When the Tony Awards ceremony highlighted the year’s best work in the theater on Sunday, a Duke alumna walked away with one of the most prestigious awards.

Ten awards for a combined value of $45,000 in cash prizes are announced for the 2024 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.

In celebration of Duke’s Centennial, Duke Arts is thrilled to share three projects dedicated to highlighting pieces of Duke’s artistic history. We invite our Duke and Durham communities to learn and contribute to these projects that explore Duke’s relationship to the arts. Join us for a public reception on Tuesday, March 19 from 6–7:30 p.m. celebrating the launch of all three projects at the Rubenstein Arts Center!

Scientist by day and stand-up comedian by night, Monika Narain '25, a double major in Physics and Visual & Media Studies with a minor in Mathematics, takes us on their journey through their Fall 2023 semester with Duke in New York: Creative Industries, a program from the Global Education Office, co-sponsored by all of Duke's arts departments.

Born from the creative and wellness-promoting visions of Jane Gagliardi, Associate Dean for Learning Environment and Well-Being in the School of Medicine, and Anna Wallace, Student Engagement Manager at Duke Arts, a new Duke Arts Create workshop series begins this spring semester.

Duke Arts Presents shares the real story of Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers through Lost Dog’s innovative Juliet & Romeo at Reynolds Industries Theatre on January 25–26. Learn more about this humorous and heartfelt performance about love, loss and longevity in a Q&A with Ben Duke, the Olivier Award-nominated Artistic Director of Lost Dog and director of Juliet & Romeo.

23 Duke academics across the disciplines of English, Dance, Romance Studies, Physics, Biology and more will activate 11th Organ I: A Symposium, a six-hour experimental symposium from Duke Dance Professor Michael Kliën. Audiences are welcome to drop in at any point to experience this intimate weaving of diverse minds on Tuesday, December 5 at 4 p.m. in the von der Heyden Studio Theater located inside the Rubenstein Arts Center.

This fall, Duke Arts Create students have delved into the world of zines through a partnership with DuWell in a series of hands-on workshops. Duke students, faculty and staff are invited to attend the final zine workshop on November 10 from 6-8 p.m. As with all Duke Arts Create classes, no experience is necessary, and all levels of ability are welcomed.

Duke Arts is excited to announce the opening of a Día de los Muertos Ofrenda, a Day of the Dead altar piece, in the Rubenstein Arts Center Gallery (2nd Floor). Guided by the expertise of local Latinx artists, this ofrenda serves as a powerful homage to the rich cultural heritage and sacred traditions of the Day of the Dead.

Tom Rankin, Director of Duke's MFA program in Experimental and Documentary Arts, remembers Full Frame Documentary Film Festival founder and filmmaker Nancy Buirski.

Eco-artist, disability culture activist, Duke 2022-2023 artist-in-residence Marina Tsaplina developed Soil and Spirit, a project including a variety of community events, lab visits, movement workshops, and engineering and puppetry classes gathering people with diverse lineages to transform the disconnected relationship with the living world.

Nathaniel Maxwell is the winner of the 2023 Louis Sudler Prize, given every year to the graduating senior who has demonstrated the most distinguished record of excellence in performance or creation in the arts.

Join us in celebrating the third cohort to earn Duke’s one-of-a-kind terminal graduate degree in dance practice! The Duke M.F.A. in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis (MFAEIP) supports artists whose creative research connects movement-based knowledge to critical discourses within and beyond the arts.

Artist Rob Swainston will be in residence at the Rubenstein Art Center from March 6th - March 10th. Swainston’s practice combines digital processes with traditional printmaking techniques in works that span painting, sculpture, video and installation.  

In this interview, Benenson Awardee Jacob Egol ’23 shares his experience building his skills as a cellist during the 7-week summer orchestra program at Brevard Music Center Summer Institute & Festival.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden recently announced the annual selection of 25 influential motion pictures to be inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Of the 25, two films by New Day Films founding members were inducted this year. Betty Tells Her Story, by Liane Brandon, and Union Maids, by Julia Reichert and Jim Klein.

This past September, Cantar, by Cuban-American drummer, composer, and bandleader, Dafnis Prieto, was released, by two Duke alumni: Eric Oberstein (T '07) and Harsha Murthy (T '81).

Audio Under the Stars, the popular community listening series built around audio stories, returns to Durham this fall in a new location – the great lawn at Durham Central Park! This special evening on Friday, October 14 is in addition to a previously-announced event in Pittsboro, NC this Friday, September 23.

Felwine Sarr, Anne-Marie Bryan Distinguished Professor of Romance Studies at Duke, has been described in various biographies as a public intellectual, humanist, philosopher, economist, musician, playwright and poet. His face and his distinguished work will soon become more familiar to the community with the production of two of his plays by Duke Performances.

On display at the Rubenstein Arts Center through Sunday, September 18, ALHAMDU | MUSLIM FUTURISM” is an evolving experiential art exhibition and digital archive created by MIPSTERZ that explores Muslim Futurism.

Join us in celebrating the second graduating cohort of Duke’s MFA in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis (MFA/EIP). The MFA/EIP is a one-of-a-kind terminal degree program in dance focused on how artists work today and how dance contributes to crucial issues and conversations across arts and non-arts discourses.

Theater major Samantha Streit ’22 reflects on her senior project, a one-woman show titled This Green Plot Shall Be Our Stage, which she will perform April 14–16 at the Duke Gardens. The show centers on the idea that nature—in particular, the forest—acts as a metaphorical place of potential, freedom, and magic in Shakespeare’s works.

Join us in celebrating the work of this year’s graduating cohort in the MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts program. Learn more about graduating students' thesis exhibitions, which are on view at Duke and in Durham from March 25 to April 15.

Cherranda Smith ‘15 shares how her current job at iHeartRadio's Black Information Network allows her to meaningfully explore her interests in both social work and digital media. “I have an awesome opportunity to integrate my social work skills with writing — an activity that used to just be a hobby/calling for me,” she says.

In this interview with Duke Arts, Jess Chen ’20 reflects on her experience as a two-time Benenson Award in the Arts recipient and offers advice to students applying for the award. “My two summer experiences were very different, but that’s the advantage of the Benenson: it is an extremely open-ended grant,” she says.

In this interview with Duke Arts, Sophie Caplin ’18 reflects on her experience as a Benenson Award in the Arts recipient and offers advice to students applying for the award. “[The Benenson] fueled my fire for performance, and it gave me motivation to work hard,” she shares.

For this installment of our “Artists as Researchers” series, we profile Brittany J. Green, a Ph.D. student in music composition and the current director of the Duke New Music Ensemble. She worked with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to record her latest orchestral work, “Against/Sharp,” which explores the relationship between music and Black feminist theory; it will premiere online in January 2022.

Morgan Biele '23 shares a piece she wrote for Duke Medical Ethics Journal, an undergraduate-led publication that features students' voices in blogs and articles that center ethics in dialogue with medicine. “I’m extremely passionate about how art depicts health and well-being, and in turn how health and well-being inform art,” Biele shares.

Students in Shambhavi Kaul's "Expanded Cinema" course created immersive, large-scale installations in the Rubenstein Arts Center in Fall 2021. Their work demonstrates the value of designated spaces for instructional arts learning, experimentation, and practice.

Support NC artists this season! Use our guide to find where to buy art by local artists in Durham (or online). 

For the 2021-22 Doing Good grant cycle, Duke Arts is partnering with the Office of Durham and Community Affairs to support community-led art projects that have a positive impact on Duke’s fourteen partner neighborhoods.

Professor of music Scott Lindroth, whose new work ”T120” will premiere this Saturday, Oct 9 in Baldwin Auditorium, shares his thoughts on music-making during the pandemic and the long-awaited return to live, in-person performances. “I think it's heightened emotions for all of us in the performing arts to be able to be back on stage again, realizing how special that ritual is,” he shares.

This summer, Lizzy Kramer '22 worked with Durham-born artist John Felix Arnold III on one of his recent installations, “Reimagining Cerberus,” which calls attention to the human impact on climate change. We invited Kramer to share her reflections on the experience, including her belief in the ability of art to pose questions and challenge perceptions.

Three Duke alumnae share how they split their time at Duke between rigorous science courses and a steadfast passion for dance. “When I got to college, it wasn’t really a question of whether or not I would continue to dance as I pursued a career in medicine,” Gabby Cooper '20 said. “It was how I could make both of them work.”

Over the course of the Spring 2021 semester, visiting artist Carl Pope worked with students to bring “The Bad Air Smelled of Roses” (2004—), his ongoing installation about the presence and function of Blackness in society, to Duke's campus. This silk screen and wheat paste iteration is on view at the Rubix until December 1.

We showcase the work of this year’s graduating cohort in the MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts program in this special series of interviews. Fellow artists, MFA EDA alumni, faculty, and mentors interviewed each graduating student about their thesis exhibitions, which are on view at Duke, in Durham, and online May 7 through June 5.

Jayne Yu Wang's “The Unfinished Utopia” is an installation of a fictional city, Fangchuan, at the border of China, Russia, and North Korea. Following a foreign flaneur’s diary, viewers will have the opportunity to explore the city through audio, photography, architectural design, Instagram posts, and ordinary objects in this city.

A Bass Connections team has created an art installation on view in the lobby of the Rubenstein Arts Center. “This project is emblematic of the integrative and synthetic thinking that society needs to tackle the wicked challenges of climate change and sea level,” says Betsy Albright, assistant professor at the Nicholas School.

We celebrate the inaugural cohort of Duke’s MFA in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis, a program dedicated to embodied knowledge and practice-led movement discourses.

On March 27, a group of Duke students painted a portrait of their friend, Raj Mehta, a member of the Class of 2022 who passed away in 2020, on the Campus Drive free expression tunnel. We share a statement from Shivam Patel ’22, Raj’s former roommate, about this painted tribute.

Duke Arts invites returning alumni—and anyone!—to enjoy these offerings from across our vibrant arts community. This year, there is arts every day of Reunions Week!

The Enviro-Art Gallery is an annual showcase of artwork that aims to bring awareness to environmental issues through visual media. Featuring a monthlong virtual gallery of over 600 works and 15 speaker sessions from April 5 to 10, students Cameron Oglesby and Isabel Wood share how this year's showcase has expanded in spite of the pandemic.

On April 15, 17 and 18, Duke Theater Studies will present its spring mainstage production, Medea. Directed by senior María Zurita Ontiveros and set designed by senior Ash Jeffers, Medea is the first mainstage Theater Studies has produced with students at its helm. The show will be performed in person and live streamed to virtual audiences.

A new book co-edited by Miguel Rojas Sotelo, adjunct professor and event coordinator at the Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies at Duke, is the first to put Sergio Sánchez Santamaría in context. On March 24, a panel conversation featuring the artist, celebrates the first edition release.

Yng-Ru Chen ’01, owner of Praise Shadows Art Gallery in Boston, MA, is presenting an exclusive virtual preview of the new exhibition, “Memento Mori,” on March 11. Ahead of the event, Chen connected with her former professor, Gennifer Weisenfeld, to reflect on their initial meeting at Duke and Chen's journey into the art world.

Lockdown poses many hurdles for artists, but it has not stopped Duke student filmmakers from making new work. In times of uncertainty, trust, working at smaller scales, and being true to yourself are essential.

Big Night In for the Arts, broadcast live on WRAL-TV on March 11, will raise funds to support the COVID relief work of four local arts councils. Duke Arts and Duke’s Office of Durham and Community Affairs are event sponsors. Join the performance and consider supporting our regional cultural ecosystem.

Multy Oliver ‘21 began interning with the Hayti Heritage Center last summer and loved the experience so much she continues to support programs remotely. In honor of the upcoming Hayti Heritage Film Festival, we invited Oliver to share her experience with one of Durham's leading arts non profit organizations.

Maya Robinson ‘11 reflects on her newsroom’s shift to remote work last March due to the pandemic, necessitating a reimagining of how photography is created. She also shares how her Duke Visual Studies degree taught her the power of photography and critical thinking.

Emma Steadman '22, co-founder and president of Runway of Dreams at Duke, shares the story of the club's founding and partnership with NCSU textile design students in advance of "Coming Together, Creating Change," a virtual adaptive runway show premiering Thu, Feb 11.

La Colombe Contemporary Glasswork is a homegrown fused glass studio born out of the pandemic. We catch up with Alex Sanchez Bressler '18, formerly arts administration fellow for Duke Arts, to learn about this family business.

Clay Sanders, who received a PhD in civil engineering from Duke in 2020, currently has a painting depicting a dance rehearsal on display in the Rubenstein Arts Center. He shares how making art has helped his career as an engineer and provided him with an outlet during difficult times.

Courtney Liu '13, MFA in Dance '21, shares "Blurring the Lines" created with undergraduate students in Intermediate Ballet. "Creative projects are still being made and it is more important than ever to share, engage with, and celebrate each other's work," shares Emma Geiger, MFA EDA '22, who collaborated on filming and editing.

Support NC artists this season! Use our guide to find where to buy art by local artists in Durham (or online). 

Gianluca Corinaldesi started his position at Duke just three weeks before COVID stay at home orders. Learning to play the piano with his sons has brought joy to the Corinaldesi family home. "[It] puts me in a good mood like few other things," he reflects.

Meet North Carolinian artist Antoine Williams, creator of a wheat paste and sound installation on a new temporary structure for public art behind the Rubenstein Arts Center.

William Paul Thomas is an artist based in Durham. He taught at Duke in 2017-2018 as the Brock Family Visiting Instructor in Studio Arts, was in residence at the Ruby in 2019, and frequently leads workshops with the Nasher Museum of Art and DukeCreate. In this profile, junior Dani Yan digs deeper into the "magnetic" portraits in Thomas's Cyanosis series.

Wondering which movies you should watch during winter break? Junior Brandon Xie has compiled a list of “The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time” using statistics from 23 different movie websites.

New books by Richard Powell and Tom Rankin are available at independent Durham businesses—just in case you're beginning to think about holiday shopping.

Meet the students behind the scenes of Duke Arts—from tour guides to social media superstars, each is an important advocate in supporting our work in growing the arts across campus.

Sofia Zymnis '21 shares a project started as a pseudo-autobiographical documentation of her own experience during lockdown that has now developed into a constantly-growing website, inviting people to share their own balcony community in order to grow a shared virtual one.

Jonathan Homrighausen, PhD '23, shares a calligraphic piece, "Heaven's Roof," inspired by the relationship to home during COVID-19.

Christine Doeg '87 shares the documentary film she produced called One Vote. This film captures the compelling stories of diverse Americans on Election Day 2016.

Brittany J. Green, Duke PhD student in Music Composition, shares "Connected," a short piece for viola, piano, and fixed media inspired by paradoxical feelings of isolation and mediated connectedness that many have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Duke Performances Advisory Board Chair and Duke alumnus Ari Redbord reflects on the importance of the arts, particularly the impact and importance of the performing arts in this moment.

Dave Heaton '89 and Lucy Heaton discuss the connection between the arts, lifelong wellness, and how arts expand students' potential beyond the classroom.

Join NCLAFF virtually this year to watch films and join conversations reflecting on 35 years of Latin American and Caribbean films.

Duke Magazine's Scott Huler writers about a new Duke University MFA program that "endorses dance as a politically, socially, and spiritually transformative force in society."

Before the pandemic shut everything down, visiting artist John Felix Arnold was working with students to create a conceptual portrait of Durham—his hometown—in the Ruby.

Watch the Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba performance, which was filmed at the Greensboro Science Center and premiered online Sun, Sep 13.

Beverly McIver was asked to participate in political public art project led by People for the American Way, and it sparked a series of directly political paintings. McIver is Professor of the Practice in Duke's Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies.

Robinson channelled his academic focus on environmental science and documentary studies into a film, “Louisiana’s Missing Coast”—it’s now a 2020 Student Academy Awards Finalist.

Alexandra Bailliere '92 reflects on the growth of arts at Duke over the past 30 years and shares a piece created during the coronavirus crisis.

When the coronavirus crisis led to an unexpected and impressive turn in the final project for Michael Faber's "Graphic Design in Multimedia" class. The result? A 50-page magazine about graphic design and staying connected called "Connectere."

Duke Dance instructor Glenna Batson shares a reflection on the role of movement and dance during the coronavirus crisis and the social distancing that comes with it.

Blythe Davis '20 graduated with a minor in dance this spring. As part of finishing her studies, she was asked to submit a photo of how she was navigating remote learning, classes, projects, and making the most of a chaotic situation. This photo was paired with a brief reflection on her experiences since the transition to social distancing.

Freelance and documentary photographer Denise Allen shares "My Son Matters," a photography exhibit comprised of portraits of African-American parents with their sons with accompanying statements. Allen created this exhibit to elevate and honor the relationship between African-American mothers and their sons while shining a loving light on the young men whose existence is often stigmatized.

This summer, we’re proud to present Music in Your Gardens, a free eight-week online concert series showcasing nationally renowned artists who call Durham and the surrounding area home. The series shifts Duke ...

"Dance reminds you and teaches you the infinite nuances of life.  Excitement and joy in life is not limited to the big bangs, the major earthquakes; it is also the light brush of grief or the gentle awareness of beauty.  Dance can teach, or reteach, us what that means," says Barbara Dickinson, Emerita Dance Faculty.

Amir Williams '18 shares her multimedia project "capturing the musical ensemble of the current protests and fight for lasting change" titled "with stringed instruments."

As the world retreated to virtual spaces, Duke MFAEDA graduate Laurids Andersen Sonne and a colleague turned a storage unit into a place for their friends and neighbors to have an intimate, in-person experience of art.

A new collection documenting our coronavirus spring by the MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts community.

Corey Pilson '20 shares his photography series with the Duke Arts community to invite us "to see black men in a new light."

Bruzelius, a world-renowned expert on medieval architecture and Duke's Anne Murnick Cogan Professor Emerita of Art and Art History, is among 34 new members this year.

Vice Provost for the Arts Scott Lindroth reflects for the ongoing "Art and Artists Are Essential" series, writing: "One thing that I feel more urgently than ever before is the importance of making your own work. It brings us back to ourselves."

Katherine Jennings '84 shares oil paintings of downtown Durham created while contemplating the future of urban landscapes and profound change in city life due to the coronavirus crisis.

Talya Klein, who taught "Acting for the Camera" this spring, shares the class's final project, an original feature filmed titled "EMERGENCY CONTACTS" set in 2030 during a new, fictional pandemic that explores and incorporates present experiences during the coronavirus crisis.

Abhilash Sivadas shares a drawing of the goddess Durga he's created utilizing the sacred rhythmic measure known as Navatala, the use of Navatala, and how he views art as a tool to elevate consciousness.

Graduate student Stanley Sun shares an acrylic painting depicting social distancing that he painted to process the feeling of separation that comes with the coronavirus crisis.

Michelle Liang, a student in Professor Kelly Alexander's course Our Culinary Cultures (CA285S/DOCST 344S) shares her final paper for the course: "From MSG to COVID-19: The Politics of America’s Fear of Chinese Food."

Duke faculty teaching visual arts, music, and theater share how they navigated the move to online teaching. It wasn’t easy. Supplies were mailed, collaborative projects were reinvented. Transformations and solutions discovered this spring have expanded the teaching repertoire—even as we look forward to safely returning to studio and stage.

Todd Bashore '94 shares a multitrack solo performance of his transcription of Take 6's "A Quiet Place" as part of our call for "Art and Artists are Essential" collection and invitation.

Sophia Li shares her final photography project, "Food for Trash"—created for the course Ways of Seeing: Storytelling through Photography with Professor Charlotte de la Fuente Nørregaard (DIS Copenhagen)—which meditates on the meaning of food scraps during the coronavirus crisis.

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.

Student groups also found new ways to present their work, lifting each other up and offering an antidote for social distancing to the Duke community. We honor their inventiveness and hard work with this round-up.

Inspired by her travels around the world, Fuqua School of Business at Duke alumnus Inesa Preciado shares fine art landscape paintings she has created as a way to find escape and comfort in art during the coronavirus crisis.