Studies of the MFA in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis at Duke University. He also directs the Laboratory for Social Choreography at the Kenan Institute for… read more about Meet Your Humanities Faculty: Michael Kliën »

Congratulations to MFA in Dance at Duke candidate Alyah Baker for being named Kenan Institute for Ethics Graduate Arts Fellow in Social Choreography and Performance for the 2020-2021 academic year! In her research, Baker is committed to foregrounding the body as she explores power, the politics of place, and identity. Read more: bit.ly/2LTRLXN read more about Alyah Baker named 2020-2021 Graduate Arts Fellow in Social Choreography and Performance »

Students enrolled in Dance 122: Intermediate Ballet this fall had the opportunity to collaborate with instructor, and MFA candidate, Courtney Liu to create a piece exploring the boundaries between classical ballet and contemporary styles: "Blurring the Lines: Finding Collective Resonance During COVID-19." "The piece builds upon the classroom journey to find a collective way of being, dancing, and breathing--even when we are separated by physical distance." explains Liu.  Students created phrases with an eye towards… read more about Duke Dance Program Students Find Collective Resonance During COVID-19 »

Duke Dance Program Professor Ava LaVonne Vinesett is one of only 20 choreographers selected to participate in the North Carolina Dance Festival (NCDF). Traditionally a touring festival that brings modern and contemporary choreographies to audiences across the state, this year NCDF will be a virtual celebration of its 30th season.  In a “normal” year, choreographers would submit a dance for adjudication with a panel reviewing the submissions blindly and recommending finalists. From the list, NCDF staff would… read more about Vinesett Considers the Physical Investment of Dancers in N.C. Dance Festival Work »

Duke University’s Identity and Cultural Centers are offering multiple opportunities for members of the Class of 2024 to continue the conversation originating from the Foundations of Equity training provided during Orientation 2020. These 90- minute staff led small group conversations provide an opportunity for our newest community members to continue to consider the foundational concepts related to equity. It also provides an opportunity to take a closer look at anti-Black racism with the support of three-member cross-… read more about Foundations of Equity - Continuing the Conversation [or First Year Facilitated Conversation] »

The Duke Dance Program recently welcomed its second MFA cohort to campus. Lee Edwards, Amari Jones, and Davian “DJ” Robinson are the newest masters candidates to join the Dance Program. The Master of Fine Arts in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis is a two-year, full-time terminal degree in Dance dedicated to embodied knowledge and practice-led movement discourses. The program endorses dance as a politically, socially, and spiritually transformative force in society and engages students at the vanguard… read more about Welcome to the Dance MFA Cohort- Class of 2022 »

Dear Duke and Durham communities: It gives me great pleasure and pride to begin to serve as the Director of the Duke Dance Program. I would like to thank Dr. Purnima Shah for her leadership and direction thus far as my colleagues and I continue to envision the viable and valuable futures for dance and what it encompasses within our program and beyond. I look forward to engaging with each of you, all the more so during these uncertain times. While we wish for the health and safety of all of our communities, the virtual… read more about Andrea E. Woods Valdés named Director of the Dance Program »

This fall semester, Duke Kunshan University lecturer Ashton Merck will be communicating with her students more than usual.   She plans to check in with her students early and often through WeChat messages, email, and virtual office hours. Merck hopes that by staying in contact, students will feel more connected to the course and to each other, no matter where they are in the world.    “I think that especially in this stressful time, instructors have a responsibility to open up lines of communication that… read more about How Duke Faculty Prepared for the Fall Semester »

The last few months have been the most tumultuous and troubling period of our lives. Every day brings new disheartening surprises and unbelievable situations. The concerns for our health and safety, the massive disruptions due to the spread of COVID-19 and the emergent atrocities against our Black communities are deeply unsettling. This world-wide movement, though, is quite reassuring as we hear Martin Luther King’s voice re-emerging through the voices of the millions protesting in favor of Black Lives Matter and calling… read more about Purnima Shah: “Extraordinary Creativity and Commitment” »

The Dance Program has been deliberate in demonstrating an awareness of how Black Lives have been, and continue to be, impacted by systemic racism, savage acts of anti-Black violence, white privilege, injustice, brutality, inequity... the list goes on. Dance is a visible form, and because the anxiety, torment, distress, relentless discrimination and theft of life experienced by Black people is often invisibilized—not seen as valid or important—it is vital that WE Show up. Make it Visible.  Dance is… read more about WE AFFIRM BLACK LIFE »

Sarah Wilbur, assistant professor of the practice of dance, was teaching seminars on collaborative performance and valuing labor in the arts—just as the arts world entered a period of unforeseen challenges. Teaching as the Arts World Changes Forever It was profoundly impactful to confront the unforeseen shift to distance learning this semester, given the topic of my seminar: “Art as Work: Valuing Labor in the Arts” (Dance561S). Once we returned from our two-week spring break, via Zoom, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic… read more about Sarah Wilbur: “It is Hard to Stay Optimistic” »

Through the completion of the spring semester, students attended Courtney Liu’s Dance 121 "Advanced Beginning Ballet" every Monday and Wednesday without fail. They moved from their traditional, open dance studio at the Rubenstein Arts Center into modified personal spaces: pushing the dining room table and chairs against the wall or re-arranging the sofa and coffee table to yield a few more feet of space, setting up in the  basement recreation room, moving to the bedroom, or sharing space with the family dog—but they… read more about Garage Ballet: Teaching Dance When Parked at Home »