Digital Dance Performance in Downtown Durham

Duke dance professor Thomas F. DeFrantz will perform an autobiographical work, Thursday and Friday, Aug. 28-29 with collaborator Kenneth David Stewart, a Duke Ph.D. student in downtown Durham.

The 7 p.m. performance, "where did I think I was going? [moving into signal]," will be held at the Durham Arts Council PSI Theater (120 Morris St., Durham). Tickets are $10 cash at the door.

DeFrantz and Stewart use technology such as digital cameras, Kinect cameras and wireless microphones to explore questions of relocation and family, identity and space. The piece will illustrate the physical and emotional cost of moving due to job changes, natural disasters, and shifts in technology, for example.

"In all, 'where did i think i was going? [moving into signal]' suggests ways to rethink how our digital traces tell stories of our presence, our absence, and our de-materialization," writes DeFrantz, chair of Duke's African and African American studies department. He teaches dance courses such as performance and technology and contemporary performance, as well as African-American studies.

The event is being presented by Slippage: Performance| Culture| Technology, an interdisciplinary technology, dance and theatrical performance company founded by DeFrantz in 2003. For more information, visit the Duke dance department website.