Durham Herald-Sun Article

The recently eviscerated Herald-Sun gave durham3 a nice write-up. Hurrah Herald-Sun!! Boo company that bought it and fired a bunch of folks!! See it here

http://heraldsun.com/features/54-567591.html

or read it below.


Durham searches for its artistic niche

BY CYNTHIA GREENLEE-DONNELL : The Herald-Sun
mailto:Herald-Suncgreenlee@heraldsun.com
Jan 20, 2005 : 12:38 pm ET

DURHAM -- If Chapel Hill has been known for its indie-rock scene and Raleigh for its visual-arts galleries, the question remains: What is Durham known for as a creative community?
Durham residents Amy Nolan and Tanya Olson asked themselves this question one day while hanging out at The Cave in Chapel Hill.
"We thought Durham could be a really important place. But it didn't have a well-defined scene, though it had all these wonderful artists," said Olson, a poet and English teacher at an area community college.
With photographer Nolan, Olson is setting out to help Durham nail down its artistic identity. They have organized Durham3, a new showcase of artists and performers from Durham and the other two points of the Triangle, Raleigh and Chapel Hill-Carrboro.
Durham3 takes place at 7:30 p.m. tonight, with a multimedia menu.
Nolan, a former Meredith College student who coordinated the Stammer spoken-word and poetry series in Raleigh, said, Durham3 "is incorporating installation art, music, poetry, film and in the future, we hope, dance. ? We're trying to bring Durham together as a third space where people can come together."
Part of Durham3's debut will be a new film from Jason Klarl and Bill Weaver. Their documentary, "Michael Carpio: Radical Philosopher," is about a New Yorker who plays in a band and generates his own theories about just about everything.
This Durham3 -- two other installments are planned for February and March -- also presents Durham songwriter and 'zine editor Ruth Eckles; Carrboro poet laureate Patrick Herron; and spoken-word artist Dasan Ahanu.
Ahanu, a Raleigh native who moved to Durham in August, said that there aren't enough events like Durham3 in the city and the greater Triangle, especially when it comes to spoken-word artists or poets.
"There aren't enough venues for smaller arts events. There should be more art galleries and coffeehouses where you could have small theatrical productions and one-man shows. We lost a couple of [poetry] venues: the Cipher, and Yancey's shut down, we had the old Tobacco Warehouse, and Cosmic Cantina used to have events in the Lounge."
Nolan said that each event will have "a collaborative part where two different people from two different disciplines will come together to make art. I'm going to be doing an installation and visual art, as well as doing a film or PowerPoint presentation that will be behind Scott [Carey of Raleigh], as he plays this great, ambient music."
There also will be an open-microphone portion of the evening; performers will be able to sign up on site.
Durham3 aims to get artists to cross the physical boundaries that delineate the Triangle, and to cross creative ones that keep them confined to one genre. But it's also about artists getting to know one another and exploring some of those off-the-beaten-track Durham art spaces.
This first showcase will take place in a public loft space that's attached to a private home on Rigsbee Street. The location excites Olson, who said, "As part of [the owners'] living space, they made this performance area. I think that says a lot about Durham. How fascinating to think about taking your own private space and putting it forth for the community to use."
February's Durham3 will take place at The Know Bookstore, and the March event will be at Ooh-La-Latté coffeehouse.