montage of student artwork, documentary photos and dancers

The Class of 2025’s Got Talent

Accomplishments in the arts from Duke seniors and MFA students

The Class of 2025’s Got Talent

Accomplishments in the arts from Duke seniors and MFA students

The arts play an important part of the Duke student educational experience, providing exceptional performing opportunities. The benefits extend to the wider community outside of Duke, from the many community members who are entertained by the students’ concerts, plays, dances, films and exhibits.

Some of these young artists are heading into career in the arts; most will head into other fields. But all student artists will carry the memories of the art they did at Duke for the rest of their lives.

Below are snapshots of a few of the many students artists graduating this weekend. (Read a list of departmental award winners on the Duke Arts website.)

Visual Media

Nik Narain video of stand up comedy

Graduating double major in physics and visual media studies with a concentration in cinematic arts, Nik Narain has been announced as this year’s recipient of the Louis Sudler Prize for excellence in the arts. Narain has been selected for this award for his distinguished record in performance and creation in writing for stage/screen and comedy performance. 

Sample his work in this video of his debut stand-up special called “Rusk!” In the video, he talks about starting stand-up, getting a physics degree, doing drag, the Midwest, and more through a series of science facts, embarrassing stories, and dad jokes. The show was recorded live at the Rubenstein Arts Center in February.

Music

Vicky Yang
Vicky Yang

Pianist Vicky Yang and harpist Melody Tzang are student ambassadors for the Department of Music, sharing their love of music with others to raise the profile of the department and the arts on campus. In these short videos, Yang and Tzang discuss the importance of music to their Duke experience.

“I am really nostalgic for our late night practice sessions in Biddle (music building) and for rehearsals with other harpists for Harp Ensemble,” Tzang said. “I always see familiar faces in my classes in my ensembles and outside of Biddle so it‘s always super fun to have that home base to come back to.”

Melody Tzang
Melody Tzang

Documentary Studies

New documentary work by four Duke seniors and one rising senior is now on view at the Duke Center for Documentary Studies (CDS). Developed this spring in the Capstone Seminar in Documentary Studies course, their projects span photography, zine-making, film and oral history, and will be on display through August. Below is a sample of several of the works. Read more about the projects on the CDS website.

Grace "Gi" Chun’s “믿음, 소망, 사랑 (Faith, Hope, Love)” is a zine printed on a risograph, processing familial love and grief while looking back on formative experiences across two continents. Chun’s family has a rich archive of photographs and home videos she notes would otherwise remain unseen.

Grace "Gi" Chun’s “믿음, 소망, 사랑 (Faith, Hope, Love)”
Ella Davis’ “Foster Street” 
Lauren Valle “Unseen Histories: Latinidad in Focus”

Left: Ella Davis’ “Foster Street” is series of quiet, observational photographs documenting a single block in Durham. Through repetitive walks, Davis captures the rhythm of daily life and the beauty of the mundane. Right: Lauren Valle’s “Unseen Histories: Latinidad in Focus” is a photographic and oral history project of collective memory, visibility and community resilience focusing on Latine student leaders at Duke.

Masters in Fine Arts in Dance

The MFA in Dance supports graduate student-artists in interdisciplinary academic and artistic project works in their respective fields of expertise aligned with significant coursework within and outside of dance.

“And you ghosts rise blue” by Indigo Cook.

“And you ghosts rise blue” by Indigo Cook. “Written as an experimental pasticcio in three acts, ‘And you ghosts rise blue’ wove together movement, sound, and light to open a rift in the space-time continuum and call in voices past and future, real and unreal. The voices – sounding alongside a collaborative collective of dancers, musicians, poets, actors, and visual artists – formed a ghostly chorus with whom we sang of the ephemeral, the infinite, and the im/possible. 

Sadé Jones “Melanated Chrysalis”
“welding borderlands | soldando las tierras fronterizas” by Natalia Cervantes.

Left: “Melanated Chrysalis” by choreographer Sadé M. Jones. “My creative process over the past five years is based on taking in cultural material, interacting with it internally, then producing something to reinforce or challenge the societal elements the cultural material comes from,” Jones said. Right: “welding borderlands | soldando las tierras fronterizas” by Natalia Cervantes. “The pillars of my creative process are storytelling, vulnerability, imagination, and community. These anchors guide my multimedia artistic approach that allows me to process embodied investigations in a nonlinear fashion.”

Benenson Awards

Fifteen undergraduates, including seven graduating seniors, will spend the summer furthering their artistic projects through Duke’s Benenson Awards. The program offers young artists the support and freedom to explore creative projects spanning film, theater, creative writing, music, dance, and visual art. Find out more about the Benenson Award-winners on the Duke Arts website.