By Emma Hall
November 30, 2023
“The sensory friendly film series is a series that we’ve created to be very welcoming and supportive of individuals with autism or other folks that may have sensory accommodations.”
Read moreBy Jessica F. Simmons
November 9, 2023
Blair LM Kelley, author of Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class, shared insights on incorporating her ancestral line into her book’s writing process during the Writer’s Discussion Series Lecture last Thursday evening, November 2. Kelley is a Ph.D. holder in History with certificates in African and African American studies and women’s studies […]
Read moreBy Hannah Adams
November 6, 2023
By Hannah Adams Published Nov. 6 Durham comes to life through vibrant and diverse community murals. These pieces of art celebrate Durham’s rich history, culture and diversity, and have become an integral part of the city’s landscape. “While some states attempt to remove the historical truths that shaped this country; Durham has decided to embrace […]
Read moreBy Anthony DeHart
April 28, 2022
(Ivy Burch, front right, leads the group in traditional African movements. (Staff photo by Anthony DeHart) After nearly 2 years of virtual meetings, African Dance is back in person at the Hayti Heritage Center. African Dance! – Every Monday! For more than 17 years, The Hayti Heritage center has been home to the Hayti Rhythms […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
November 10, 2021
In response to the crisis of gun violence in Durham, the Hillside High School Drama Department, under the direction of legendary director Wendell Tabb, presents the original play, “A State of Urgency,” subtitled, “A call to action to stop gun violence.” The play will run this weekend with four performances at Hillside High School, […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
January 23, 2021
Martha Flowers came to the front door prepared for her photo shoot, looking every bit like a diva — dressed for a concert, pearl necklace, and a smile that could – and did – light up Broadway. Diva; I may not know what that means technically, and I have a hunch its like when someone […]
Read moreBy Jock Lauterer
June 11, 2020
Of late, there has been much talk about “the talk.” Now, a year and a half after a dramatic play by the same name debuted in Durham, a video version will begin streaming for a month, beginning today, Friday, June 12. (See details below.) “The Talk” dramatizes the frank conversation a black father must have […]
Read moreBy Julia Masters
April 2, 2020
Crouching with a power tool in hand, Durham artist Stephen Hayes pressed chicken wire over an aluminum base and drilled it into place. Soon the structure was covered in smooth slate, and the acrylic top covered in a collage of old news clippings and photographs was placed on top. This marker now sits permanently outside the […]
Read moreBy Brandon Callender
February 27, 2020
If you asked Austin Royale what he wanted to do with his life 10 years ago, he’d tell you he had no idea. But in 2020, he has a defined vision for a future where the children of Durham are free to explore all of their interests and have new ways to express themselves and […]
Read moreBy Victoria Johnson
Durham native Monica Daye was sexually assaulted in a church when she was 11. “My whole life completely changed,” she said. “I went from an A/B student — outgoing, dancing — to being a student that was failing with D’s and F’s, rebelling, cursing teachers out and getting in trouble.” When she was 19, Daye […]
Read moreBy Anthony DeHart and Matthew Audilet
For more than 15 years, a group of dancers and drummers – some experienced, some not – have come together once a month at the Hayti Heritage Center on Old Fayetteville Street for its Hayti Rhythms dance class. The class offers community members the chance to practice movements from the African diaspora and listen to […]
Read moreBy Landon Bost
February 13, 2020
Hillside High School’s “Hallelujah! Swing School” returns for the second consecutive year for Valentine’s weekend in honor of John Henry Gattis’ “Mr. G’s Swing School.” The production honors the past and inspires the next generation of leaders from Durham. The play is produced and directed by the esteemed Hillside drama teacher Wendell Tabb, who has […]
Read moreBy Andrew Dundas
“Our first rule is…?” Brett Chambers called over packed tables painted in dim lights from the stage. “Have fun!” the crowd shouted in unison. And fun they had. Laughter and conversation filled The Blue Note Grill, 709 Washington St, for over an hour before any performance. When the music did start, people grooved in their […]
Read moreBy Victor Hensley
Mainland Africa is approximately 4,030 miles away from Durham, but Duke University is working to narrow the gap by bringing African stories to the campus community through film. This month Duke is hosting its fifth-annual African Film Festival, featuring stories from around the continent. The four-week festival, organized by the university’s Africa Initiative, will hold […]
Read moreBy Gianna Tahan
The Hayti Heritage Center presents its fifth annual Black History: Artists’ Perspectives Exhibition to bring African American artists together and honor the black experience. Five years ago, curator Willie Bigelow, who is a Durham resident and artist, came to Hayti Heritage Center Executive Director Angela Lee to design an exhibition that pays tribute to Black […]
Read moreBy Matthew Audilet
A Durham art gallery launched an exhibit Feb. 10 highlighting seven local African American artists in celebration of Black History Month. Cecilia Henaine de Davis, owner of the 11-month-old Cecy’s Gallery and Studios, acknowledged the importance of giving a voice to local artists — especially those whose voices are often silenced. “I selected a collection […]
Read moreBy Victoria Johnson
January 30, 2020
Jazz legend Max Roach’s drums beat again Saturday night when five local musicians interpreted his rhythms to about 50 listeners at the Hayti Heritage Center. The concert, called “Freedom Day: A Tribute to Max Roach,” celebrated one of the most important drummers in modern jazz history, the Hayti musicians said. A North Carolina native born […]
Read moreBy Cheyenne Beasley
April 24, 2019
Aubrey Griffith-Zill describes “ecstatic dance” as something that “happens when our thinking mind gets out of the way and our body is able to move uninhibited by thought.” And judging from the Friday night crowd at the Living Arts Collective, it is gaining popularity in Durham. Each session opens with a circle to go over […]
Read moreBy Hannah Towey
April 10, 2019
A couple hugging as the sun sets in Woodstock, a woman crying in despair after she sees Martin Luther King Jr. lying in his coffin, a Ku Klux Klan member, arms folded as a cross behind him engulfs in flames. These are just three of the moments expertly captured by famed photographer Burk Uzzle, an […]
Read moreBy Samantha Perry and Sabrina Berndt
Although the 22nd annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival has come to an end, UNC-TV will continue highlighting the work of award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson throughout the month. On Tuesday, April 23, UNC-TV will premiere Nelson’s most recent documentary, “Boss: The Black Experience in Business.” The film touches on rarely discussed stories of black entrepreneurship […]
Read moreBy Tianna Degraffenried
April 8, 2019
Black excellence has done it again with five African-American males starting their own comedy show. It’s not just a regular comedy show with a venue, but a comedy show on a school bus. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a school bus. The first Bull City Laughs bus tour rolled out on March 15 to a sold-out […]
Read moreBy Samantha Perry
March 27, 2019
When Grace Beeler began teaching English as a second language, she was shocked by the stories refugees had to share. “If everyday Americans could hear the stories that I hear at work they would have a lot more compassion for refugees,” Beeler said. “They would understand why they need to come here, why we should […]
Read moreBy Sabrina Berndt and Elisabeth Beauchamp
When Jacqueline Jones inherited her cousin Mable’s artwork, she knew she was taking on the responsibility of protecting part of Durham’s artistic history. An art exhibit honoring Mable C. Bullock took place at Cecy’s Gallery & Studios on March 1 and 2 from 6-9 p.m. The event was open to the public and marked the […]
Read moreBy Natasha Townsend
February 27, 2019
The Hayti Heritage Center buzzed with nervous energy hours before the 4 p.m. showing of “Inside Studio Real: A choreopoetic sitcom” on Feb. 23. The play, written by director Dasan Ahanu, involves poetry, movement and emotion. Ahanu, 44, is from Raleigh and has been an artist since the ‘90s, he said. He has performed original […]
Read moreBy Hannah Towey and John Bauman
Filmmaker Dennis Leroy Kangalee had set out to create a masterpiece. Less than one year after his debut film, “As an Act of Protest” was released, Kangalee sent that masterpiece flying off the balcony of a hotel in Germany. Kangalee’s independent film is a 144-minute-long drama whose unedited, anti-Hollywood aesthetic and emotionally raw acting seek […]
Read moreBy Will Shropshire
After 47 years, “Swing School,” a community favorite production for many decades, returned to the stage at Hillside High School. The Hillside High School Drama Department – under the direction of Wendell Tabb – put on four performances of its new adaptation, called “Hallelujah! Swing School,” from Feb. 15-17. The production has long been a Hillside […]
Read moreBy Adrianne Cleven
A performance just isn’t a performance without an audience. And some unique members of the audience during Sonny Kelly’s performance of his play, “The Talk,” added extra significance to the experience on Feb. 17. “The Talk,” which centers around themes of racial oppression and resilience, has been making waves across Durham and Chapel Hill since […]
Read moreBy Sabrina Berndt
February 13, 2019
Four years ago, Hayti Heritage Center presented the first Black History: Artists’ Perspectives exhibition to honor African-American artists. Now an annual event, Hayti opened the 2019 exhibition on Feb. 1. The exhibition began in 2016 when Willie Bigelow, an artist and Durham resident, approached Angela Lee, the executive director at Hayti, to bring an event to […]
Read moreBy Diane Adame
A black playwright has turned his personal experience into the play, “The Talk,” through dramatizing a difficult conversation he had with his son about the racialization of America. Sonny Kelly, a UNC-Chapel Hill doctoral candidate and performer in “The Talk,” wrote the play in 2015 after explaining the 2015 Baltimore protests to his then 7-year-old […]
Read moreBy Jack Frederick
Longtime writer, producer, director and now-Durham resident Lana Garland fell into filmmaking because a movie spoke to her. Literally. In 1989, Garland bought a ticket to see Spike Lee’s film “Do the Right Thing,” the iconic movie she says was “revolutionary” for the budding black film industry. In the film, she was moved by a […]
Read moreBy Keeley Gay
As a child, Anthony Nelson, 25, from Durham, originally wanted to be an organic chemist. Those dreams quickly changed when as a freshman he was randomly placed in a dance class at Hillside High School. “I remember not signing up for dance at all. It was just on my schedule as an extracurricular,” Nelson said. […]
Read moreBy Diane Adame
January 31, 2019
Kidznotes musicians used their opera voices to tell the dramatic French love story of Georges Bizet’s “Carmen.” The students performed as the children’s chorus alongside the stars of the North Carolina Opera on Jan. 25 and Jan. 27 at the Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh. The opera performance featured hypnotic choreography, human drama and popular hit […]
Read moreBy Johnny Sobczak and Cameron A. Rogers
January 30, 2019
There is a new era beginning at the Golden Belt campus in downtown Durham, an art gallery that has been the home of major artistic projects for the community. Golden Belt, originally known for its textile factory, is now embracing the many arts cultivated in the Durham area thanks to fresh ownership. In 2016, Scientific […]
Read moreBy Keeley Gay
The white, vine-covered building situated along Durham’s American Tobacco Trail is more than it appears. What used to be an old, small Piggly Wiggly has been transformed into a community-focused dance, yoga and music studio. Threehouse Studios opened their doors to the public on Oct. 22, 2017. The idea of a multipurpose studio was developed […]
Read moreBy Cheyenne Beasley
Looking more like a club than a county recreation center, Durham residents “got lit,” at the county’s only hip-hop aerobics class in the Holton Career and Resource Center. Holton located at 401 N. Driver St., was the former East Durham Junior High School before it was renovated in 2009 with the help of the city, […]
Read moreBy Cindy Chen
December 14, 2018
Kidznotes, the Durham-based non-profit music program devoted to giving kids a passion for music, is back with their annual Winter Concerts. This year’s first free concert will be held Fri., Dec. 14, 5:30 – 7 p.m. at Fayetteville Elementary School located at 2905 Fayetteville St. The second concert will be presented in the same […]
Read moreBy Cameron A. Rogers
November 22, 2018
The Hillside High School Theatre Department, under the leadership of veteran director Wendell Tabb, launched its fall production season by bringing “The Color Purple’ to the stage. Durham VOICE photographer Cameron Rogers was there to capture these images. Before the production begin on Nov 9, African dancers graced the stage at Hillside High School, giving […]
Read moreBy Isaiah Ball
October 22, 2018
Located on 212 West Main Street is a unique recording studio. The “BlackSpace” is an Afro-futurism digital creation space home to Durham’s youth. This makerspace offers the youth a “wokeshop” series offering personal training in the digital and creative arts including videography, spoken word poetry, puppetry, coding, 3D printing and electronic music production. Kids, […]
Read moreBy Cheyenne Beasley
October 10, 2018
Hillside High School’s award-winning drama department is in rehearsal for ” The Color Purple,” a musical version of the classic novel, produced and directed by veteran drama teacher Wendell Tabb, November 9-11, at Hillside High School theatre auditorium, 3727 Fayetteville St. There are almost 100 students working to create the production, including actors, dancers, offstage […]
Read moreBy Arielle Cummings
October 8, 2018
Saturday! The day that everyone looks forward to. What better way to enjoy a relaxing Saturday morning, than at the Durham Farmers’ Market? The market is open every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. April through November and 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. December through March. The market also offers a mid-week market, […]
Read moreBy Cameron A. Rogers
September 21, 2018
Determination, faith and humor. These are just a few words Karen Lewis, the niece of one of the actresses and a member of the Antioch Baptist Church uses to describe tomorrow’s gospel musical, “The Glory Train.” For the last three years for Black History Month the Drama Ministry of St. Matthews in Greensboro, N.C holds […]
Read moreBy Corin Hemphill
April 20, 2018
Through the exhibit “Faith in Color: A Photographic Exploration of Race, Religion, and America in Tribute to C. Eric Lincoln,” a Duke senior aims to change people’s perceptions. The exhibit is on display in the Duke University Chapel until May 1. Evan Nicole Bell is from Columbia, Maryland, a planned community founded by Jim […]
Read moreBy Marissa O'Neill
April 11, 2018
On Earth Day weekend, April 20-21, the Scrap Exchange will celebrate both its 27th birthday and the grand opening of its new store, Scrap Thrift. It will also host its second DIY (Do It Yourself) Fest for the Durham community. The Scrap Exchange, founded in 1991, bought its current space, a formerly abandoned church, […]
Read moreBy Liz Chen and Tessa Platek
“How do you know when to stop?” This was the question Eric Kelly III described as the most probing question he had ever been asked about his artwork. The 61-year-old Durham resident shared his experience as an artist in a room full of over 50 vibrant pieces from his most recent line of work. […]
Read moreBy Lamel Batts
March 29, 2018
During February, the Hayti Heritage Center hosted its annual Black History: Artists’ Perspectives exhibition with powerful art by various artists. The free exhibition was curated by Willie R. Bigelow, who is also an artist featured in the exhibit. Bigelow started the exhibit in 2016, hoping to feature African American artists and showcase their artwork […]
Read moreBy Antony Nganga
March 28, 2018
Like some other artists with studios in Golden Belt, Christine Hager-Braun, arrived at art through an unlikely path. She holds a doctorate degree and is a biochemist who has had her share of runs in the lab and in class. She has pored over microscopes searching for an HIV vaccine. Some wonder why she […]
Read moreBy Kelcie Frye
A local theater company is changing the face of the Durham theater scene. Black Ops Theatre Company, which features black artists from around the Triangle, is committed to challenging the preconceived notions of what black theater looks like. Founded in 2015 by JaMeeka Holloway-Burrell, the Durham-based theater group was formed as a response to the […]
Read moreBy Zayrha Rodriguez
Back in 2006 the Durham native, Valencia Lipscomb, was the second freshman in the history of Hillside High School to make it to Company—one of two dance groups in Hillside Dance Company. Twelve years later, Lipscomb is the teacher for the Hillside Dance Company, which includes the two dance groups called Company and Sting, as well […]
Read moreBy Corin Hemphill
March 18, 2018
Online fundraisers with the hashtag #BlackPantherChallenge are trending. Teenagers in Durham get to see the first black comic book superhero on the big screen. Black Panther is a 2018 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. The latest blockbuster in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is helmed by a black […]
Read moreBy Tessa Platek
February 28, 2018
In busy urban areas, sometimes there’s nothing better than escaping the city to enjoy nature. An addition to the West Ellerbee Creek Trail is making it easier to do for more of Durham’s residents. “It’s going to connect people to parts of Durham they haven’t seen before,” said Jessica Kemp, Durham senior project manager in […]
Read more