Duke & Durham RSS
Keeping Duke Cool
When temperatures in the Triangle set a record for most consecutive days at 100 degrees or more in the beginning of July, Duke's chilled water system made sure things stayed cool inside. The system constantly pumps 38.5-degree water through 15 miles of pipes across campus to control temperatures and humidity in Duke buildings -- even during triple digit heat for six-straight days, which struck the area July 3 to 8.Published 10 months ago
ADF: Footprints | Beyond Limits
The opportunity to commission and present new work is a foundation of each ADF season. Footprints features an evening of performances choreographed by three groundbreaking choreographers, Jodi Melnick, Reggie Wilson and Helen Simoneau. Staged on a staggering sixty ADF students from our Six Week School, the show offers the unique opportunity for students to work closely on a piece for the stage with professional choreographers, something many students are experiencing for the first time on this scale.Footprints also offers the choreographers the chance to stretch their limits. Typically accustomed to working with smaller groups of dancers, all three choreographers chose to work with a larger group of students this summer, in a six-week intensive rehearsal schedule. "It's such a nurturing, creative environment here at ADF," stated Ms. Melnick. "It's great to take advantage of that and work with so many students."
Footprints wraps its three-night show run tonight, Tuesday, July 25th at Reynolds Industries Theater at Duke University. Please go to americandancefestival.org for more information.
Published 10 months ago
New Free-Ranging Trio of Species @ Duke Lemur Center
New at the Duke Lemur Center! We have a new trio of species all free-ranging together. The video features red-bellied lemurs, Coquerel's sifaka and mongoose lemurs living peaceably together in the forest. The sifaka have mostly white fur with dark brown patches on their arms and legs and are larger. The red-bellied lemurs are mostly red all over and medium sized. The smallest are the mongoose lemurs with brown-orange coloration.Published 10 months ago
Religious Performance Traditions of India
'Dancing with the Goddess' is an ethnographic film focusing on the religious performative traditions of Goddess worship in Gujarat, India with particular attention to the Ras and Garba dances performed during the religious festival Navaratri. The director, Purnima Shah, is Associate Professor of Dance in the Duke Dance Program. This documentary, and this video is only a preview, is the culmination of several years of field work by Professor Shah.Garba is a circle dance signifying the eternity or circle of life and performed by women on auspicious occasions including women's vows, ritual worship, wedding ceremonies, and pregnancies and hence identified as a religio-cultural heritage. In the last few decades, however, the impact of globalization, industrialization, urban sprawl and the proliferation of commercial media has spawned a diminution of religious practices of the garba on the one hand and an increasing popularity of the 'modernized' secular versions of the dance on the other, giving rise to new forms such as the disco-garba. The film exemplifies these transformations and questions the ramifications pertaining to the survival of the obscured symbolic meanings and religious connections of this performative genre with ancient traditions of Goddess worship in Gujarat.
Published 11 months ago
Duke Football Campus Cleanup
Duke football team cleans up Duke's west campus http://www.goduke.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=4200&SPID=1843&SPSID=22672Posted 11 months ago
Youth Programming | Dance for All Ages
More than simply a summer series of performances and school programs, The American Dance Festival provides opportunities for people of all ages and abilities to experience dance. For our youngest fans, the ADF offers Children's Saturday Matinees and free Kids' Parties to follow at the DPAC outdoor plaza, for music, snacks and additional entertainment. It's an afternoon of fun for the whole family, and a great way to expose young audiences to the world of dance.The Three Week School, offered through ADF School Programs, provides a more structured educational opportunity for young dancers as they reach their preteen and teenage years. Open to students aged twelve to sixteen, the Three Week School provides training in a range of dance techniques and styles, and nurtures close relationships with experienced dance professionals. Emma Stewart, a current Six Week School student who attended the ADF Four Week School program in 2005 (the predecessor to our current three-week program), marks that summer as integral to her decision to pursue dance as a profession. Now a senior at Virginia Commonwealth University, Emma will graduate next spring with her BFA in Dance and Choreography.
ADF strives to engender arts appreciation to all members of our community, whether young or young at heart. And now, with the opening of ADF's Samuel H. Scripps Studios, there is something for everyone year-round. Check out our classes and registration information at americandancefestival.org and come take advantage of the many benefits a dance education has to offer.
Published 11 months ago
ADF Musicians
The relationship between music and dance is a crucial one. In its simplest form, music provides the tempo to which all movement is timed; but it also has the ability to create mood, enhance a feeling or provide breath within a piece. The process of creating live musical accompaniment during a dance class becomes a conversation, a "duet... between the audio and the visual," remarks Andy Hasenpflug, ADF Director of Musicians.The musicians at ADF play a variety of instruments and represent a broad range of musical styles and genres. Congas, drums & other percussion join pianos, trumpets, vocals and synthesizers to create a rich tapestry of sound for our dancers. Live music accompanies every class at ADF and is an invaluable resource in creating and punctuating movement. As Vladimir Espinosa shares, "The music and dancers never separate. I see when they move; I see when they breathe. And I breathe and move with them. I see what they need, and I give support to the dancer."
Come celebrate our talented ADF musicians tonight, at a free Musicians Concert at the American Tobacco Campus at 6 p.m. For the first time, the Musicians Concert is presented as part of the American Tobacco Music on the Lawn series -- so come on down and experience the energy and talents of ADF's incredible musicians!
Special thanks to American Tobacco for their support of this event.
Published 11 months ago
Ragamala Dance | New Art, Ancient Vocabulary
Ragamala Dance presents their breathtaking Sacred Earth in their ADF Debut this week at Reynolds Theater. A combination of classical South Indian dance form Bharatanatyam, live music and poetry, the Minneapolis-based company creates a vivid sensory experience inspired by Warli wall paintings and kolam floor drawings.While deeply rooted in the classical dance vocabulary of Bharatanatyam, Ragamala Dance has a decidedly contemporary feel. "The dance is a two-thousand-year-old art form; the paintings have been done for generations; the poetry is two thousand years old; yet, we use modern technology of projection, scrim and videos," states company Founder and Artistic Director Ranee Ramaswamy. "In this way, we bring old forms into new ways of representation." Adds Artistic Director Aparna Ramaswamy, "Everything you see onstage—the music, the art, the dance—was created and commissioned by us for this production. So everything is old, yet new when you put it in this context."
This is an important distinction when considering contemporized representations of classical dance, from India and beyond. Not simply "traditional" or "historical," these choreographies draw from a rich cultural tapestry to reflect contemporary ideas. As Aparna explains, "Although we have codified movements, those are the building blocks of what we create with. These classical and ancient art forms still speak to us today, and can be used in this modern context to convey a contemporary, relevant concept. Just as Sacred Earth depicts that we are all connected to every living, breathing being, so are these visual forms; the art, the music, the dance come from a classical vocabulary, but we breathe life into these art forms."
Ragamala Dance presents Sacred Earth through Thursday, July 12th at Reynolds Industries Theater at Duke University. Please visit www.americandancefestival.org for more information and to purchase tickets.
Published 11 months ago
Mouse Lemurs @ Duke Lemur Center
The Duke Lemur Center is the only facility in North America currently breeding mouse lemurs, some of the smallest primates on the planet.In order of appearance: Dogbane (singleton), Bluebell, Blackberry, and Pipkin (triplets)
Published 11 months ago
ADF Faculty Concert
The ADF Faculty Concert is a wonderful opportunity for our community to experience the talents of ADF faculty members. Representing a broad range of modern dance techniques and styles, the Faculty Concert is a fun and lively show open to students, staff and the public—and a wonderful way to see our educators in action!Watch ADF School Co-Dean Gerri Houlihan as she rehearses her piece entitled Throb—an excerpt from her evening-length work Change of Heart—with two dancers from Florida State University. "It's a great way to honor our instructors," she remarks. "I think sometimes dance educators can be overlooked, so the Faculty Concert is a meaningful way to celebrate their talents every year."
The ADF Faculty Concert runs at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. today, Sunday, July 8th at Reynolds Industries Theater at Duke University. Please go to www.americandancefestival.org for more information and to purchase tickets.
Published 11 months ago
Durham Dances
The Durham community braved the heat and came out in full force on Saturday, June 30th for ADF's first annual Durham Dances community celebration, held at the Durham Performing Arts Center. The event followed the matinee performance of Hubbard Street 2's Harold and the Purple Crayon, and featured a free afternoon of music, dance, activities and fun for the child in all of us!Hubbard Street 2 dancers were on hand for photos and autographs, and there were many more surprises to discover all around DPAC. Participants took part in arts and crafts by The Scrap Exchange, hands-on activities by The Museum of Life and Science & Paperhand Puppet Intervention, and grooved to the music of The Gravy Boys, to name a few. The African American Dance Ensemble led a drumming and dance circle that got all members of our community moving and shaking.
Check out the first-ever ADF Durham Dances community dance video, with music by ADF music faculty Andy Hasenpflug. See if you can spot any of your favorite Durham dancers—young and old, famous and infamous—on start getting your moves ready for next year!
Durham Dances is made possible through the generous contributions of American Tobacco, The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, GlaxoSmithKline, The Noël Family Fund of Triangle Community Foundation, and the City of Durham. Additional thanks to The Kings Daughter's Inn, Moshi Moshi, Posh, Joe Van Gogh, The Art of Cool Project, The Regulator, and Zola Craft Gallery for donating raffle prizes for Durham Dances.
Published 11 months ago
ADF Video: Monica Bill Barnes
Monica Bill Barnes wraps up her three-night run tonight, Tuesday, July 3rd with her ADF-commissioned work Luster, as well as 2010's Mostly Fanfare and Everything Is Getting Better All the Time.Artistic Director Monica Bill Barnes and Company Manager Anna Bass sat down with the ADF Blog to discuss the creation of Luster and its world premiere this week on ADF audiences. To Ms. Barnes, a work is not truly complete until the audience engages with the subject material and interacts with the dancers; only in this way does the piece come to life and fully realize its character. Receiving the audience response for the first time is a challenging yet exhilarating experience, and marks the culmination of the grueling yet ultimately satisfying process of creating a new work. It is this process—and the time exploring in the studio—that Ms. Barnes and her company dancers find most rewarding, and is what allows Monica Bill Barnes, hailed as "one of the wittiest young choreographers around," to continue to challenge herself and push the boundaries of her work.
Catch the last Monica Bill Barnes ADF 2012 performance tonight, Tuesday, July 3rd at Reynolds Industries Theater at Duke University. Go to www.americandancefestival.org for more information and to purchase tickets
Published 11 months ago
CDS Video: 'Being Art'
Every summer the Center for Documentary Studies holds a series of Documentary Institutes where students are fully immersed in the process of documentary filmmaking. Working in small production teams led by an experienced documentary filmmakers, students are introduced to an array of tools and techniques as they collaborate with a partner to direct, shoot, edit, and screen a documentary sort.This year’s student projects focused on the artist at work, from the verbal to the visual, and touch on all aspects of what it is that drives and inspires creation.
For more information: http://www.cdsporch.org/archives/13000
Published 11 months ago
CDS Video: 'Natural Connections'
Every summer the Center for Documentary Studies holds a series of Documentary Institutes where students are fully immersed in the process of documentary filmmaking. Working in small production teams led by an experienced documentary filmmakers, students are introduced to an array of tools and techniques as they collaborate with a partner to direct, shoot, edit, and screen a documentary sort.This year’s student projects focused on the artist at work, from the verbal to the visual, and touch on all aspects of what it is that drives and inspires creation.
For more information: http://www.cdsporch.org/archives/13000
Published 11 months ago
CDS Video: 'Turning Point'
Every summer the Center for Documentary Studies holds a series of Documentary Institutes where students are fully immersed in the process of documentary filmmaking. Working in small production teams led by an experienced documentary filmmakers, students are introduced to an array of tools and techniques as they collaborate with a partner to direct, shoot, edit, and screen a documentary sort.This year’s student projects focused on the artist at work, from the verbal to the visual, and touch on all aspects of what it is that drives and inspires creation.
For more information: http://www.cdsporch.org/archives/13000
Published 11 months ago
