Duke University President Vincent E. Price released a statement Thursday afternoon addressing a number of recent issues on Duke’s campus that indicate “the absence of respect for others,” he wrote, including the firing of two employees of the Joe Van Gogh coffee shop on campus after Larry Moneta, Duke’s vice president for student affairs, complained […]
Katie Jane Fernelius
Posted inUncategorized
A Duke University VP Walked Into the Campus Joe Van Gogh, Heard a Rap Song, Demanded That the Employees Be Fired
On Monday, two employees of Duke University’s Joe Van Gogh location had their contracts terminated after vice president for student affairs Larry Moneta and executive director of dining services Robert Coffey demanded that the local coffee chain fire them. Their offense? While he was in the store Friday, Moneta heard a rap song that he […]
Posted inTheater
High School Activists Keep Leading the Fight Against School Shootings as a Teen-Driven Comedy Fundraiser for Parkland Bubbles Up in Raleigh
IMPROV 4 PARKLAND Sunday, April 22, 6 & 7:30 p.m., $10 ComedyWorx, Raleigh www.comedyworx.com When the Parkland school shooting happened in Florida, Jonathan Beyer, a sixteen-year-old sophomore at Apex High School, struggled to make sense of his feelings: sadness, anger, confusion. “I felt unsafe at school,” Beyer says. “Just a lot of contradicting emotions. To […]
Posted inMusic
Daymé Arocena Illuminates the Expansiveness of Cuban Identity Through Song
Wednesday, April 4 UNC’s Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill 7:30 p.m., $20, www.carolinaperformingarts.org Described as the world’s next jazz phenomenon by Vibe, Daymé Arocena, still in her twenties, is already mentioned alongside musical greats like Aretha Franklin, Celia Cruz, and Nina Simone. She made her stateside debut as a singer and bandleader in 2016, following her […]
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Duke Performances’ Inaugural Black Atlantic Festival Puts Caribbean, African, and South American Cultures in Conversation
BLACK ATLANTIC Monday, March 26–Saturday, March 31 Various times and prices Various venues, Durham www.dukeperformances.duke.edu In the seventeenth century, a ship of enslaved people from modern-day Nigeria were shipwrecked on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent. Knowing they were fated to work at plantations or mines if they were discovered, they hid among the Arawak, […]
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With the Comedy World’s Toxic Culture on National Notice, Mettlesome is a New Kind of Organization for a New South
One of the first events Mettlesome staged was almost rained out. The show, in honor of local comedian Paula Pazderka, took place in Ashley Melzer and Jack Reitz’s Durham garage, where they hung black shower curtains from the rafters. A makeshift tarp sagged under the deluge, threatening to drench the audience seated below. Melzer stopped […]
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Kamasi Washington, Contemporary Jazz Titan, Discusses Harmony and Human Connections
Kamasi Washington is one of those rare musicians who has managed to excite both the most deeply invested jazz enthusiasts and a broader popular audience who may not be as familiar with jazz. Based in Los Angeles, the saxophonist and composer has worked on wide-ranging projects with hip-hop artists like Kendrick Lamar, Flying Lotus, and […]
Posted inTheater
The PIT Wants to Fill the Disgraced DSI Comedy Theater’s Void. But Will It Just Replicate the Same Toxic Culture?
“Let’s talk about the elephant in the room,” says Ali Farahnakian. It’s September 11, and Farahnakian has just announced that he’s purchasing the venue at 462 West Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. Only a month ago, it housed DSI Comedy Theater, the Triangle’s—and, with its NC Comedy Arts Festival, arguably the Southeast’s—preeminent training center and […]
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Nigerien Guitarist Mdou Moctar Reaches Beyond Boundaries of Country or Genre
MDOU MOCTAR Tuesday, October 3, 9:30 p.m., $10–$12 Kings, Raleigh www.kingsraleigh.com The modern Tuareg musical tradition is defined by movement. In post-colonial Africa, the Tuareg were migrants living on the periphery of cities, struggling to find work and citizenship. In fact, their popular guitar style, ishumar, got its name from chumar, the French word for […]
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Fall into Comedy
The world has seemed pretty short on laughs in recent times, but in the Triangle’s comedy clubs and theaters this season, you can at least find temporary relief with the likes of Jen Kirkman and John Cleese. MARIA BAMFORD Sep. 21, Carolina Theatre Hailed by Stephen Colbert as his “favorite comedian on planet Earth,” Maria […]