Office of Undergraduate Education

I  am not Indian, but over the past several months, I have been rehearsing for a South Asian cultural celebration called Awaaz. Sponsored by Diya, Duke’s South Asian students association, Awaaz brings students from different cultural groups across campus to perform  music, comedy, and dance. All proceeds benefit the Duke Microfinance Leadership Initiative, which sponsors startups in the developing world. (more…)

It’s an accepted fact around campus that Duke students can sell Duke best–whether it’s to the media or for admissions. Dan Piech, T ‘09, took his Duke-love one step further and created a Duke infomercial for his senior capstone project. After his final product was posted on YouTube, several Duke administrators came across the informative and edgy piece. Admins were so impressed that the piece was edited down to become Duke’s official thirty-second commercial spot.

You can read more about Dan’s transformation from student-filmmaker to university marketer in this Duke news article:

http://news.duke.edu/2009/09/tvspot.html

Cannes is an exotic locale on the French Riviera, but assuredly some of Duke’s globally-inclined students and alumni have been through la petite ville du mer which Brad Pitt (who is there promoting his new Quentin Tarantino film) today referred to as the “Holy Land of Film.”  I only know of one Duke person, though, who can say that he is in film Mecca right now–’09 graduate Lawrence Chen.  His  film “Journey to the West,”  recently earned him a spot at the Short Film Corner of the 62nd Cannes festival,  He plans on taking lessons learned at Cannes into a career in film-making either here or in his native China.  If you want to learn more about Chen or experience the festival digitally,  Chen, who received support to attend from the Office of theVice Provost for the Arts and the Dean/Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, is cataloging his trip via a blog on the Duke Arts site.

I’ve seen a lot of Madonna…let me rephrase that, I’ve seen a lot of THE Madonna. No, I am not a mystic, but I have taken my fair share of religion and art history courses here. Despite this, I was caught off guard by an icon amid the sparse, concrete walls of the Bryan Center’s Brown Gallery because the icon was the actress Scarlett Johansson. No, IT WASN’T the poster for Mel Gibson’s next project–it’s local artist Robert Mihaly’s grotesque mix of fantasy, irony and history, entitled “A Pantheon of Modern Gods,” a new art exhibit in the petite gallery tucked unassumingly to the left of the main staircase. (more…)

Click here to watch a trailer and vote on the movie!

The other day I was forwarded an e-mail from Christina Pogoloff, an instructor in the Writing Program, praising the work of her former student.  The student, Gwendolyn Oxenham( T’04) has been filming a documentary, called Footplay, on impromptu soccer matches around the globe.  The documentary is now in a competition with nine other films.  Check Footplay and vote–she needs 10,000 votes, so hurry!  Also check out Duke Magazine on her work below:

Gwendolyn Oxenham and Luke Boughen have played pickup soccer with inmates in the San Pedro Prison in La Paz, Bolivia.They’ve suited up against Iraqi expats in London, run with teenage soccer nuts in Marseilles, and competed in an Arab-versus-Israeli game in a park outside Jerusalem’s Old City.

Both former varsity soccer players—Oxenham at Duke, and Boughen at Notre Dame—they’ve spent much of the last year traveling the world in search of a good game, and capturing it all on film for a documentary-in-the-works tentatively titled The Soccer Project. (more…)

Saying you study with a master makes me think of the 80’s movie, the Karate Kid. But the only fancy footwork for the student’s the music department’s master classes is the piano pedals. Master classes, hosted by the Department of Music, bring select undergrads to study with noted and celebrity musicians for short one-on-one sessions.

Check out the DukeToday news article about students and their exciting new sensei.