Durham’s rich independent dance scene is experimental in the truest sense: rather than just putting strange things in easily legible contexts, its artists reinvent context with each performance.
Michaela Dwyer
Bio: Michaela Dwyer writes, dances and organizes public humanities and arts programs in Durham. Find her on Twitter @michaeladwy.Twitter: http://twitter.com/@michaeladwy
Posted inGuides
Fall into Dance
Summer’s American Dance Festival might get most of the attention, but from local to touring talent, the Triangle’s dance scene stays on point and en pointe year-round. We’re excited about a dance-piano collab, a collision of hip-hop stars, a takedown of Pepys, and more. PAM TANOWITZ DANCE & SIMONE DINNERSTEIN Oct. 6–7, Duke Performances at […]
Posted inArt
The Radical Power of Impolite Women in Little Green Pig’s Yes to Nothing
YES TO NOTHING Through Sep. 16 Slim’s, Raleigh/Nightlight, Chapel Hill/The Pinhook, Durham www.littlegreenpig.com The morning after I saw Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern’s lively punk play, Yes to Nothing, at Slim’s, I opened the Sunday New York Times to find a roundtable discussion on being a woman in the music industry. The musicians’ comments are […]
Posted inCulture
Durham Independent Dance Artists Announces New Season Balancing “Risk and Excellence”
The past three seasons from Durham Independent Dance Artists have exemplified creative experimentation. Some artists mounted multimedia collaborations in nontraditional venues; others prioritized work that passed the reins to audience members. In its next season, beginning in October, DIDA is particularly interested in highlighting the ways different artists leverage risk in performance—and, as DIDA organizer […]
Posted inCulture
ADF Review: In Beth Gill’s Brand New Sidewalk, Clothes Become Otherworldly Architecture
Beth Gill: Brand New Sidewalk ★★★ Wednesday, June 28 Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham Beth Gill creates choreographic moments that slip away from easy categorization. She’s known for minimalist structures that foreground form; her dances resemble moving sculptures. She won a prestigious Bessie Award for her 2011 work, Electric Midwife, a piece performed by two trios […]
Posted inCulture
ADF Review: Queering Objects and Decoding the Body in Cherdonna’s Clock that Mug or Dusted
Cherdonna: Clock that Mug or Dusted ★★★ Monday, June 26 Living Arts Collective, Durham One statement recurred throughout Cherdonna Shinatra’s Clock that Mug or Dusted: “I’m not trying to be mean.” Early on, Cherdonna, the femme drag alias of Seattle-based performer Jody Kuehner, sweetly plied the audience with it. At the end, she was screaming […]
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ADF Review: Bill Young and Colleen Thomas & Co.’s Interleaving Is a Book We Want to Read Again and Again
Bill Young/Colleen Thomas & Co.: Interleaving | ★★★★Natalie Marrone & The Dance Cure: Thresh | ★★ ½ Saturday, June 24 Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham A dance can look like a book, but it doesn’t have to. Dances proceed from their own artistic logics and create their own forms. To “read” a dance like a written […]
Posted inCulture
Dance Review: Renay Aumiller Dances’ boneGlow Was Full of Compelling Ideas That Were Hard to See
Renay Aumiller Dances: boneGlow ★★★ Friday, June 2Living Arts Collective, DurhamRenay Aumiller’s dances are tethered to the celestial. As a choreographer, she works to make visible the line that connects us to what’s beyond. I mean this literally: in 2015’s Blood Moon, performers took turns in a harness system, levitating in a sprawling posture one […]
Posted inArt
An Oral History of the American Dance Festival: How an Academic Enclave in Vermont Became a Modern Dance Lightning Rod for Durham and the World
June 13–July 29 Various venues, Durham www.americandancefestival.org This summer, the American Dance Festival celebrates four decades of bringing global modern dance to Durham and Duke University. But ADF’s fortieth anniversary tells only half of its story; the festival has existed in some form since the early 1930s, when modern dance started to flourish in concert […]
Posted inArt
Assessing the Spring Shows from Durham Independent Dance Artists According to Its Implicit Vision of Dance Without Borders
Alyssa Noble & Allie Pfeffer: What You Want February 24 & 25 Living Arts Collective, Durham The Department of Improvised Dance: Set and Setting April 16 & 17 21c Museum Hotel, Durham Porter Witsell: A Piece of Parade February 18 & 19 The Vault, Durham www.didaseason.com The three most recent bookings in Durham Independent Dance […]