All photos by Cammel Hurse
The lone terminal degree program in Dance among Duke’s peer institutions, the MFA in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis, offers a rare opportunity for dance artists to design and realize deeply interdisciplinary works—grounded in their own lineages and supported by coursework and mentorship from both within and beyond Dance.
This year, the Dance Program is especially honored to celebrate the graduating Class of 2026—Tristian Griffin, Asili Johnson, and Johanna Kepler—whose highly original investigations have not only exemplified the program’s core values, but expanded them.
Tristian, as a profoundly site-responsive artist, brought an extraordinary, ensemble-driven vision to life in The Black Palimpsest. His choreographic and sonic collective of artists gathered visual, musical, and movement momentum as a powerful collaborative force, transforming the Stagville Historic Site into a living archive of Black ancestral memory, revelation, and resilience. Tristian’s capacity to listen to a place, activate it through bold aesthetic choices, and mobilize an ensemble toward a shared, deeply felt purpose resulted in a stunning work that truly impressed—left lasting impressions those present.
Asili’s Stand N Your Purpose: The Manifestations of the Pursuit of Tension offered a compelling fusion of creativity and arts labor advocacy. Through concert performance and installation, Asilis asked us to reconsider how we value dance and the labor of Black and Brown artists—insisting that creative work and its proper remuneration are meritorious and non-negotiable. The electric ensemble animated these exact kinds of creative energies, and Asili’s clear-eyed commitment to stronger valuation of dance work modeled a practice in which artistry and justice move in lockstep. The dancing, itself, made the arguments, and the message was heard!
Johanna’s entrepreneurial vision and expansive creativity shone through an installation and multimedia performance event entitled weaving Dreams. As a movement and visual artist, she invited us into visually stunning movement worlds—through her gallery exhibition of textiles, images, and narratives—from ongoing field research in her birthplace of Guatemala—through group choreography that enveloped audiences in textures, sounds, and vivid, colorful illustrations of the women who populate Johanna’s world and live in her dreams. That Johanna’ assembled so many interwoven elements while simultaneously generating resources and funds to support Guatemalan families and adoptees was truly impressive. Her capacity to braid artistic practices together with concrete forms of support and advocacy makes us deeply proud.
Across their individual and collective projects, Tristian, Asili, and Johanna invited campus and community audiences to take seriously that the body is not merely a vehicle for expression, but a vital archive of (non-)linear lineages, heritage, and ancestral knowing. In dialogue with multiple disciplines and distinct communities, these artists put choreography in context. They challenged audiences, collaborators, and colleagues to recognize embodied practice as rigorous inquiry and as a powerful mode of cultural and ancestral continuance. Their mentorship by core Dance faculty and crucial faculty mentors from Departments of Cultural Anthropology, African/African American Studies, and Romance Studies deepened their vocabularies and fortified the interdisciplinary foundations of their work.
On behalf of the Dance faculty and staff, I warmly congratulate Tristian, Asili, and Johanna for their visionary artistry, rigorous scholarship, and transformative presence at Duke and beyond.
Thank you, each of you, for inspiring us all to continue to dream, breathe as a collective, and stand in our purpose.
— Sarah Wilbur (M.F.A., Ph.D)
Associate Professor of the Practice in Dance and Theater Studies and
Program in Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies
Director of Graduate Studies, Dance
The Master of Fine Arts in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis (MFAEIP) is a two-year, full-time, terminal degree program grounded in Duke’s interdisciplinary approach. This program encourages research that responds to urgent global issues and joins critical conversations both within and beyond the arts.
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