The Jazz Loft Project presents “Hall Overton: Out of the Shadows” from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

On April 14, 2010, the Jazz Loft Project and the New York Public Library presented a program devoted to the monumental, behind-the-scenes influence of pianist, arranger, composer, teacher, and Jazz Loft veteran Hall Overton. Featuring Steve Reich, composer; Joel Sachs, conductor and pianist; Carman Moore, composer, arranger, and conductor; Ethan Iverson, composer and pianist; Sam Stephenson, Director of the Jazz Loft Project.

Catch up on recent Jazz Loft Project press and reviews on the Jazz Loft Project blog.

More recent Jazz Loft Project videos:

Interview with Sam Stephenson, author of The Jazz Loft Project from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

Author Sam Stephenson discusses his new book, The Jazz Loft Project. Published by Knopf and CDS Books at the Center for Documentary Studies.

Jazz Loft Project Oral History Interview with Drummer Ronnie Free from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

Ronnie Free began residency as the Jazz Loft house drummer in 1958, crashing on a recliner in W. Eugene Smith’s loft until early 1960. His drumming is documented on more than one hundred of Smith’s Jazz Loft reels, playing with the likes of Gerry Mulligan, Paul Bley, Freddie Redd, Gil Coggins, Sonny Clark, Warne Marsh, Henry Grimes, Zoot Sims, Eddie Costa, Hall Overton, Pepper Adams, and dozens more, including obscure figures such as Freddy Greenwell and Lin Halliday. Today, Free is the house drummer at the Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Virginia.

The Parade from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

Drummer Ronnie Free recites an original poem. Read more about Ronnie Free and his work on the website for the Jazz Loft Project.

Jazz Loft Project Oral History Interview with Ruth Fetske from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

Ruth Fetske befriended W. Eugene Smith while a student in a photography course he offered trough the New School. Festske, an advertising account executive, enrolled in the course to develop her eye for editing photos for fashion ads. She looked after the loft while Smith was in Japan from September of 1961 to September of 1962, and created a filing system to organize Smith’s negatives, contact sheets, and prints.

william eggleston’s memphis: photographs by joanna welborn

In fall 2008, photographer Joanna Welborn made portraits of William Eggleston at the offices of his archive in Memphis, Tennessee. Welborn joined her sister, Rebecca Bengal, who was researching a profile on Eggleston for New York Magazine, which ran on the occasion of Eggleston’s retrospective at the Whitney Museum. Welborn then spent time photographing throughout Memphis, at some of Eggleston’s favorite haunts as well as making photographs that evoke Eggleston’s own groundbreaking color images.

William Eggleston is the judge for the 2010 CDS/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography competition. Entries for the competition must be postmarked no later than September 8, 2010. For additional information about Eggleston’s work, and to view more of Joanna Welborn’s Memphis photographs, see below.

William Eggleston’s groundbreaking reinvention of color photography in the 1970s established him as one of America’s most original and influential artists. His landmark solo show at the Museum of Modern Art, curated by John Szarkowski, and the companion book, William Eggleston’s Guide (1976), brought Eggleston international acclaim and established him as the “father of color photography.” Szarkowski wrote of the photographs, “As pictures . . . these seem to me perfect: irreducible surrogates for the experience they pretend to record, visual analogues for the quality of one life, collectively a paradigm of a private view, a view one would have thought ineffable, described here with clarity, fullness, and elegance.” Eggleston’s other books and portfolios include Los Alamos, Election Eve, Flowers, Wedgwood Blue, Seven, Troubled Waters, The Louisiana Project, William Eggleston’s Graceland, The Democratic Forest, Faulkner’s Mississippi, Ancient and Modern, 5 x 7, Spirit of Dunkerque, 2 ¼, and William Eggleston: Paris. He has been a lecturer in Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University, a researcher in color video at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a recipient of awards and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Hasselblad Foundation, and PhotoEspaña. In 2004, he was awarded the Getty Images Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Center of Photography. Eggleston has also photographed on the sets of such filmmakers as John Huston, David Byrne, and Gus Van Sant, and he is the subject of Michael Almereyda’s documentary film William Eggleston in the Real World (2005). In 2008, the Whitney Museum of American Art, with Haus der Kunst in Munich, organized the retrospective exhibition William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961–2008.

DURHAM, N.C. — For the average movie-goer, the annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival will continue to be a four-day event where the latest and best nonfiction cinema from around the world will be shown each spring. In 2011, that means nearly 100 films, chosen from about 1,200 submissions, will be aired in downtown Durham from April 14 to 17.

Behind the scenes, the organizational structure for Full Frame will formally shift, with the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) at Duke University providing an institutional home for the festival. Full Frame will continue to operate out of its offices at the American Tobacco Campus in Durham with the same mission, staff and budget.

“While our connection to Full Frame goes back to its origins, we’re looking forward to working even more closely with the festival as we move ahead with exciting plans for year-round programming and other joint projects,” said CDS director Tom Rankin.

Duke President Richard H. Brodhead noted that the university and Full Frame “have been partners since the very beginning of the festival.  By broadening and deepening our relationship, the documentary arts will play an even greater role in the intellectual life of the university, and will bring that same vibrancy to the loyal and devoted fans of the leading documentary film festival in the country.”

The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival started in 1998 as the DoubleTake Documentary Film Festival, a project of the CDS. Five years later, the festival took a new name (Full Frame) and began operating as an independent nonprofit, a result of its tremendous growth and success.

Even after the change to nonprofit status, CDS continued its close association with the festival, and Duke became a lead sponsor. As Full Frame’s submissions and audiences grew, these affiliations developed further, to the extent that bringing the festival more formally into the overall organization of the CDS “made sense in order to take advantage of shared goals and long-term missions,” Rankin said.

“After the festival’s most successful season in recent history, it is a thrill to return Full Frame to its roots,” said Deirdre Haj, executive director of Full Frame. “At the same time, our future depends as much as ever on the support of filmmakers, audiences, funders and the local community as we move forward.”

In addition to getting to view top international films, festival-goers get to enjoy the presence and accessibility of top filmmakers, Rankin said. Over the years, that has included D.A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, Steven Soderbergh, Ken Burns, Rory Kennedy, Liz Garbus, Jehane Noujaim, Steve James, Ross McElwee, Laura Poitras, George Stoney, Barbara Kopple, Marco Williams, Judith Helfand, Werner Herzog and Mira Nair.

Submissions for the 2011 Full Frame Festival are currently being accepted (go to www.fullframefest.org for details).

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The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University was founded in 1989 to teach, present, produce, and support documentary photography, film, radio and writing. For more information about CDS, go to http://cds.aas.duke.edu.

For more information about the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, go to www.fullframefest.org.

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CONTACT: Lynn McKnight
(919) 660-3663
llm@duke.edu

Installation photograph of "Shared Origins: An Adoptive Family's Journey Back to Ethiopia"

Shared Origins: An Adoptive Family’s Journey Back to Ethiopia is on view at CDS through September 3, 2010.

Read the recent review of the exhibit by Blue Greenberg in Herald-Sun.

Mike Wiley introducing his students' work in progress, a play about the Freedom Riders, April 2010. Photograph by Bonnie Campbell.

Playwright and actor Mike Wiley, who has more than twelve years of credits in theater for young audiences and in film, television, and regional theater, is the Visiting Joint Chair Professor in Documentary Studies and American Studies at Duke and UNC–Chapel Hill in spring and fall 2010. The Center for Documentary Studies coordinates the Lehman Brady Chair professorship, which brings distinguished writers, photographers, filmmakers, and other practitioners and scholars of the documentary arts to Duke and UNC to teach courses on both campuses and engage in lectures, screenings, and other events for students, faculty, and the general public. Mike Wiley’s work focuses on expanding cultural awareness through dynamic portrayals based on pivotal moments in African American history, which he hopes will unveil a richer picture of the total American experience. His expanding repertoire of original productions displays his acclaimed ability to bring to life multiple intertwined characters, with Wiley often portraying more than two dozen persons in a single “one-man” drama.

special opportunity for new duke students: august 28 performance of dar he: the story of emmett till
On August 28, Duke students will have an opportunity to go behind-the-scenes at one of Mike Wiley’s productions. In a trip to the legendary Manbites Dog Theater in downtown Durham, students will learn about  how a regional theater produces new and challenging pieces, showcases and nurtures developing playwrights, directors, and actors, and facilitates cross-displinary and cross-community projects. Wiley will be performing Dar He: The Story of Emmett Till. Duke students can register for this opportunity on the Student Affairs website.

fall 2010 course
This fall Wiley is also teaching a course, “Staging History.” Utilizing the research and development garnered in his spring 2010 undergraduate course, this class will shape, rehearse, and stage the world premiere of Breach of Peace, a documentary play based on the 1961 Freedom Rides. Freedom Riders were integrated groups of black and white civil rights activists who rode Greyhound buses into the South to challenge segregation laws. This hands-on course is intended for undergraduates and community members. It will delve into race, gender, and class identity in 1961 America. This is an opportunity to step into the shoes of a powerful variety of Civil Rights icons. No experience with historical research or theatrical production is necessary. Many kinds of talent are necessary and anyone can make a valuable contribution on stage or off.

Registration information for “Staging History”: undergraduates | general public/continuing education

details of mike wiley’s spring 2010 courses at duke and unc:

In Wiley’s spring 2010 courses at Duke and UNC, students learned about the history and methodology of documentary theater and engaged in their own fieldwork in order to research, write, and perform a play focusing on the Freedom Riders of 1961. These civil rights activists boarded buses and traveled through the South to challenge widespread segregation on public transportation, which had supposedly been outlawed by the 1960 Boynton v. Virginia Supreme Court decision. The Freedom Riders provoked violent reactions and many were arrested and served sentences.

As part of their research, Wiley’s students read archival materials, such as journals and letters, and watched and listened to film and audio recordings. Some students conducted oral history interviews with surviving Freedom Riders. Wiley will work with Tim Tyson, Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies, to edit the final play, based on students’ research, writings, and in-class improvisations. In the fall, the play will be performed at Duke and UNC. The play will also travel to Mississippi, where it will be staged at various churches during spring break 2011, and in May 2011, the play will travel to Jackson, Mississippi, during the 50th anniversary celebration of the Freedom Rides.

the following excerpt is edited from a longer interview with mike wiley, conducted by lauren hart of cds:

lh: Describe your class and the project your students are working on.

mw: Each time we meet, we discuss different points of history dealing with the Freedom Riders. In doing that, we do improvisations, which is really my own personal style of writing. It’s taking a bit of research that I’ve done and improv’ing interesting parts from it to see what I think would be dramatic, to see what I think would work well on stage, and then fine-tuning that. Eventually it becomes a scene, or perhaps even an entire play. But the idea is to take these improvs and use them as, for lack of a better term, spitball ideas, that can eventually make their way into a fully dramatic piece. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but I’m really teaching these students how to go about doing it from the ground up.

lh: How do you conduct research for a historical play?

mw: Archive research, oral histories, diaries, journals, film, audio recordings, anything we can get our hands on to fully flesh out the piece, because the idea, especially with documentary theater, is to get multiple versions of the truth. This goes without saying; it’s really hard to get to the truth of many pieces of history, especially Civil Rights history. And so, with documentary theater, especially the way that I do it, and several other folks in the field do it, you take multiple versions of the truth and you put them on stage. You give the audience the opportunity to decide, what is the truth and what is not. As Peter Brook says, there are three versions of the truth: my truth, your truth, and the truth, and by putting the multiple versions of the truth onstage, maybe, somewhere in the middle we find what the actual truth is.

lh: What do you think makes documentary theater, as a medium, different from other forms of documentary work?

mw: The first thing that pops into my head is the audience, the immediate audience feedback that a piece of theater can incite. There is no dividing wall, because it’s live theater, and typically this kind of theater, documentary theater, is developed to incite some sort of social change, some change within the audience, within society, within ourselves, the performers on stage. Documentary photography and film and other medi- ums, they do provide that in certain ways, but unlike documentary theater, that stuff stops at the footlights. They can’t really reach out and—physically sometimes—grab an audience. With documentary theater, you have the opportunity every night to hone your craft, to move an audience in a different way. You can change a performance to change somebody’s heart.

lh: How did you get into this type of theater?

mw: I came to it out of my love for history, out of the necessity to employ myself as an artist, out of, specifically, my inter- est in the subject matter I typically focus on: the Civil Rights movement, or African American history. I started doing predominantly that because I felt that school audiences, that is, elementary, middle, high school, college audiences, just were not versed in multiple versions of the truth. I was reading and seeing that students were coming away from classes with one particular idea of who led the Civil Rights movement, one particular idea of what slavery life was like. And I thought, that’s not what history is. . . . There are multiple stories from multiple individuals and to deny one story is to deny everyone’s story.

lh: Can you talk about your goals for the Freedom Riders project, in addition to touring the play?

mw: My main focus is to produce the play and make it a touring entity, whether it’s students [performing] in the spring or whether it’s professional actors. My hope is that it will be students. So that not only are they doing good work because they’re doing the work of truth and reconciliation, but they’re getting something that very few artists, especially actors, get the opportunity to do while they’re in school, and that is to perform professionally in front of audiences that aren’t other students. And they’re doing it in multiple locations, so they’re getting the opportunity, the experience, to be true touring actors. Very, very seldom do students get that opportunity. It’s just one thing that’s not focused on, unfortunately, in schools.

This interview originally appeared in the spring 2010 issue of Document.

more about mike wiley:

Mike Wiley is the Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor in Documentary Studies and American Studies at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for spring and fall 2010. Formerly of Theatre IV and Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, Wiley has more than twelve years of credits in theater for young audiences, plus film, television, and regional theater. An Upward Bound alum and Trio Achiever Award recipient, he is an M.F.A. graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A gifted playwright and actor, Wiley’s overriding goal is expanding cultural awareness for audiences of all ages through dynamic portrayals based on pivotal moments in African American history and, in doing so, helping to unveil a richer picture of the total American experience. Sought by performing arts centers large and small and by educators from middle schools to universities, Wiley’s work will also be featured in the 2009 National Black Theatre Festival. He has been jury-selected for professional industry showcases by both the Midwest Arts Federation and Southern Arts Federation. His expanding rich repertoire of original productions each display his acclaimed ability for bringing to life multiple intertwined characters, with Wiley often portraying more than two dozen persons in a single “one-man” drama. His work includes Blood Done Sign My Name; Life Is So Good; Tired Souls: The Montgomery Bus Boycott; Dar He: The Story of Emmett Till; Jackie Robinson: A Game Apart; Brown v. Board of Education: Over Fifty Years Later; and One Noble Journey: A Box Marked Freedom.

Click here for more information about CDS workshops and institutes

Creatively Charged: Paperhand Puppet Intervention from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

about FACE: Taking Science Out of the Lab and Into the Woods from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

Backyard Bounty from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

Caution! Lead Paint from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

Durham Bike Co-op: Recycle Toward a Sustainable Future from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

Green McDonald’s Guy from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

Hard Work from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

Knickknack: A Story of Durham’s Creative Reuse from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

Planting SEEDS: A Garden for Inner-City Youth from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

Stain Removal from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

Trash Mountain from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

Watch Me Grow from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

Students of the 2010 Audio Institute logging audio. Photograph by Maggie Smith. July 30, 2010.

photos from the summer audio institute hearing is believing

In this weeklong, morning-till-night immersion in audio documentary work, students learn hands-on skills in recording and digital audio mixing, discuss issues such as the ethics of documentary work, explore varied uses for audio documentaries, and hear accomplished producers play and talk about their work in evening presentations.

Final projects can be found on the CDS iTunesU site, under the Audio Institutes tab (scroll to the bottom of the tab).

More information about CDS Workshops and Institutes

Instructor and documentary audio producer Shea Shackelford (left) with a student of the 2010 Audio Institute. Photograph by Alesandra Zsiba. July 25, 2010.

CDS instructor John Biewen demonstrating microphone techniques to 2010 Audio Institute students. Photograph by Maggie Smith. July 25, 2010.

Students and instructors from the 2010 Audio Institute. Photograph by Maggie Smith. July 31, 2010.

Audience at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival Movies on the Lawn series. Photograph by Maggie Smith. July 2, 2010.

photos from full frame documentary film festival movies on the lawn series

This summer the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is screening four films with an entertaining take on sustainability and the environment. Selections include highlights from the 2010 festival, along with other new and older works. Free and open to the public, the films begin at dusk on the main lawn of the American Tobacco Campus.

The final film of the season will be Gasland, which will be screened September 3 at 9 p.m.

Full Frame Festival staff at the Movies on the Lawn screening. From left to right: Production Designer Ryan Helsel, Director of Programming Sadie Tillery, Executive Director Deirdre Haj. Photograph by Maggie Smith. July 2, 2010.

Audience at Full Frame Movies on the Lawn series - screenshot from the movie "Wasteland." Photograph by Maggie Smith. July 9, 2010.

Audience at Full Frame Movies on the Lawn series - screenshot from the movie "Wasteland." Photograph by Maggie Smith. July 9, 2010.

Instructor Ava Johnson (right) reviews photographs with a student in the summer Intro to Photography course. Photograph by Maggie Smith. June 21, 2010.

cds summer undergraduate course - intro to photography

This summer CDS offered two sections of  the undergraduate course “Intro to Photography,” taught by Ava Johnson. The courses serves as a foundation class in the black-and-white photographic process and for using photography as a visual language. Assignments include portraits, alternative techniques, landscapes, and a final portfolio that embodies a single visual idea.

More information about CDS Undergraduate Education and upcoming courses

Student reviewing film for the Intro to Photography summer course, taught by Ava Johnson. Photograph by Maggie Smith. June 26, 2010.

Instructor Ava Johnson (far left) watching a slideshow with students in the summer Intro to Photography course. Photograph by Maggie Smith. July 12, 2010.

Photographs for an assignment taken by students in the Intro to Photography summer course, taught by Ava Johnson. Photograph of exhibition by Maggie Smith. June 21, 2010.

Signs commemorating the work of the Kitchen Sisters at the "Reality Radio" performance and book signing at the American Tobacco Campus. Photograph by Maggie Smith. July 26, 2010.

photos from the reality radio performance and book signing with the kitchen sisters
July 26, 2010
Held in conjunction with the CDS summer Audio Institute, Hearing is Believing

More about the CDS publication Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound

The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson, left, and Nikki Silva, right) answering questions at the "Reality Radio" performance and book signing at the American Tobacco Campus. Photograph by Maggie Smith. July 26, 2010.

"Reality Radio" editor John Biewen introducing the Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson, sitting left, and Nikki Silva, sitting right) at the "Reality Radio" performance and book signing at the American Tobacco Campus. Photograph by Maggie Smith. July 26, 2010.

"Reality Radio" editor John Biewen with contributors Katie Davis and the Kitchen Sisters at the "Reality Radio" performance and book signing at the American Tobacco Campus. From left to right: Nikki Silva, John Biewen, Davia Nelson, and Katie Davis. Photograph by Maggie Smith. July 26, 2010.