2023 Performances:

Bodytraffic:

Program: Love.Lost.Fly (Micaela Taylor), Notes on Fall (Brian Brooks), The One to Stay With (Baye & Asa), and PACOPEPEPLUTO (Alejandro Cerrudo)

BODYTRAFFIC uses the creative spirit of its Los Angeles home as a backdrop for delivering performances that inspire audiences around the globe to simply love dance. The company will present an exploration of identity through dance, showing Love.Lost.Fly by Micaela Taylor, Notes on Fall, a 2021 ADF-commissioned work by Brian Brooks, The One to Stay With by Baye & Asa, and PACOPEPEPLUTO by Alejandro Cerrudo.

Thursday, June 8 at 7:00pm
Saturday, June 10 at 7:30pm *post performance discussion

Location: Reynolds Industries Theater at Duke, Bryan University Center, 125 Science Dr, Durham, NC 27708

ADF Fête:

The 2023 Fête will take place at Parizäde immediately following the opening night performance.

Dance the night away with BODYTRAFFIC and enjoy delicious food and drinks.

Thursday, June 8 at 9:00pm

Location: Parizade, 2200 West Main Street, Durham, NC 27705

Rennie Harris Puremovement American Street Dance Theater:

Program: Nuttin’ But a Word

The acclaimed work Nuttin’ But A Word by Rennie Harris pushes the boundaries of street dance vocabulary and forces its audience to view street dance through a different lens. Challenging the viewer’s perspective of street dance or Hip-hop dance and its culture, Nuttin’ But A Word takes you on a dramatic and abstract journey while twisting, matching, juxtaposing, and pulling vocabulary and music in ways unimaginable. Harris chooses to end this work in a traditional Hip-hop celebration, which Africanists may refer to as the Bantaba.

Prior to the June 9 performance, Robert Battle will present the 2023 Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement to Rennie Harris.

Friday, June 9 at 7:30pm *post performance discussion
Saturday, June 10 at 1:00pm (Children’s Matinee)

Location: Page Auditorium at Duke - 402 Chapel Drive Durham, NC 27708

Mark Haim:

Program: This Land Is Your Land
Run time: 50 minutes, no intermission

This year’s rendition of This Land Is Your Land by Mark Haim will mark ten years since it was last performed at ADF and the beginning of a second decade of collaboration between ADF and the Nasher Museum of Art. The piece is based on a simple, continuously-mutating walking pattern and will be performed by 14 North Carolina artists using culturally-identifiable props such as Starbucks cups and cell phones. The work plays with perception of time and touches upon contemporary issues such as consumerism, destruction of the environment, and body image.

Tuesday, June 13 at 6:30pm
Tuesday, June 13 at 9:00pm
Wednesday, June 14 at 6:30pm
Wednesday, June 14 at 9:00pm

Location: Nasher Museum of Art at Duke, 2001 Campus Dr, Durham, NC 27705

SW!NG OUT:

Run time: 65 minutes, no intermission

With SW!NG OUT, choreographer and ADF first-timer Caleb Teicher brings the best of the swing dance world to Durham, with live music by Eyal Vilner Big Band. What The New York Times celebrated in “Best of 2021” as “…the contemporary swing-dance show that… gave me the most joy of any dance production in 2021” was conceived by Caleb Teicher alongside their brain trust of collaborators Evita Arce, LaTasha Barnes, Nathan Bugh, and Eyal Vilner. SW!NG OUT features exciting Lindy Hop choreography and improvisation and each performance concludes with an on-stage jam session, inviting audiences to join in the fun!

June 15 at 7:30pm
June 16 at 7:30pm

Location: Page Auditorium at Duke, 402 Chapel Dr, Durham, NC 27708

Made in NC:

The Made in NC program features the world premiere of five ADF-commissioned works by North Carolina artists. Renay Aumiller will present a work integrating ideologies and practices from Adrienne Marie Brown’s Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds into a choreographic process to explore its effects on inclusion and belonging within the cast and collaborators. Caroline Calouche is known for blending a variety of dance and circus arts disciplines in her choreography. Michelle Pearson, the artistic director of Black Box Dance Theatre, will be presenting a work about loss, love, and life. Kristin Taylor Duncan, a native of Durham will be presenting the light beyond the forest. This new work stems from the idea of building community through energy, healing, and trust in the connections we gain as movers. For her ADF debut, Nicole Vaughan-Diaz will present The Space Between Us, an exploration of human connection and our instincts to build both physical and emotional foundation as a means of preserving togetherness.

Saturday, June 17 at 7:30pm

Location: Reynolds Industries Theater at Duke, Bryan University Center, 125 Science Dr, Durham, NC 27708

Celebration of Tony Johnson:

Tony C. Johnson is a life artist. He has experienced loneliness, betrayal, despair, and great loss. He is a man of deep faith, a creator of community, a dancer, and a choreographer. Every aspect of his life is woven into his art, and every filament of his art informs his life. He created the My Neighbor Ministry to provide concrete aid to the homeless such as meals and clothing and information on resources. Others do that, it is true. But Tony wanders the streets, looking for the homeless. He sits down with them and introduces himself, asks them if they would like coffee. And then he listens. He doesn’t tell them how to get better, or what they must do to get off the streets. Rather, he wants to get to know them, to hear their stories, to hear about their lives; he seeks to provide a listening ear, without judgment. Many he has known for years, recognizing when they are ready to take a step forward. He grieves when they go downhill, when they die; he rejoices when they move forward. He accepts when no change is likely. His art feeds a greater understanding of those he calls our neighbors, because in that art he digs deep to challenge what he thinks he understands and to discern more profoundly the nature of their experiences. He penetrates their stories to better live their lives on stage and allow an audience to begin to understand at least some aspect of our neighbors’ inner life.

Monday, June 19 at 7:30pm

Location: Reynolds Industries Theater at Duke, Bryan University Center, 125 Science Dr, Durham, NC 27708

Joanna Kotze:

Program: ‘lectric Eye
Running time: 60 minutes, no intermission

For her ADF season debut, Joanna Kotze, who has been described as a “ruthlessly elegant dancer and choreographer” by Time Out New York, brings to ADF ‘lectric Eye. The hour-long dance performance responds to collective and personal loss and isolation and draws attention to the human body’s potential for persistence, resistance, and power. ‘lectric Eye uses the connection between music and movement to push physical and sonic limits, both as a collective and as individuals.

Ten North Carolina artists who appeared in Joanna’s staging of BIG BEATS for ADF this past fall will perform in ‘lectric Eye alongside Kotze, Wendell Gray II, Molly Heller, Symara Johnson, and musician/composer Ryan Seaton. Costumes are by Christian Joy and lighting design by Kathy Kaufmann.

“It’s sexy, glitzy and mind-boggling in its intricate unison. As a group they step, turn, lunge, plié, kick, dip, relevé—constantly changing direction to a droning disco beat punctuated by the sound of drumsticks. Sound and movement are equal partners in choreographer Joanna Kotze’s work, and for ’lectric Eye, musical collaborator, Ryan Seaton, emerges from the sound booth to perform a fully integrated role onstage.

The entertaining opening number is followed with discomfiting solos by Kotze, Wendell Gray II, Symara Johnson, and Molly Heller. These dancers allow us to feel their experience in real time—the exhaustion, the coping, the giving in.

Tuesday, June 20 at 7:30pm
Wednesday, June 21 at 7:30pm *post performance discussion
Thursday, June 22 at 7:30pm

Location: Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke
The von der Heyden Studio Theater
2020 Campus Dr, Durham, NC 27708

Pilobolus:

Program: Shadow Camp, Solo from the Empty Suitor, Sweet Purgatory
Run Time: 93 minutes including one intermission

Pilobolus, an ADF favorite and regular, returns to Page Auditorium this summer with a repertory program which includes Sweet Purgatory, Solo from the Empty Suitor and two new works made in collaboration with alumni of the company. Students from ADF’s Pilobolus Shadow Camp will kick off the program with a short shadow performance. In addition to the evening showings, Pilobolus will perform at a children’s matinee geared to entertain the imagination of the entire family.

Friday, June 23 at 7:30pm *post performance discussion
Saturday, June 24 at 1:00pm (Children’s Matinee)
Saturday, June 24 at 7:30pm

Location: Page Auditorium at Duke, 402 Chapel Dr, Durham, NC 27708

Faculty & Musicians Concert:

The ADF school faculty and musicians will take center stage and share their remarkable talent with the community.

Sunday, June 25 at 5:00pm

Location: Reynolds Industries Theater at Duke, Bryan University Center, 125 Science Dr, Durham, NC 27708

Teaching Tribute:

The 2023 Balasaraswati/Joy Anne Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching will be presented to Jody Gottfried Arnhold, educator, advocate for dance, and founder of Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) 92NY. A free screening of her documentary PS DANCE! The Next Generation will follow the award ceremony.

Wednesday, June 28 at 7:30pm

Location: Page Auditorium at Duke, 402 Chapel Dr, Durham, NC 27708

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company:

Program: Curriculum II
Run time: 65 minutes, no intermission

For over 40 years, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company has shaped the evolution of contemporary dance through creation and performance of over 140 works. ADF-commissioned work Curriculum II, which premiered in June 2022, applies the ideas of Cameroonian historian and political theorist Achille Mbembe, Nigerian-born writer and scholar Louis Chude-Sokei, and Jamaican writer and cultural theorist Sylvia Wynter. Curriculum II explores the historical and persistent connection between race and technology and the pursuit of what is human. This is part of a series of works entitled Curriculum through which Bill T. Jones juxtaposes formal exploration with a range of today’s urgent topics as expansive as Jones’s artistry.

Thursday, June 29 at 7:30pm *post performance discussion
Friday, June 30 at 7:30pm

Location: Reynolds Industries Theater at Duke, Bryan University Center, 125 Science Dr, Durham, NC 27708

Staibdance:

Program: fence
Running time: 65 minutes, no intermission

Founded in 2007, staibdance is an Atlanta-based contemporary dance company that values the provocative power of movement. staibdance is presenting fence at its ADF debut, a work which is a journey into a messy world of power struggles and dismissed histories and an examination of how “otherness” can rob our power or become its source. Founded upon dramatic, life-changing events Staib encountered as a child in Iran, fence is staibdance’s most political and socially driven work to date. Staib’s intensely physical movement vocabulary bonds with traditional Iranian dance to explore unrest felt personally and globally.

Saturday, July 1 at 7:30pm *post performance discussion
Sunday, July 2 at 5:00pm

Location: Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke
The von der Heyden Studio Theater
2020 Campus Dr, Durham, NC 27708

Kyle Marshall Choreography:

Program: Onyx, Alice
Run time: 62 minutes, no intermission

At their ADF debut, Kyle Marshall Choreography is presenting ADF-commissioned Onyx and Alice. Onyx digs into the origins of rock and roll revealing the Black and Brown people whose sounds, performances, and personalities created this revolutionary genre. Through the setting of improvisational scores, character embodiment, and flowing phrase work, Onyx reflects on the fame, influence, appropriation, and erasure that riddles the legacy of so many Black and Brown artists. Through this embodiment of history, Onyx serves to recognize and celebrate these groundbreaking musicians while widening our perspective of the Black American cultural experience. Performed by Bree Breeden, Alice depicts a spiritual journey to love and self-acceptance guided by the transcendent music of Alice Coltrane. This solo is dedicated to all who are on the verge of transformation. It is in darkness that we see the light.

Thursday, July 6 at 7:30pm *post performance discussion
Friday, July 7 at 7:30pm

Location: Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke
The von der Heyden Studio Theater
2020 Campus Dr, Durham, NC 27708

Footprints 2023:

The Footprints program, which bridges ADF’s performance series and education programs, delivers an outstanding presentation of three ADF-commissioned world premieres, performed with impeccable technique and infectious energy by ADF students. This season’s choreographers include Brian Brooks, who attended ADF as a student in 1992 and whose New York City based group, the Moving Company, has performed at ADF multiple times. Tatiana Desardouin, director and choreographer of Passion Fruit Dance Company, will make her ADF debut this season. Abdel R. Salaam, the executive artistic director and co-founder of Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, will be returning to ADF as part of the Footprints program.

Saturday, July 8 at 7:30pm
Sunday, July 9 at 3:00pm

Location: Reynolds Industries Theater at Duke, Bryan University Center, 125 Science Dr, Durham, NC 27708

Sean Dorsey Dance:

Program: The Lost Art of Dreaming
Running time: 80 minutes including one intermission

Sean Dorsey Dance’s multi-year project The Lost Art Of Dreaming is an invitation to embrace expansive imagination, reconnect with longing, connect with joy and pleasure, and propel ourselves toward loving futures. This new full-evening work is a fusion of full-throttle dance, intimate storytelling, intricate costuming, and exquisite queer partnering … all performed with Sean Dorsey Dance’s signature technical precision, guts, and deep humanity. The Lost Art Of Dreaming is performed by a powerhouse ensemble of five trans, queer, and gender-non-conforming dancers (Sean Dorsey, Brandon Graham, Héctor Jaime, David Le, Nol Simonse) with a rich, layered soundscore featuring original and commissioned music.

Thursday, July 13 at 7:30pm *post performance discussion

Location: Reynolds Industries Theater at Duke, Bryan University Center, 125 Science Dr, Durham, NC 27708

Paul Taylor Dance Company:

Program: Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rehearsal), Brandenburgs, and Somewhere in the Middle (Amy Hall)
Running time: 110 minutes including two intermissions

In addition to the repertory pieces Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rehearsal) and Brandenburgs, the Paul Taylor Dance Company returns to ADF this season with a new piece, Somewhere in the Middle, by Amy Hall Garner which premiered in 2022. Somewhere in the Middle is an adrenaline-fueled dance highlighting the athleticism and beauty of the Taylor Company, all to music of Wynton Marsalis, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Duke Ellington, and other Big Band favorites. Garner marries the Taylor movement DNA to the inherent qualities of the jazz idiom with dizzying effect, reflecting the power, interdisciplinary collaboration, and inherent multi-culturalism in American dance. The 1980 work Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rehearsal) shows a dance rehearsal and a Hollywood noir whodunit which ultimately merge in a clever reimagining of the Stravinsky/Nijinsky masterpiece. Brandenburgs (1988) is elegant and virtuosic. It is choreographic grandeur at its finest married flawlessly within the joyous atmosphere of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos.

Friday, July 14 at 7:30pm *post performance discussion
Saturday, July 15 at 5:00pm

Location: Page Auditorium at Duke, 402 Chapel Dr, Durham, NC 27708

Resident Island Dance Theatre:

Program: Ice Age (Chung-An Chang and Maylis Arrabit)
Running Time: 55 minutes, no intermission

Resident Island Dance Theatre will make its U.S. and ADF debut with Ice Age, an emotionally thrilling, physically integrated quartet co-choreographed by RIDT’s Artistic Director Chung-An Chang and French dance maker Maylis Arrabit. The 55-minute piece is performed by two dancers in wheelchairs and two standing dancers. As the world locked down during the COVID-19 pandemic, the work took shape—to explore the different ways that people navigate and connect in their own cultural environments. It evokes the coexistence between parallel realities, separated by space-time and at the same time, united by it. Ice Age challenges external forces and shows us the potential of a physically, mentally, and emotionally integrated world. “All the things that make up daily life and relationships are changing. That’s the main concept,” says Chang. Ice Age is “a choreographic experiment to uncover, recognize, and relate to this new moment of change in motion not just for some, but for us all.”

Tuesday, July 18 at 7:00pm
Thursday, July 20 at 7:00pm

Location: Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke
The von der Heyden Studio Theater
2020 Campus Dr, Durham, NC 27708

ZviDance:

Program: Migrations
Running time: 45 minutes, no intermission

ZviDance presents Migrations, a dance performance collaboration between Zvi Gotheiner, composer Scott Killian, lighting designer Mark London, and seven dancers. Migrations is in line with Gotheiner’s previous works that reflect on the collision of humanity with nature. The company focused its creative attention on bird migration imagery and tendencies as a poetic mirroring for the current acceleration of human migration as a result of wars and the diminishing of life-sustaining resources. These concepts serve as a point of departure for the creation of Migrations. The choreography utilizes bird flocking imagery in the design of large group work, and flight imagery for the creation of trios and duets. Killian’s cinematic electronic score supports a sense of heroic struggle when traveling through the elements, while London’s lighting design creates landscapes that give the work a transitory sense of place.

Tuesday, July 18 at 9:00pm
Thursday, July 20 at 9:00pm

Location: Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke
The von der Heyden Studio Theater
2020 Campus Dr, Durham, NC 27708

Ballet Hispánico:

Program: Papagayos, Sor Juana, 18+1, New Sleep

In the ADF-commissioned Papagayos, Omar Roman De Jesús allows us to enter the upsidedown forest, where paradise comes ready laden with wings, and psychedelic stories write themselves out of order. A three-second love ritual between two birds transforms into a movement poem celebrating the pleasure of human physicality. We can be both as we want and as we are here where the colors cry out at their maximum volume. Sometimes all we want to be is part of someone else. In her new work Sor Juana, Michelle Manzanales takes on the powerful Mexican visionary Sor Juana, who was a 17th century nun, self-taught scholar, and acclaimed writer of the Latin American colonial period and the Hispanic Baroque. 18+1 celebrates Gustavo Ramírez Sansano’s 19 years as a choreographer and the vulnerability, care, and hope that comes with each artistic endeavor. In a display of subtle humor and electric choreography, the movement merges with the playful rhythms found in Pérez Prado’s mambo music. Sansano draws from his history and memory to take a joyous look at the past, present, and coming future. The show will also include William Forsythe’s New Sleep which first premiered in 1987 by the San Francisco Ballet.

Friday, July 21 at 7:30pm *post performance discussion
Saturday, July 22 at 1:00pm (Children’s Matinee)
Saturday, July 22 at 7:30pm

Location: Reynolds Industries Theater at Duke, Bryan University Center, 125 Science Dr, Durham, NC 27708

Cara Hagan:

Program: were we birds?
Running time: 30-40 minutes, no intermission

Cara Hagan will present the world premiere of a new ADF-commissioned site-specific work at the Nasher Museum of Art. Her new work were we birds?  explores experiences of upheaval, prolonged states of limbo, and the subsequent reorganization of one’s life following the disorientation of migration. Whether by choice or circumstance, movement on a large scale is often paired with discombobulation. When we manage to pull ourselves back together, what remains out of place? What was never in place to begin with? Audiences will listen to the sound score on their cell phones.

Audience members are invited to access the sound score through QR codes throughout the space and listen with their headphones or earbuds. For those audience members who do not have their own equipment, a small number of mp3 players with headphones will be available on a first-come-first-served basis. Seating will be limited and prioritized for those who identify having limited mobility, pregnant, or require seating for other health issues.

Tuesday, August 22 at 7:00pm
Tuesday, August 22 at 9:00pm

Location: Nasher Museum of Art at Duke, 2001 Campus Dr, Durham, NC 27705

Fest Date: June 8 - August 22, 2023

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