NEW: Reimagining Arts, Ethics, and Democracy – 2025

Overview

Athens, Greece, long synonymous with democracy, has faced myriad crises over the past 15 years, challenging its democratic principles. Over this same time period, Athens has evolved into a hub for artists and activists, redefining itself as a hotbed for urgent, socially conscious artistic movements.

This new DukeEngage program invites a group of Duke undergraduates to work closely with Athens’ artistic communities through an innovative, collaborative project. In the summer of 2025, choreographer and Duke professor Michael Kliën will hold an eight-week participatory exhibition titled Parliament at Athens’ prestigious Benaki Museum. With “Parliament,” Duke undergraduates will have a hands-on role in realizing a significant international arts exhibition, while building relationships with the vibrant creative practitioners who shape the community.

These experiences will develop and strengthen Duke students’ abilities to:

• analyze and address complicated social, political, and ethical issues through movement, community engagement, and art-making
• connect and apply knowledge from the DukeEngage experience to their area of study, using it to reimagine rigid theories and challenge obsolete frameworks of social conditioning

Community Partnerships

Participants will be involved full-time with the production of Parliament, by – at different times – taking part in the performance, serving as guides to visitors, supporting post-performance discussions between participants, assisting in the realization of a lecture series which will take place concurrent with the exhibition, and generally learning what happens behind the scenes to sustain a full-scale exhibition at a major institution.

The exhibition will involve 10 social organizations across the city of Athens, likely to represent fields such as healthcare, the environment, LGBTQI+ advocacy and more. Based on participants’ own interests, there will be opportunities for further engagement with these organizations through the context of the exhibition.

Additionally, each participant will be guided to propose and implement their own social choreographic intervention in the city, thus further extending the exhibition beyond the walls of the museum. As the museum is only open four days a week, one day of the workweek will be dedicated to participants’ personal creative development as well as social contextualization regarding present-day Athens in order for Duke students to better understand the city and its communities.

 

Requirements

Language: Knowledge of modern Greek is not expected, but would be beneficial. Students will take introductory Greek lessons a few mornings per week in order to offer them basic language skills to aid in their engagement with the city.

Coursework: All majors or academic backgrounds are welcome. Students who want to be especially well-prepared are encouraged to take Dance 462 ‘Performing Social Choreography’ in the spring semester—but this is not required.

Skills: No specific skills are required, but previous experience with creative production of any kind is beneficial. Still, those with little arts background, but a passion for democracy, experiments and critical thinking are encouraged to apply!

Personal Qualities: Flexible, outgoing, enjoys working with others, willing to take initiatives, comfortable with unstructured time and creative risk-taking. An ability to make something–anything–rather than break something down will be valued. When something is truly “creative,” it envisions an alternative and conjures an image of how things might be!
This program is designed as an immersive experience for Duke students to learn from and with creative practitioners and a city’s diverse communities. The exhibition is a living, unfolding process—students should not expect a rigidly pre-planned schedule, but should be prepared to adapt to the circumstances and develop their own meaningful forms of engagement with Parliament and the citizens of Athens.

 

Logistics

Housing, meals, and transportation: Participants will be housed in apartments in the center of Athens, shared between two to six Duke students. These will be fully equipped with kitchens, bathrooms, etc. Students will be provided with a stipend for groceries and are responsible for preparing their own breakfast and dinner. On days when the exhibition is running, there will be team lunches at the exhibition. Scheduled program activities will utilize public transportation wherever feasible. Public transportation in Athens is extensive and widely used by local residents and tourists alike. It will be used by program participants to travel to and from the museum as well as most group activities.

Local safety, security, and cultural norms: We encourage students who have questions or concerns about health or safety in international programs to check Duke’s International SOS (ISOS) portal for relevant information. If you have special needs related to health, culture, disability, or religious practices, please contact the program director(s) or the DukeEngage office to discuss whether your needs can be accommodated in this program.

For guidance on how race, religion, sexual/gender identity, ability, or other aspects of identity might impact your travels, we suggest exploring the Diversity, Identity and Global Travel section of the DukeEngage website.

 

Academic Connections

This program is open to all and might especially appeal to students taking courses in Cultural Anthropology, Education, English, History, International and Comparative Studies, the Performing Arts, Political Science, Psychology, Visual Media Studies. Students who participate in this program might go on to pursue the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Certificate, a Bass Connections and/or Story+ project, a Benenson Awards in the Arts, and/or a Thesis/Independent Research Project.