Join us for a multidisciplinary collaboration between visual artist John Felix Arnold, MacArthur fellow Michelle Dorrance and Byron Tittle of Dorrance Dance tap company. Commissioned by Duke Arts and co-presented by American Dance Festival and the Nasher Museum, Echoes: From Here is a 30-minute dance performance that will result in the creation of a new work of visual art: a 6-by-8-foot “stage” created by Arnold from reclaimed wood sourced from both the Triangle and New York City.

The dancers will explore the materiality, sound, and presence of the wood in transforming the surface. Their movements will be captured in the piece through marks made by their taps, evoking and creating a conversation with the history of the tap dance form, situated between the North and the South. In this sense, the project also represents the geographies of its creators’ lives: Arnold and Dorrance are Triangle natives, and Tittle was raised in New York, where all three live and work. The piece will exist as a living document — a transformative moment and reflection on the intersections of art, dance, and the social and physical environments in which we live. This collaboration is part of Arnold’s ongoing Echoes project series.

This project is also supported by Cassilhaus, where Arnold is in residence this summer.

1 PM Performance in the Great Hall
1:30 PM Artist conversation in the Lecture Hall moderated by UNC scholar Danielle Purifoy