Bringing The World Home To You

© 2024 WUNC North Carolina Public Radio
120 Friday Center Dr
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
919.445.9150 | 800.962.9862
91.5 Chapel Hill 88.9 Manteo 90.9 Rocky Mount 91.1 Welcome 91.9 Fayetteville 90.5 Buxton 94.1 Lumberton 99.9 Southern Pines 89.9 Chadbourn
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

American Dance Festival Begins In Durham, Celebrates 80 Years

Paul Taylor Dance Company
American Dance Festival

The American Dance Festival is entering its 80th year as performances begin in Durham. 

The national festival opens Thursday at the Durham Performing Arts Center.  This year's celebration includes dance companies from as far away as Argentina, Ireland and Taiwan. 

Festival director Jodee Nimerichter says the next six weeks of performances explore the wide variety of techniques used in modern dance as it has evolved over the last 80 years.

"We try not to define what it is or where it's going," Nimerichter says. "It was totally built as basically a rebellion against the constraints of ballet and it's built on individual creativity and expression, so the possibilities for us are limitless."

This week's show is dance inspired by the surrealist painter Paul Delvaux.  The festival ends with work described as a poetic meditation exploring the Taoist ideas of Yin and Yang.

"It is really a wide palette," Nimerichter says. "There could be dance theatre that borderlines on people saying, 'That's not dance,' but it incorporates movement and theatricality.  And then there are things that would look almost like Cirque du Soleil, but a more 'dancy' version."

The annual festival moved from Connecticut to North Carolina in the 1970s.  It runs through July 27 with 14 productions in Durham and at Duke University, and others in New York.

Will Michaels is WUNC's Weekend Host and Reporter.
Related Stories
More Stories