When students approached Vice Provost for the Arts Scott Lindroth with the idea of holding a showcase for student bands, he welcomed the idea and decided to expand it.

“We hope this showcases the visibility of a real arts community and creates a sense that we all share in it,” Lindroth says.

“A lot of students don’t know how many people at Duke are creating art or realize how many talented artists we have,” says Will Benesh, a junior and vice president of external affairs at Duke University Union. “We hope students will find something they like and become involved themselves.”

An exhibition of work by student from Durham’s Y.E. Smith Elementary School will also be on display. Duke junior Will Passo initiated “Draw Your Picasso” project to connect local public school students with the Duke Arts Weekend and Picasso exhibition at Duke’s Nasher Museum of Art.

In addition, at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, in the Bryan Center’s Reynolds Theater, the Mary Lou Williams Center will present “Through the Night,” a one-man play by Def Jam poet and Obie Award-winning actor and playwright Daniel Beaty. The play explores black stereotypes through the eyes of six black men and is directed by Duke alumnus Charles Randolph-Wright. A question-and-answer session and reception will follow the free performance. Tickets are available at the Duke Box Office; contact 684-4444 or tickets.duke.edu for more information. (The performance contains strong language and may not be appropriate for children under 12).

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Student Arts Showcase
Friday, Nov. 6, and Saturday, Nov. 7
Bryan Center
Free and open to the public
Information: arts.duke.edu

Just Dance

For Duke seniors and lifelong dancers Courtney Hunter and Lindsay Kunkle, choreographing performances for the November Dances was a new challenge. 

“It took me awhile to work up my nerves,” Hunter says. After taking a choreography class and working with Duke dance professor Barbara Dickinson, Hunter’s ideas began to solidify. She created a piece about three women in different stages of coping with physical abuse.

“I’ve learned how hard it is to convey what you want someone to do, what’s in your head,” she says about the challenges of choreography. “I realized everyone has their own dance style. What comes naturally to me may be harder for someone with a different background.”

Kunkle began work on her choreography last spring, drawing inspiration from the local mural of Durham civil and women’s rights activist Pauli Murray created by the Face Up project.

“It’s easy to read over somebody’s hardships, but thinking about how to put them into movement, you realize what a struggle it must have been for someone to go through that,” Kunkle says. 

Kunkle worked also with music graduate student Michael Trinastic, who is composing music specifically for her piece.

“He gives me an idea for music and I’ll put movement toward it or I’ll come in with movement ideas and he’ll create music to match,” she says of their collaborative effort.

In addition to choreographing their own pieces, Kunkel and Hunter are performing in each other’s pieces.

Having the students present their pieces as part of the November Dances helps them understand the process of developing choreography in a more professional manner, says Keval Khalsa, director of the dance program.

“They learn to communicate movement and their intent, to coach the dancers, clean up their performances and get a detailed knowledge of music, as well as think about their costumes, set design and visuals,” she says.

November Dances will feature work in ballet, modern and African dance by student choreographers and dancers as well as work by two new dance faculty, Julie Janus Walters and Andrea Woods. Prior to the performances on Nov. 21 and 22, the dancers will take their pieces into local schools and community centers.

“I felt [Duke] was a place where I could improve,” Hunter says. “I think it’s important to learn why you’re dancing and where
it came from, and learn about dance in other cultures.”

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November Dances
8 p.m., Nov. 21; 3 p.m., Nov. 22
Reynolds Industries Theater, Bryan Center
$15 general admission, $5 students
Information: 684-4444; tickets.duke.edu

Dumpster Diving the Lower Depths

For nearly a decade, director Jay O’Berski wanted to stage at Duke the Russian play “The Lower Depths” by Maxim Gorky. Written in 1902, the play follows a group of Russian derelicts living in a flophouse as they cope with the bleak reality of their condition. When he got the chance to direct the play this semester, O’Berski decided to set it not in Russia but in Lagos, Nigeria – and to do so with a minimal budget.

“Downsizing is happening everywhere,” he notes, pointing to the ongoing recession. “I looked at the dumpster outside the loading dock by our building and thought, well, those computers could be a wall, or we could grab that bed or couch.”

Because the play focuses on life in a homeless shelter, spending money to create an elaborate set seemed “antithetical” to O’Berski. Working with set designer Torry Bend, student actors in the play went on dumpster diving expeditions around Durham to find materials for their set and costumes.

“It gives the students a sense of ownership of the performance, learning about designing around social themes,” O’Berski says.
“We’re trying to get [the students] to think about their characters,” Bend says, “to help them think about the visual world their character lives in.”

Danya Taymor, a senior theater studies major, is playing a Colombian gypsy woman who finds her way to Africa pedaling wisdom and magic she learned in the Amazon. Taymor says she thinks of her character as someone who collects “a million necklaces and lots of rings.”

“This shows how much you can get when someone’s trash becomes someone else’s treasure,” she says. “I think this is probably the most unique thing Duke [theater studies] has done since I’ve been here.”

O’Berski and Bend are also using recycled products for the play’s marketing materials, creating promotional posters out of cardboard scraps. In addition, they are working with NC GreenPower, a local nonprofit program, to tabulate the carbon-emission rating for the play and to identify local cap-and-trade sponsors.

“We’re trying to make something beautiful out of nothing – to go deep and dark with something that’s already there versus something bright and shiny and new,” O’Berski  says.

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The Lower D's
8 p.m., Nov. 12-14; 2 p.m., Nov. 15; 8 p.m., Nov. 19-21
Sheafer Theater, Bryan Center
$10 general admission; $5 students and senior citizens
Information: 684-4444; tickets.duke.edu