• Friday, October 30 2026

    October 30, 2026, 10:00 am

    113 Orange Street, Durham

    Candy Carver, Find Your Glimmer

    Immersive Visual Art Installation
    Run Time: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
    Free & Open to the Public

    Though individual healing is valuable, collective healing is transformative. When we come together, we increase our capacity for resilience, compassion and empathy. Find Your Glimmer seeks to nurture this experience through affirmational text, interactive art design, and the creation of spaces where people can feel seen and empowered. Where we can all find our own personal glimmers. This is a multi media, black light activated, art installation that I began creating in 2021. It utilizes multiple surfaces and mediums to convey light filled messages and emotions with many moments of joy. It envelops the viewer in a warm hug of affirmations and is a reminder that art can be fun and meaningful at the same time.

  • October 30, 2026, 5:00 pm

    Mettlesome Theater

    Elise Janson & Willie Hinton

    Dance
    Run Time: 10 minutes

    There is no map for becoming. We move through shifting landscapes, drawn toward places we cannot yet name, carrying questions that refuse simple answers. Suspended between certainty and surrender, the work explores the spaces where hesitation meets courage and the familiar gives way to possibility. Movement becomes a language for navigating what cannot be predicted, revealing moments of resistance, resilience, discovery, and change. Paths intersect, diverge, and emerge again, reflecting the countless ways we encounter uncertainty throughout our lives. Rather than seeking definitive answers, the choreography embraces the beauty of searching, inviting the unknown to remain open, expansive, and alive. Each gesture reaches beyond itself, suggesting that understanding is found not through certainty, but through the willingness to continue moving. In a world where the future is never guaranteed, the work asks us to consider whether the unknown is something to fear or simply another place where growth begins.

  • October 30, 2026, 5:30 pm

    Mettlesome Theater

    D’Vorah Dance Arts, B-Side

    Dance
    Run Time: 45 minutes

    Step back into the 1990s, into the bedroom, the sleepover, the mixtapes, the music, and the messy, formative years of adolescence. B-SIDE is an experimental dance work that invites audiences into an intimate 90s bedroom where the line between spectator and participant begins to blur. Through a selection of 90s grunge and alternative music, the audience helps shape the experience by choosing what plays next, and, in turn, what stories unfold. Part performance, part hangout, B-SIDE explores the adolescent search for feminine power, self-identity, friendship, desire, and voice. It asks us to return to the person we were before we fully understood who we were becoming.

    Created as an exploration of themes from a larger work currently in development, B-SIDE offers a glimpse into a world where the music of our adolescence becomes a portal back to the moments when we were first learning how to take up space, find our voices, and define ourselves. Come over. Pick a song. Stay awhile.

  • October 30, 2026, 6:00 pm

    113 Orange Street, Durham

    Candy Carver, Make Your Own Screenprint Shirt

    Immersive Visual Art Installation
    Run Time: 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM
    Free & Open to the Public

    Make your own glow-in-the-dark t-shirt during a live screen-printing activity. Bring your own shirt or get one on site.

  • October 30, 2026, 7:00 pm

    The Durham Hotel Rooftop

    Lennon KC

    Live Music
    Run Time: about 60 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    Lennon KC is a DIY alternative rock artist from Durham, North Carolina, currently playing as a duo with a drummer. His sound flows between grunge-inspired intensity and gentler introspective moments, drawing comparisons to artists like Dominic Fike, The White Stripes, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Lennon KC is a captivating presence on stage, bringing a fully embodied sense of play to the room.

  • October 30, 2026, 9:00 pm

    Arcana Durham

    Cameron Wade, COMMUNION: A Liturgy For Samhain

    Dance / Theater
    Run Time: about 60 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    In All About Love, bell hooks wrote “Healing is an act of communion.” This performance aims to offer a ritual of healing, remembrance and communion, a Samhain Service for remembering the blood, bodies and bones that we are made of, those that were broken by us, and those that we are called to restore to their wholeness. Cornel West said “Real love always includes correction” and there is much to be corrected, reparations to be made, in the history and harm of white womanhood in America – much to be remembered about how we got here, much to be revived in the wild wisdom that we used to know and much to reveal together in the healing possibilities to be birthed for our future. But before re/birth must come death. Before the resurrection comes the crucifixion. First, we must Do This In Remembrance of Her, of Them, of Us.

  • Saturday, October 31 2026

    October 31, 2026, 10:00 am

    113 Orange Street, Durham

    Candy Carver, Find Your Glimmer

    Immersive Visual Art Installation
    Run Time: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
    Free & Open to the Public

    Though individual healing is valuable, collective healing is transformative. When we come together, we increase our capacity for resilience, compassion and empathy. Find Your Glimmer seeks to nurture this experience through affirmational text, interactive art design, and the creation of spaces where people can feel seen and empowered. Where we can all find our own personal glimmers. This is a multi media, black light activated, art installation that I began creating in 2021. It utilizes multiple surfaces and mediums to convey light filled messages and emotions with many moments of joy. It envelops the viewer in a warm hug of affirmations and is a reminder that art can be fun and meaningful at the same time.

  • October 31, 2026, 11:00 am

    Cecy’s Gallery & Studios

    Barriskill Dance Theatre School, Youth Thriller Flash Mob

    Dance
    Run Time: 20 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    Barriskill Dance Theatre School presents a thrilling adaptation of an iconic dance, reimagined in the cultural hub of downtown Durham. Blending hip hop, jazz and contemporary dance, Flash Mob immerses the public in a hauntingly site-responsive performance. Inspired by the playful unease of Halloween and the experimental nature of Durham’s first Fringe Festival, dancers emerge unexpectedly to transform a public space into a world of ghostly encounters and surreal precision.

  • October 31, 2026, 7:00 pm

    CCB Plaza

    DJ Nabs, Thrillah Block Party

    Jose Velasquez, Thriller Flash Mob

    Live DJ / Dance Party / Dance Performance
    Run Time:
    Free & Open to the Public

    This Halloween, CCB Plaza transforms into the TSB THRILLAH Block Party — a free, outdoor costume party takeover hosted by The Southern Brothas (TSB) set to be Bull City’s livest event of the year! Showout the Extraordinaire presides over the plaza packed with ghouls, goblins, families, and night crawlers as Major the Bull keeps an eye on all. Local artists and DJs are will light up the stage, filling the air with musical tunes. Costumed dancers move and groove under an open October night sky. The CCB comes alive for The TSB THRILLAH. Headlining the haunt: DJ NABS — GRAMMY Museum honoree, Durham Homegrown Hero, and the only DJ to tour with the Michael Jackson. NABS witnessed the King of Pop perform the iconic Thriller live on stage and is bringing that energy to the party. All ages. Costumes encouraged. Downtown Durham is about to get spooky.

  • Sunday, November 1 2026

    November 1, 2026, 10:00 am

    113 Orange Street, Durham

    Candy Carver, Find Your Glimmer

    Immersive Visual Art Installation
    Run Time: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
    Free & Open to the Public

    Though individual healing is valuable, collective healing is transformative. When we come together, we increase our capacity for resilience, compassion and empathy. Find Your Glimmer seeks to nurture this experience through affirmational text, interactive art design, and the creation of spaces where people can feel seen and empowered. Where we can all find our own personal glimmers. This is a multi media, black light activated, art installation that I began creating in 2021. It utilizes multiple surfaces and mediums to convey light filled messages and emotions with many moments of joy. It envelops the viewer in a warm hug of affirmations and is a reminder that art can be fun and meaningful at the same time.

  • November 1, 2026, 1:00 PM (5-8 year olds), 3:00 PM (9-12 year olds)

    113 Orange Street, Durham

    Candy Carver, Kidz Glow-in-the-Dark Painting Party

    Interactive Program for Kids
    Run Time: 30 minutes
    Purchase Tickets Here1:00 PM (5-8 year olds)
    Purchase Tickets Here3:00 PM (9-12 year olds)

    A neon cardboard sculpture painting party for kids! Young artists will collaborate in the painting of an upcycle wall sculpture with neon paint. Come ready to paint the world the way you want to see it! Pop in for 30 minutes or stay for the entire session.

    The 1 PM session is intended for 5-8 year olds.

    The 3 PM session is intended for 9-12 year olds.

  • November 1, 2026, 2:00 pm

    Letters Community Bookshop

    Daniel Combs, Bug Puncher

    Live Music
    Run Time: 60 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    Bug Puncher is a fully improvisational music experience featuring Matt Laird (bass), Daniel Combs (keyboards), and Kurt Stracener (drums). Drawing from their experience with a wide range of musical traditions, the trio strives to create something completely new with every performance. Their goal is to push the boundaries of their own musicianship in the pursuit of a deeper realm of sound that is only possible through risk taking, trust, and creative intention.

  • November 1, 2026, 2:00 pm

    Golden Belt Green Space

    Joseph MacPhail, SunSp.t

    Live Music
    Run Time: 60 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    SunSp.t (Joe MacPhail) will be performing a uniquely Durham take on Arab-American Fusion music. Joe was born in Durham, and has spent the last decade making eclectic keyboard-based music that incorporates global Folk and Blues melodies, Jazz and Classical harmony, and Funk and Hip Hop rhythms. This Fringe Festival performance will feature Songs and Compositions that are influenced by Arabic music, referencing Joe’s Levantine ancestry and other musical genres of the wider MENA world. The musical pieces will be placed in dialogue with a brief history of Arab-Americans, from 19th Century Arab-Christian immigration to 21st Century otherization and influence on American Pop, R&B and Hip Hop.

  • November 1, 2026, 4:00 pm

    Cecy’s Gallery & Studios

    Jackie Bennett, So this is Shedding

    Dance
    Run Time: 10 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    “So this is Shedding” is a dance work with spoken word that explores the process of unexpected change and ways that it causes unexpected shedding. It is a work that is partially birthed from a previous work “uprooted”. “So this is Shedding” explores the shedding of things we may have never expected or even never wanted to lose. We explore the coping, reassessments, and authentic connection to self and others that can also come from unexpected and at times unwanted changes and shedding

  • November 1, 2026, 6:00 pm

    The Durham Hotel Rooftop

    David Oskardmay, No Time Toulouse

    Live Music
    Run Time: 60 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    An acoustic-guitar duo, accompanied by vocals and electronic effects, that presents a selection of repertoire from Guitar Craft and several original songs.

  • November 1, 2026, 6:00 pm, 9:00 pm

    Stanczyks

    RECITAL (Miss Victoria’s Version)

    Variety Show / Dance
    Run Time: 60 minutes

    This year, Miss Vikki is on sabbatical (getting work done), and Ms. Victoria has seized the opportunity to perform a one-woman show. [applause break]

    RECITAL (Ms. Victoria’s Version) is an invitation to join iconic diva Ms. V as she embarks on the hero’s journey. She’ll encounter trials and tribulations delivered through song, dance, comedic monologues, and suuuper professional slideshows. And we promise, she’ll be the only one onstage.

    This year’s show will feature original works by Alyssa Noble, Chris Strauss, Megan Ross, Amy Blakely, Eudora, Kaitlin Fox, Laura Grant, Annabelle Kizer, Amabel Prisk, Baba McDaniel Roberts, and Poah West.

    Please note: We will have about 150 seats available and 50 Standing Room Only spots available per show. Seats will be first come, first serve. If you have accessibility needs, please contact [email protected] in advance and we will reserve seat(s) for you!

  • November 1, 2026, 7:00 pm

    The Durham Fruit

    Anna Maynard, RED

    Dance
    Run Time: Less than 60 minutes

    Working through contemplative composition and live improvisation, performers build and dissolve scenes in real time, listening for what emerges between bodies, gestures, and the changing attention of the room. Inspired by Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red, Sara Ahmed’s writing on orientation, and Susan Sgorbati’s emergent improvisation practices, the work follows the ways we move toward one another, lose our bearings, and find ourselves changed through contact. Narrative gathers through image, tone, rhythm, proximity, and relationship. Each performance becomes its own living world, intimate, unstable, and alive.

  • Monday, November 2 2026

    November 2, 2026, 10:00 am

    113 Orange Street, Durham

    Candy Carver, Find Your Glimmer

    Immersive Visual Art Installation
    Run Time: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
    Free & Open to the Public

    Though individual healing is valuable, collective healing is transformative. When we come together, we increase our capacity for resilience, compassion and empathy. Find Your Glimmer seeks to nurture this experience through affirmational text, interactive art design, and the creation of spaces where people can feel seen and empowered. Where we can all find our own personal glimmers. This is a multi media, black light activated, art installation that I began creating in 2021. It utilizes multiple surfaces and mediums to convey light filled messages and emotions with many moments of joy. It envelops the viewer in a warm hug of affirmations and is a reminder that art can be fun and meaningful at the same time.

  • November 2, 2026, 12 PM, 5:30 PM

    Mettlesome Theater

    Chickenfoot Art Collective, Babushka and the Boiling Frogs

    Run Time: Less than 60 minutes

    Babushka and the Boiling Frogs is an original performance about the role of community care as a necessary alternative to surveillance, policing, and constructed isolation. Through multiple forms of puppetry, sound, and projection, Babushka seeks to make the topic of surveillance technology and infrastructure accessible to those unfamiliar. Revolving around the character Babushka, her neighborhood, and the changes that unfold there, Babushka tells the story of how fear can be manipulated to pull people apart and how surveillance offers a false promise of safety—and how other worlds are possible.

  • November 2, 2026, 5:00 pm

    Durham Central Park

    Wendy Hower with Tyler Dennis, Procession of Cardinals

    Art Activation / Procession
    Run Time:
    Free & Open to the Public

    Procession of Cardinals is a 30-minute twilight procession featuring hand-held red cardinal puppets. As dusk settles over Durham Central Park, 100 participants become a flock of glowing red cardinals, moving together through the park and along downtown sidewalks to The Durham Hotel. The glowing puppets, crafted from laser-cut wood, gently flap their wings as participants follow intersecting paths in an organic choreography accompanied by a soundscape. The red cardinal, North Carolina’s state bird, symbolizes resilience, beauty and our connection to the natural world. Starting from one of Durham’s most beloved urban greenspaces, the procession invites us to reflect on the ways wildlife and people share the same landscape.

  • November 2, 2026, 6:30 pm

    The Durham Hotel

    Matt Sandbank’s Shadow Factory, Still Life and Other Stories

    Shadow Puppetry
    Run Time: 60 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    Dazzlingly articulated puppets. Absurd surprises at every turn. An artsy performance with an ever-so-slightly fartsy ethos. “Still Life and Other Stories,” a collection of comic shadow theatre vignettes, poses the question: what do we do when the world refuses to behave? This work has delighted audiences since 2016, receiving honors along the way such as a “Best of Fest” designation at the 2020 Frontera Fest in Austin, TX and special funding to perform at the 2026 Sólovky Festival in Prague, Czech Republic.

  • November 2, 2026, 7:00 pm

    The Durham Fruit

    Anna Maynard, RED

    Dance
    Run Time: Less than 60 minutes

    Working through contemplative composition and live improvisation, performers build and dissolve scenes in real time, listening for what emerges between bodies, gestures, and the changing attention of the room. Inspired by Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red, Sara Ahmed’s writing on orientation, and Susan Sgorbati’s emergent improvisation practices, the work follows the ways we move toward one another, lose our bearings, and find ourselves changed through contact. Narrative gathers through image, tone, rhythm, proximity, and relationship. Each performance becomes its own living world, intimate, unstable, and alive.

  • November 2, 2026, 7:30 pm

    Empower School of Movement

    Dasan Asanu, Black Poetry Theatre: The Adventures of Mystery Green

    Poetry Theater
    Run Time: 60 minutes

    In this episode of “The Adventures of Mystery Green,” Green and Malik have found themselves in Wilson, NC, facing a very precarious situation. What was supposed to be a relaxing visit to Malik’s grandmother’s house has turned into a roller coaster of emotion, turmoil, confusion, and treachery. Before you know it, Green and Malik are immersed in a chaotic investigation with folks imploring them to determine the source of the trouble. This production brings the adventures of your favorite soulful sleuth (you just found out about) to life. Playwright Dasan Ahanu blends humor, cleverness, poetics, and soul music, all with the intent of creating (dare I say it) a whole vibe. Come and discover how Green solves complex cases with keen observation, deductive reasoning, and a lot of sarcasm. This play is a Black Poetry Theatre production.

  • November 2, 2026, 8:00 pm

    Pinhook

    Charlie Probus, Durham Theatre Workshop

    Staged Readings
    Run Time: 60 minutes

    Durham Theatre Workshop presents three new plays by local playwrights Andy Li, Nik Narain, and Charlie Probus. These in-progress pieces are being seen for the first time.

    “Face Down, Ass Up” by Andy Li. An anonymous hookup accidentally reunites two estranged former lovers. Hilarity ensues.

    “Emergent Properties” by Nik Narain. An estranged family fights over the rights to the home of their recently deceased prodigal son. Chaos ensues.

  • Tuesday, November 3 2026

    November 3, 2026, 10:00 am

    113 Orange Street, Durham

    Candy Carver, Find Your Glimmer

    Immersive Visual Art Installation
    Run Time: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
    Free & Open to the Public

    Though individual healing is valuable, collective healing is transformative. When we come together, we increase our capacity for resilience, compassion and empathy. Find Your Glimmer seeks to nurture this experience through affirmational text, interactive art design, and the creation of spaces where people can feel seen and empowered. Where we can all find our own personal glimmers. This is a multi media, black light activated, art installation that I began creating in 2021. It utilizes multiple surfaces and mediums to convey light filled messages and emotions with many moments of joy. It envelops the viewer in a warm hug of affirmations and is a reminder that art can be fun and meaningful at the same time.

  • November 3, 2026, 1:00 pm

    Pinhook

    Charlie Probus, PromisedLand

    Staged Readings
    Run Time: 60 minutes

    “PromisedLand” by Charlie Probus. A failing Christian theme park hires an out gay actor to play Jesus after a homophobic incident goes viral.

  • November 3, 2026, 6:30 pm

    The Durham Hotel Rooftop

    Matt Sandbank’s Shadow Factory, Still Life and Other Stories

    Shadow Puppetry
    Run Time: 60 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    Dazzlingly articulated puppets. Absurd surprises at every turn. An artsy performance with an ever-so-slightly fartsy ethos. “Still Life and Other Stories,” a collection of comic shadow theatre vignettes, poses the question: what do we do when the world refuses to behave? This work has delighted audiences since 2016, receiving honors along the way such as a “Best of Fest” designation at the 2020 Frontera Fest in Austin, TX and special funding to perform at the 2026 Sólovky Festival in Prague, Czech Republic.

  • November 3, 2026, 7:00 PM, 8:30 PM

    The Durham Fruit

    Michela Dwyer & Indigo Cook, An Undiscovered Room

    Immersive Installation / Dance
    Run Time: 45 Minutes

    Michela Dwyer and Indigo Cook come to the Durham Fringe Festival with An Undiscovered Room – an immersive journey into lost and hidden spaces. Over the course of the performance, the audience travels through a maze constructed inside the venue with a series of poles and stitched-together curtains of found and recycled materials. The performers – dancers, musicians, poets, and actors – navigate the space alongside the audience. Specific conditions inside the maze, such as an encounter with another person, a shift in sound or lighting, etc., triggers performance scores for the artists. Dance, music, and text emerge from these encounters as each score is performed and the work unfolds in a constantly evolving labyrinth of experience, discovery, and connection.

  • November 3, 2026, 7:30 pm

    Empower School of Movement

    Dasan Asanu, Black Poetry Theatre: The Adventures of Mystery Green

    Poetry Theater
    Run Time: 60 minutes

    In this episode of “The Adventures of Mystery Green,” Green and Malik have found themselves in Wilson, NC, facing a very precarious situation. What was supposed to be a relaxing visit to Malik’s grandmother’s house has turned into a roller coaster of emotion, turmoil, confusion, and treachery. Before you know it, Green and Malik are immersed in a chaotic investigation with folks imploring them to determine the source of the trouble. This production brings the adventures of your favorite soulful sleuth (you just found out about) to life. Playwright Dasan Ahanu blends humor, cleverness, poetics, and soul music, all with the intent of creating (dare I say it) a whole vibe. Come and discover how Green solves complex cases with keen observation, deductive reasoning, and a lot of sarcasm. This play is a Black Poetry Theatre production.

  • Wednesday, November 4 2026

    November 4, 2026, 10:00 am

    113 Orange Street, Durham

    Candy Carver, Find Your Glimmer

    Immersive Visual Art Installation
    Run Time: 10:
    Free & Open to the Public

    Though individual healing is valuable, collective healing is transformative. When we come together, we increase our capacity for resilience, compassion and empathy. Find Your Glimmer seeks to nurture this experience through affirmational text, interactive art design, and the creation of spaces where people can feel seen and empowered. Where we can all find our own personal glimmers. This is a multi media, black light activated, art installation that I began creating in 2021. It utilizes multiple surfaces and mediums to convey light filled messages and emotions with many moments of joy. It envelops the viewer in a warm hug of affirmations and is a reminder that art can be fun and meaningful at the same time.

  • November 4, 2026, 12:30 pm

    Durham Central Park

    Londs Reuter, GOOD EFFORT

    Dance
    Run Time: about 30 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    We’re taught that more effort is always better. GOOD EFFORT asks a different question: How much effort does this moment actually need? Some days, getting out of bed is high effort. Other days, it’s listening with patience, setting a boundary, or trying again. GOOD EFFORT is a dance performance by Londs Reuter that explores how we constantly calibrate our effort to meet each moment. Working from shared movement material, each dancer decides in real time how much effort to give, making every performance unique. Rather than celebrating relentless hustle, GOOD EFFORT invites audiences to experience effort as something we feel, calibrate, and share—a source of creativity, agency, and connection.

  • November 4, 2026, 7:00 PM, 8:30 PM

    The Durham Fruit

    Michela Dwyer & Indigo Cook, An Undiscovered Room

    Immersive Installation / Dance
    Run Time: 45 Minutes

    Michela Dwyer and Indigo Cook come to the Durham Fringe Festival with An Undiscovered Room – an immersive journey into lost and hidden spaces. Over the course of the performance, the audience travels through a maze constructed inside the venue with a series of poles and stitched-together curtains of found and recycled materials. The performers – dancers, musicians, poets, and actors – navigate the space alongside the audience. Specific conditions inside the maze, such as an encounter with another person, a shift in sound or lighting, etc., triggers performance scores for the artists. Dance, music, and text emerge from these encounters as each score is performed and the work unfolds in a constantly evolving labyrinth of experience, discovery, and connection.

  • November 4, 2026, 7:00 pm

    NorthStar Church of the Arts

    Micaela Shanyce Bundy, How Glory Goes: An Exploration of Artistic Inheritance Through the Repertoire and Artistry of Audra McDonald

    Live Music / Vocalist
    Run Time: 60 minutes

    How Glory Goes: An Exploration of Artistic Inheritance Through the Repertoire and Artistry of Audra McDonald is a theatrical concert that examines how the artists we admire shape the artists we become. Through beloved songs and personal storytelling, Micaela Shanyce Bundy reflects on the people, performances, and experiences that have informed her own artistic journey. Rather than recounting the life of Audra McDonald, How Glory Goes explores the profound influence of one artist’s legacy on another, revealing how artistic inheritance is passed through music and lived experience. Blending humor, vulnerability, and knockout performance, this intimate evening invites audiences to reflect on the voices that have shaped their own lives and consider the legacy they hope to leave for those who follow.

  • November 4, 2026, 8:00 pm

    Living Arts Collective Ballroom

    Katie Rebich, Chip Chip Hooray!

    Clown / Theater
    Run Time: Less than 60 minutes

    “Chip Chip Hooray!” is a solo clown show by Durham native, Katie Rebich. Do you like snacks? Do you enjoy funny, tender, and deeply personal stories? How about stories exploring death, coming of age, and joyful moments? Then come to this show!

    This one-person clown show blends playful audience participation with heartfelt storytelling, using potato chips as the unexpected thread connecting each moment. “Chip Chip Hooray!” explores how something as ordinary as a potato chip can hold joy, shame, loss, wonder, and resilience. Equal parts hilarious and vulnerable, it celebrates the tiny moments that shape us and remind us that no life is too ordinary to matter.

    “Chip Chip Hooray!” invites audiences to laugh, reflect, and discover that none of us are as alone as we think.

  • November 4, 2026, 7:00 PM, 9:00 PM

    Empower School of Movement

    Lormarev Jones, A Third Space of My Own

    Dance / Theater
    Run Time: Less than 60 minutes

    Homeowner. Wife. Artist. Patient. The horrors persist, in the home, outside the home and in the body. A solo play examining the intersections of labor, marriage, homeownership and healthcare.

  • November 4, 2026, 10:00 pm

    Mettlesome Theater

    Nik Narain, Rusk

    Stand-up Comedy
    Run Time: 60 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    Nik Narain’s “Rusk” is a one-hour sharp-witted, clean, and science-infused stand-up comedy show that discusses LGBTQ+ South Asian youth experiences through a culmination of personal stories, science facts, and dad jokes. With sold-out shows at the Edinburgh, Raleigh, New York, Asheville, and Central Virginia Festivals, “Rusk” is a hilarious hour guaranteed to educate, entertained, and inspire. Celebrating the 24th performance of “Rusk,” Nik is excited to be culminating over a year of touring this show back where it all started.

  • Thursday, November 5 2026

    November 5, 2026, 12:30 am

    Durham Central Park

    Londs Reuter, GOOD EFFORT

    Dance
    Run Time: about 30 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    We’re taught that more effort is always better. GOOD EFFORT asks a different question: How much effort does this moment actually need? Some days, getting out of bed is high effort. Other days, it’s listening with patience, setting a boundary, or trying again. GOOD EFFORT is a dance performance by Londs Reuter that explores how we constantly calibrate our effort to meet each moment. Working from shared movement material, each dancer decides in real time how much effort to give, making every performance unique. Rather than celebrating relentless hustle, GOOD EFFORT invites audiences to experience effort as something we feel, calibrate, and share—a source of creativity, agency, and connection.

  • November 5, 2026, 10:00 am

    113 Orange Street, Durham

    Candy Carver, Find Your Glimmer

    Immersive Visual Art Installation
    Run Time: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
    Free & Open to the Public

    Though individual healing is valuable, collective healing is transformative. When we come together, we increase our capacity for resilience, compassion and empathy. Find Your Glimmer seeks to nurture this experience through affirmational text, interactive art design, and the creation of spaces where people can feel seen and empowered. Where we can all find our own personal glimmers. This is a multi media, black light activated, art installation that I began creating in 2021. It utilizes multiple surfaces and mediums to convey light filled messages and emotions with many moments of joy. It envelops the viewer in a warm hug of affirmations and is a reminder that art can be fun and meaningful at the same time.

  • November 5, 2026, 11:45 am

    E.O.’s Athletic Club

    COMPANY, REHEARSAL

    Immersive / Dance
    Run Time: 11:45AM - 5:30PM: open-to-the-public rehearsal
    Free & Open to the Public

    REHEARSAL is an experimental, durational, and site-responsive art event that blurs creative process and performance.

  • November 5, 2026, 5:00 pm

    Five Points Plaza

    Chris Vitiello, The Language is Asleep

    Poetry / Spoken Word
    Run Time: 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM
    Free & Open to the Public

    “The Language Is Asleep” is a durational, interactive performance installation by Chris Vitiello (Durham Poet Laureate/Poetry Fox) that creates a dream space for language to rest, recover, and rejuvenate after hostile, divisive politics has exhausted it. Visitors can participate as they like—reading one-line poems, asking for a custom one, or writing their own and adding them to the piece. The public performance site is covered with torn-out dictionary pages with handwritten one-line poems, which visitors can take or add to at a writing station. Serving as an avatar for the sleeping language, Vitiello will drowsily inhabit the installation in an easy chair, writing poems continuously in a dictionary, tearing out the pages, and giving them to visitors. Visitors give him a word or story and Vitiello handwrites them a one-line poem on a dictionary page, tears it out, and gives it to them to keep. Previously written poems on dictionary pages will be on the walls and ground of the site, so people can stay to read a lot of them. They can also sit at a school desk with a dictionary and a marker to write their own one-line poems and add them to the installation or keep them.

  • November 5, 2026, 5:00 PM, 5:30 PM, 6:30 PM

    Skin & Bones Theater

    Anna Barker & Leif Gann Matzen – real.live.people, Astral Body

    Dance / Sound
    Run Time: 10 minutes

    Astral Body explores an exchange between body, object, and sound. Their collaboration considers attraction, resistance, proximity, and transformation- what passes between a body and the things around it. The work begins with an encounter and follows its reverberations: movement becomes response, objects become interlocutors, and sound creates an environment in which the body is continually shifting its orientation. Astral Body is an investigation of relationship, gravity, and the space between things.

  • November 5, 2026, 6:00 pm

    NorthStar Church of the Arts

    Tristian Griffin, THE BLACK PALIMPSEST

    Dance
    Run Time: 60 minutes

    A site-responsive choreographic and sonic work, each manifestation is transformed by the place in which it is created—listening to, absorbing, and responding to the histories, spirits, and traces embedded within the land. Rather than reconstructing the past, the work enters into dialogue with place, revealing how landscapes carry the enduring presence of those whose lives have shaped them. Through movement, sound, voice, and ritual, ancestral memory emerges. Stories of rupture and resilience, displacement and belonging, survival and transformation rise from the ground itself, illuminating histories that have been fragmented, overlooked, or deliberately erased. Every site becomes an active collaborator, informing the movement vocabulary, sonic environment, and dramaturgy through its physical, historical, and cultural presence. Guided by Tristian Griffin and an interdisciplinary collective of artists, THE BLACK PALIMPSEST searches for truths that exist between historical record and embodied knowing, attuning to the stories the archive cannot fully contain. In every landscape, THE BLACK PALIMPSEST becomes an act of witnessing, remembrance, and invocation—a space where land speaks, memory persists, ancestral presence gathers, and Black life continues to endure across time.

  • November 5, 2026, 6:00 pm

    Mettlesome Theater

    Kasey Kinsella, Zelda & Her Burning Bush

    Clown / Theater
    Run Time: 60 minutes

    Moses wasn’t the only one who can get coached to freedom by a prophetic burning bush. Zelda can. So can YOU. A life coach bent on liberation, Zelda shows us how to make contact. But the message isn’t what she expects. Something big is in the way, and audiences are invited to join Zelda in playing her way through.

  • November 5, 2026, 7:00 pm

    Living Arts Collective Ballroom

    Brooks Emanuel, liminal animal (blip)

    Dance
    Run Time: 40 minutes

    liminal animal (blip) is the most recent work building on Brooks Emanuel’s “liminal animal” performance practice, an improvisatory movement practice through which he investigates humans’ existence as biological beings and our place in the natural world. This iteration combines both live and projected movers, additional projection, and a sound score Brooks composed of his own field recordings of other creatures. The work is meant to be experienced equally as both gallery installation and performance. Audience members are invited to move around to take the work in from various perspectives but can also remain stationary. Previous audiences have called the work immersive and meditative.

  • November 5, 2026, 7:00 pm

    The Durham Fruit

    Janora McDuffie, Earth, Wind & Car Fire

    Theater
    Run Time: Less than 60 minutes

    Janora McDuffie returns to the Bull City with her bold, funny, and deeply personal solo performance about love, identity, and contradiction. From her Durham roots and early days in Atlanta to navigating life in Los Angeles, she takes audiences on an unexpected joyride from dating men to falling for a white cop—navigating race, sexuality, faith, and family along the way. As the world outside grows more divided, McDuffie is pushed to confront what it truly means to love across lines that society insists should not be crossed. Carried by a soulful rhythm, the piece blends humor, heart, and hard questions.

  • November 5, 2026, 7:00 pm

    Kingfisher

    Anthony Otto Nelson, Jr., IKIGAI

    Japanese Shodo Painting
    Run Time: 60 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    IKIGAI (生きがい) [ee-kee-guy]: The embodiment of self-realization, self-actualization, sense of fulfillment, and motivation to live and be alive. “A sense of being alive now, an individual’s consciousness as a motive to live.” – Akihiro Hasegawa. “IKIGAI” is a live mixed-media performance featuring traditional elements of Japanese Shodo Calligraphy, accompanied by live dance and an original sound score. Choreographed and composed by Anthony Otto Nelson, Jr., this work blends modalities of expression, using movement, ink, and sound to transmute emotion into an embodied experience.
    Shodo is a traditional art form using soft animal-hair brushes, special Japanese tatami paper, and sumi ink. Each paint stroke honors the 2,000-year-old practice of traditional Shodo calligraphy. This creates a canvas for expressing and emoting one’s lived experience, and a container for recentering and creating harmony within oneself.

  • November 5, 2026, 7:30 pm

    Arcana Durham

    Shea Stanley, Will Shea, Won’t Shea?

    Theater
    Run Time: 60 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    Inspired by the will-they/won’t-they relationships of our time (think Harry and Sally, Ross and Rachel), “Will Shea, Won’t Shea?” follows Shea as she tries to orchestrate the romantic comedy of her dreams. Playing every single character, Shea invites audiences to help her on her journey to answer the age-old questions: Is Shea just a lesbian? Does she want to f*ck Channing Tatum or just want him to respect her? And when will someone storm out of their big meeting to run to her in the rain and kiss her!? “Will Shea, Won’t Shea?” asks what happens when a queer woman forces her way into a traditional romantic comedy.

    This one woman show has had successful runs in London, the Edinburgh Fringe, and at Durham’s Mettlesome theatre.

    ☆☆☆☆ One4Review

    ☆☆☆☆ A Young(ish) Perspective

  • November 5, 2026, 8:00 PM, 10:00 PM

    Zeitgeist Bar

    Ivy Sublime, Lucky Strip Burlesque

    Variety Show
    Run Time: 60 minutes

    Ivy Sublime presents Lucky Strip Burlesque, a cabaret and variety show celebrating the art of the tease in the heart of the Bull City! Join Ivy and a cast of smokeshow performers as they entertain with dance, music, comedy, and of course, a little razzle dazzle. Warning! Burlesque shows may cause sweating, heart palpitations, an increased libido, and an uncontrollable desire to shout and cheer.

  • Friday, November 6 2026

    November 6, 2026, 10:00 am

    113 Orange Street, Durham

    Candy Carver, Find Your Glimmer

    Immersive Visual Art Installation
    Run Time: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
    Free & Open to the Public

    Though individual healing is valuable, collective healing is transformative. When we come together, we increase our capacity for resilience, compassion and empathy. Find Your Glimmer seeks to nurture this experience through affirmational text, interactive art design, and the creation of spaces where people can feel seen and empowered. Where we can all find our own personal glimmers. This is a multi media, black light activated, art installation that I began creating in 2021. It utilizes multiple surfaces and mediums to convey light filled messages and emotions with many moments of joy. It envelops the viewer in a warm hug of affirmations and is a reminder that art can be fun and meaningful at the same time.

  • November 6, 2026, 4:30 pm

    The Museum of Durham History

    KT Collective

    Dance
    Run Time: Less than 60 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    KT COLLECTIVE Dance Company will present Contemporary Jazz work performed in the outdoor foyer of the Museum of Durham History, a unique location just a walk up from the Carolina Theater and nearby Durham Arts Council. Families in the Triangle have a special history tied to this location as this historic bus stop was a gateway to experiencing the bustling culture of Downtown Durham.

  • November 6, 2026, 6:00 pm

    113 Orange Street, Durham

    Candy Carver I’m so Durham!

    Immersive Visual Art Installation
    Run Time: 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM
    Free & Open to the Public

    A glow-in-the-dark showcase within Find Your Glimmer installation celebrating the people and places of the Bull City.

  • November 6, 2026, 6:00 pm

    E.O.’s Athletic Club

    Bones & Memory Dance, Honky Tonk Tales

    Dance / Live Music
    Run Time: 30 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    “Honky Tonk Tales” is dance theater hootenanny created by Bones and Memory Dance. Join us for a site-specific work that weaves dance and live music together to present tales of Arelene Darlene and her Lonely Hearts Club Ladies. Audience members will enjoy an immersive dance experience accompanied by live original music from Bones and Memory Dance Music Director, William vonReichbauer and collaborators. This work is the perfect night out for dance and music lovers. Come laugh, love, and have a drink with Bones and Memory Dance! Under the direction of Heather vonReichbauer, Bones and Memory Dance is committed to captivating audiences through unique and authentic storytelling with work that is thoughtful and enjoyable for dance devotees and those new to dance alike.

  • November 6, 2026, 6:00 pm

    BOOM Club

    Saleem Reshamwala, Bird Drum Lounge

    Interactive Sound Installation
    Run Time: 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
    Free & Open to the Public

    Bird Drum Lounge is a drop-in interactive sound installation where visitors remix the birds of Durham using a live drum machine. The installation features video and audio field recordings of birds captured at the Ellerbee Creek trail area, the Eno River and surrounding habitats, all mapped to a Roland TR-8S drum machine, with synced bird footage projected in the space. The premise is simple: Remixing nature helps you pay attention to it in new ways, and forces you to truly listen. Visitors are invited to sit down, trigger rhythms, remix Durham’s natural soundscape and hear it all differently.

    Durham filmmaker Saleem Reshamwala (KidEthnic) and other occasional guest musicians will often play alongside visitors. Impromptu jams may arise. Bird samples will rotate daily, come through, decompress, and connect with nature in an odd new way.

  • November 6, 2026, 6:00 pm

    Mettlesome Theater

    Gerri Houlihan & Tanu Sharma, Offering

    Kathak & Modern Dance
    Run Time: about 40 minutes

    Offering was created in 2025/26 as a collaboration between Tanu Sharma, a classical Kathak dancer and the Big Red Dance Project. The BRDP is a collective of adults who challenge the stereotypes about aging and artistry. As artists, we met at the American Dance Festival’s commissioned program Made in NC. That performance resulted in a conversation in which we expressed our mutual interest in how classical Indian dance and Modern dance could engage with each other and expand possibilities for both.

  • November 6, 2026, 7:00 pm

    The Durham Fruit

    Janora McDuffie, Earth, Wind & Car Fire

    Theater
    Run Time: Less than 60 minutes

    Janora McDuffie returns to the Bull City with her bold, funny, and deeply personal solo performance about love, identity, and contradiction. From her Durham roots and early days in Atlanta to navigating life in Los Angeles, she takes audiences on an unexpected joyride from dating men to falling for a white cop—navigating race, sexuality, faith, and family along the way. As the world outside grows more divided, McDuffie is pushed to confront what it truly means to love across lines that society insists should not be crossed. Carried by a soulful rhythm, the piece blends humor, heart, and hard questions.

  • November 6, 2026, 7:00 pm

    Arcana Durham

    Stacy Wolfson – The Bipeds, Learn to Make Your Own Ghost

    Dance / Theater
    Run Time: Less than 60 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    For over a decade, Artistic Director Stacy Wolfson and Musical Director Curtis Eller have created music and choreography simultaneously through a unique collaborative process. From this collaboration emerges Learn to Make Your Own Ghost, an immersive evening-length work that confronts mortality with equal measures of wonder, wit, and irreverence. First conceived in 2020, the project was abandoned as the pandemic transformed its subject into a lived global reality. Years later, The Bipeds return to this work with renewed perspective, embracing the inevitability of death and the unknown that follows. The work unfolds through haunting, modular vignettes inspired by cultural rituals surrounding death, including the eerie pageantry of Victorian mourning traditions. Eller’s original songs create the spine of the work, while Wolfson’s choreography is generated through dancer-driven collaboration. Especially crafted for the Durham Fringe, audiences can expect to travel through the performance space, becoming witnesses in a living ritual where humor, mystery, and mortality collide.

  • November 6, 2026, 7:00 pm

    Living Arts Collective Ballroom

    Brooks Emanuel, liminal animal (blip)

    Dance
    Run Time: 40 minutes

    liminal animal (blip) is the most recent work building on Brooks Emanuel’s “liminal animal” performance practice, an improvisatory movement practice through which he investigates humans’ existence as biological beings and our place in the natural world. This iteration combines both live and projected movers, additional projection, and a sound score Brooks composed of his own field recordings of other creatures. The work is meant to be experienced equally as both gallery installation and performance. Audience members are invited to move around to take the work in from various perspectives but can also remain stationary. Previous audiences have called the work immersive and meditative.

  • November 6, 2026, 8:00 pm

    Kingfisher

    Anthony Otto Nelson, Jr., IKIGAI

    Japanese Shodo Painting
    Run Time: 60 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    IKIGAI (生きがい) [ee-kee-guy]: The embodiment of self-realization, self-actualization, sense of fulfillment, and motivation to live and be alive. “A sense of being alive now, an individual’s consciousness as a motive to live.” – Akihiro Hasegawa. “IKIGAI” is a live mixed-media performance featuring traditional elements of Japanese Shodo Calligraphy, accompanied by live dance and an original sound score. Choreographed and composed by Anthony Otto Nelson, Jr., this work blends modalities of expression, using movement, ink, and sound to transmute emotion into an embodied experience.
    Shodo is a traditional art form using soft animal-hair brushes, special Japanese tatami paper, and sumi ink. Each paint stroke honors the 2,000-year-old practice of traditional Shodo calligraphy. This creates a canvas for expressing and emoting one’s lived experience, and a container for recentering and creating harmony within oneself.

  • Saturday, November 7 2026

    November 7, 2026, 10:00 am

    113 Orange Street, Durham

    Candy Carver, Find Your Glimmer

    Immersive Visual Art Installation
    Run Time: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
    Free & Open to the Public

    Though individual healing is valuable, collective healing is transformative. When we come together, we increase our capacity for resilience, compassion and empathy. Find Your Glimmer seeks to nurture this experience through affirmational text, interactive art design, and the creation of spaces where people can feel seen and empowered. Where we can all find our own personal glimmers. This is a multi media, black light activated, art installation that I began creating in 2021. It utilizes multiple surfaces and mediums to convey light filled messages and emotions with many moments of joy. It envelops the viewer in a warm hug of affirmations and is a reminder that art can be fun and meaningful at the same time.

  • November 7, 2026, 10:00 am

    BOOM Club

    Saleem Reshamwala, Bird Drum Lounge

    Interactive Sound Installation
    Run Time: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
    Free & Open to the Public

    Bird Drum Lounge is a drop-in interactive sound installation where visitors remix the birds of Durham using a live drum machine. The installation features video and audio field recordings of birds captured at the Ellerbee Creek trail area, the Eno River and surrounding habitats, all mapped to a Roland TR-8S drum machine, with synced bird footage projected in the space. The premise is simple: Remixing nature helps you pay attention to it in new ways, and forces you to truly listen. Visitors are invited to sit down, trigger rhythms, remix Durham’s natural soundscape and hear it all differently.

    Durham filmmaker Saleem Reshamwala (KidEthnic) and other occasional guest musicians will often play alongside visitors. Impromptu jams may arise. Bird samples will rotate daily, come through, decompress, and connect with nature in an odd new way.

  • November 7, 2026, 11:00 am

    Cecy’s Gallery & Studios

    Anna Schroeder, Smashable Poems

    Poetry / Interactive Art Installation
    Run Time: about 30 minutes 11:00 AM & 12:30 PM
    Free & Open to the Public

    Smashable Poems is an interactive installation and performance featuring dozens of handmade ceramic objects, each containing a short poem by a local poet. During the performance, audience members will be invited to choose an object, smash it open, and discover the poem inside. The poems range from profound to silly, exploring ideas of fragility, release, and what we choose to hold onto. By turning destruction into an act of discovery, Smashable Poems invites us to consider what it means to let go, and to have a little fun in the process.

  • November 7, 2026, 2:00 pm

    The Durham Fruit

    Tori Grace Nichols, Squirrel of Slayville: A Drag Opera

    Drag Opera
    Run Time: 60 minutes

    Squirrel of Slayville: A Drag Opera. Inspired by events in 2022 in which white supremacists took out the power in Moore County, North Carolina to stop a drag show. This work seeks to flip the script, pop and lock, shut ‘em down and open up shop on the haters who thought they could take out the power in the middle of winter for a week and no one would bat an oversized eyelash. With the generous support of Blueprint NC, this theatrical work has been in the werks since 2023 and is a retelling of that attack from an empowered perspective of the people of Moore County and the drag artists who organized mutual aid for the 45,000 people left in the cold by an act of bigotry.

    The version presented at the FRINGE festival will include songs in progress and the story told in children’s book form, narrated by a drag queen. Featuring some of your favorite local drag artists, and a few familiar faces (and voices!) from COMMITTED: The Musical. Come celebrate the art of drag and the resistance and resilience of queer community and our allies. All ages, all families, all genders, all lovers of art and community welcome. The more flamboyant and sparkly, the better.

    A squirrel seeks a certain shimmer that once shone in streams and strobes across Slayville. Will Squirrel find their spark? Who can say?? Get thee to Slayville to find out!

  • November 7, 2026, 4:30 pm

    The Museum of Durham History

    KT Collective

    Dance
    Run Time: Less than 60 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    KT COLLECTIVE Dance Company will present Contemporary Jazz work performed in the outdoor foyer of the Museum of Durham History, a unique location just a walk up from the Carolina Theater and nearby Durham Arts Council. Families in the Triangle have a special history tied to this location as this historic bus stop was a gateway to experiencing the bustling culture of Downtown Durham.

  • November 7, 2026, 5:00 pm

    Cecy’s Gallery & Studios

    Takiri Academy, Takiri Folclor Latino

    Latin Dance / Fashion
    Run Time: about 45 minutes
    Free & Open to the Public

    Takiri Folclor Latino celebrates the vibrant traditions and artistic diversity of Latin America through movement, music, and design. This multidisciplinary performance brings together traditional folkloric dance and a fantasy folkloric fashion runway in a unique cultural experience. Audiences will enjoy dynamic choreographies representing diverse regions of Latin America alongside a “pasarela” featuring original fantasy folkloric designs by Colombian designers. Rather than showcasing traditional costumes in their original form, these imaginative creations draw inspiration from Latin American cultural dress, reinterpreting its colors, symbolism, and craftsmanship into dramatic, couture-style works of wearable art. The result is a striking fusion of heritage and creativity that honors tradition while embracing artistic innovation. Together, dance and fashion create a colorful and immersive showcase that highlights the richness, diversity, and enduring spirit of Latin American culture.

  • November 7, 2026, 7:00 pm

    Living Arts Collective Ballroom

    Kelvin Scopey Moseley, I Went Down to the Quasar

    Spoken Word / Live Music
    Run Time: Less than 60 minutes

    Turned away from looking for definitions and reasons, Pointed upward towards a not blinding light, this never jittery devotional uses improvisational blues, relationship and inquiry to experiment with next -epoch language, thought and familiarity. Hear the story “Abducted” that expresses the laughable challenges of being zapped by an unexpected feeling. With the backdrop of imagined Durham 3026. I Went Down to the Quasar is a rhythmic music and storytelling event.

  • November 7, 2026, 7:00 pm

    Provident1898

    Empowerment School of Movement, Mapping the Movement

    Dance
    Run Time: about 45 minutes

    Mapping the Movement: Where Black Durham Built launches a new storytelling initiative by Empower School of Movement exploring Durham’s Black artistic legacy through movement, music, memory, and place. Presented inside Provident1898 at the historic NC Mutual Tower, the performance brings generations of artists into a space shaped by Black vision, enterprise, leadership, and cultural life. Led and choreographed by Empower Founder and Artistic Director Nicole Miles, with featured choreography by guest artist Melvin Sutton, the program uses dance as its primary lens while opening the conversation to the wider Black artistic community. Contemporary and African diasporic movement, live rhythm, spoken word, and selected repertory from Empower’s season come together to consider not only what Black Durham built economically, but what it made possible creatively. The work asks how artistic lineage lives in place, what today’s artists inherit, and what they are responsible for carrying forward.

  • November 7, 2026, 8:00 pm

    NorthStar Church of the Arts

    Soul Understated featuring Mavis “SWAN” Poole

    Live Music / Vocalist
    Run Time: about 75 minutes

    Soul Understated featuring Mavis “SWAN” Poole is a genre-bending powerhouse at the intersection of soul, jazz, gospel, funk, and protest music. Led by vocalist/composer Mavis “SWAN” Poole and drummer/producer Jeremy “BEAN” Clemons, the group delivers a deeply felt, groove-forward sound that resonates from Harlem stages to international festivals. Together, Poole and Clemons have earned Grammy recognition both collaboratively and individually, establishing themselves as distinct yet perfectly aligned voices in contemporary Black music. Their music is rooted in legacy, authenticity, and a fearless commitment to pushing sound forward. North Carolina-born and New York-based, Mavis “SWAN” Poole is known for her extraordinary versatility, emotional depth, and commanding presence. A classically trained soprano with the soul of a freedom singer, she has performed alongside icons such as Prince, Lauryn Hill, Shirley Caesar, and Lalah Hathaway. Jeremy “BEAN” Clemons, a St. Louis native, has toured and recorded with Gregory Porter, Burning Spear, Roy Hargrove, and Sullivan Fortner. His drumming blends deep-pocket funk, jazz language, and gospel fire, while his production shapes the group’s signature sound. With lush harmonies, thought-provoking lyricism, and undeniable rhythm, Soul Understated doesn’t just perform—they testify. Their music speaks to love, liberation, struggle, and joy, creating an experience that is deeply personal, socially conscious, and impossible to ignore.

  • November 7, 2026, 8:00 pm

    113 Orange Street, Durham

    Candy Carver, Neon Hip Hop 90s Dance Party

    Dance Party
    Run Time: 4 hours

    Live DJ party inside of a glowing art installation. Neon fashion is encouraged.

  • November 7, 2026, 9:00 pm

    Club Era

    Austin “Royale” Copeland, PLAN|A The Coming of… (Ego Death)

    Live Music / Multimedia
    Run Time: about 75 minutes

    Austin Royale’s puts on his one-of-a-kind spin on a specialty show, telling a story of Ego Death and one’s self discovery via a live performance of his debut studio album; “PLAN|A The Coming of… (Ego Death)”. Along with incorporating aspects of live conceptual art in the performance, he also will be premiering the short documentary of the 5-7 year long process of the album conception and creation.

  • Sunday, November 8 2026

    November 8, 2026, 10:00 am

    113 Orange Street, Durham

    Candy Carver, Find Your Glimmer

    Immersive Visual Art Installation
    Run Time: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
    Free & Open to the Public

    Though individual healing is valuable, collective healing is transformative. When we come together, we increase our capacity for resilience, compassion and empathy. Find Your Glimmer seeks to nurture this experience through affirmational text, interactive art design, and the creation of spaces where people can feel seen and empowered. Where we can all find our own personal glimmers. This is a multi media, black light activated, art installation that I began creating in 2021. It utilizes multiple surfaces and mediums to convey light filled messages and emotions with many moments of joy. It envelops the viewer in a warm hug of affirmations and is a reminder that art can be fun and meaningful at the same time.

  • November 8, 2026, 10:00 am

    BOOM Club

    Saleem Reshamwala, Bird Drum Lounge

    Interactive Sound Installation
    Run Time: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
    Free & Open to the Public

    Bird Drum Lounge is a drop-in interactive sound installation where visitors remix the birds of Durham using a live drum machine. The installation features video and audio field recordings of birds captured at the Ellerbee Creek trail area, the Eno River and surrounding habitats, all mapped to a Roland TR-8S drum machine, with synced bird footage projected in the space. The premise is simple: Remixing nature helps you pay attention to it in new ways, and forces you to truly listen. Visitors are invited to sit down, trigger rhythms, remix Durham’s natural soundscape and hear it all differently.

    Durham filmmaker Saleem Reshamwala (KidEthnic) and other occasional guest musicians will often play alongside visitors. Impromptu jams may arise. Bird samples will rotate daily, come through, decompress, and connect with nature in an odd new way.

  • November 8, 2026, 5:00 pm

    Stanczyks

    Beaver Lodge Local 1504, Everything Is Coming Up Beaver

    Immersive Visual Art Installation
    Run Time: 60 minutes

    For over 20 years, the Beaver Lodge Local 1504 has staged the beloved, quirky, and family-friendly Beaver Queen Pageant every June in the Duke Park meadow. But what happens when the sun goes down and the beavers scamper out of the meadow? They devise an adults-only variety show called, “Everything Is Coming Up Beaver.” Hire a babysitter for the kits, and see what cheeky talents the Lodgefolk have hidden under their tails – furlesque, song and prance, and comedy that will make every beaver gush with laughter.

  • November 8, 2026, 6:00 pm

    Mettlesome Theater

    Kasey Kinsella, Zelda & Her Burning Bush

    Clown / Theater
    Run Time: 60 minutes

    Moses wasn’t the only one who can get coached to freedom by a prophetic burning bush. Zelda can. So can YOU. A life coach bent on liberation, Zelda shows us how to make contact. But the message isn’t what she expects. Something big is in the way, and audiences are invited to join Zelda in playing her way through.

  • November 8, 2026, 6:30 pm

    Living Arts Collective Ballroom

    Erim Akpan, The Royal Treatment: A Jester’s Court of Fun

    Jester
    Run Time: Less than 60 minutes

    Spend an evening as royalty, entertained by a bona fide modern jester! Interactive to the max, Sammy Sylvester—the greatest of jesters—brings a fun fusion of theater, circus arts, and music you won’t want to miss. Enjoy dazzling displays of juggling, beguiling brainteasers, the best (ie worst) Dad jokes, and a menagerie of hands-on games woven into delightful chaos. You’re not just a spectator: you’re part of the magic. With (inter)activities, riddles, and comedy throughout, the show is 98% audience participation and 100% shenanigans: strangers become collaborators and every moment is unforgettable. This performance is for audiences 5+ years old.

  • November 8, 2026, 7:00 pm

    The Durham Fruit

    Tori Grace Nichols, Squirrel of Slayville: A Drag Opera

    Drag Opera
    Run Time: 60 minutes

    Squirrel of Slayville: A Drag Opera. Inspired by events in 2022 in which white supremacists took out the power in Moore County, North Carolina to stop a drag show. This work seeks to flip the script, pop and lock, shut ‘em down and open up shop on the haters who thought they could take out the power in the middle of winter for a week and no one would bat an oversized eyelash. With the generous support of Blueprint NC, this theatrical work has been in the werks since 2023 and is a retelling of that attack from an empowered perspective of the people of Moore County and the drag artists who organized mutual aid for the 45,000 people left in the cold by an act of bigotry.

    The version presented at the FRINGE festival will include songs in progress and the story told in children’s book form, narrated by a drag queen. Featuring some of your favorite local drag artists, and a few familiar faces (and voices!) from COMMITTED: The Musical. Come celebrate the art of drag and the resistance and resilience of queer community and our allies. All ages, all families, all genders, all lovers of art and community welcome. The more flamboyant and sparkly, the better.

    A squirrel seeks a certain shimmer that once shone in streams and strobes across Slayville. Will Squirrel find their spark? Who can say?? Get thee to Slayville to find out!

  • November 8, 2026, 8:00 pm

    Living Arts Collective Ballroom

    CLOSING PARTY!

    Run Time:
    Free & Open to the Public

    Stay tuned for details.