The Library Party is a unique Duke tradition. For one night only, Perkins and Bostock Libraries throw open their doors for a night of music, food, and un-shushed entertainment. The event is free and open to the entire Duke community.
After a year on hiatus as we prepared for the Rubenstein Library renovation, the Library Party is back! Once again, the Libraries are partnering with the Duke Marketing Club to organize this year’s event. The theme—“Life is a Cabaret”—is inspired by an upcoming exhibit on 19th- and early-20th-century Parisian cabarets that will be on display in the Perkins Gallery February–May, with a companion exhibit at the Nasher Museum’s Academic Focus Gallery.
Life Is a Cabaret will feature live music, costumes, decorations, food and beverages, and plenty of joie de vivre!
When: Friday, February 21
Time: 9 PM to Midnight
Where: Perkins Library
Admission: Free
Dress: Cocktail Attire, or Your Best Cabaret Costume
Students: Never been to a Library Party? Check out these images, videos, and recaps from our Heroes and Villains Library Party in 2012 and the Mad Men and Mad Women Library Party in 2011.
Many thanks to the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, Duke Student Government/SOFC, George Grody, and the Markets and Management Studies Department for sponsoring this event.
Stay tuned for more updates!
About the Exhibit
Cheap Thrills: The Highs and Lows of Cabaret Culture in Paris, 1880-1939
On display in the Perkins Library Gallery, February 18 – May 12
This upcoming exhibit offers a whirlwind tour of Montmartre’s famed late-19th-century musical revues—the Chat Noir, Folies Bergère, and Moulin Rouge—which boasted such chanteuses as Yvette Guilbert and Josephine Baker. Cheap Thrills highlights the Libraries’ extensive collection of cabaret-related materials, including biographies, guidebooks, periodicals, and musical scores. The exhibit will be sonified, with recreated performances of the cabarets’ raucous ballads and rallying performances, all arranged and recorded by the Duke New Music Ensemble.
Companion Exhibit:
Night in the City of Light: Paris’s Cabarets, 1881-1914
On display in the Nasher Museum of Art’s Academic Focus Gallery, February 15 – June 29
Related Performances and Screenings
Saturday, March 22 (2-4:45 pm): Film Screenings and Discussion: “French Cabaret from Stage to Screen,” Nasher Museum of Art
Sunday, April 6 (5 pm): Duke New Music Ensemble [dnme] presents “Melodies and Cacophonies from Paris’s Cabarets,” Fullsteam Brewery, Durham
Sunday, April 13 (8 pm): Duke New Music Ensemble [dnme] Spring Concert with selections of cabaret melodies to coincide with the exhibitions “Night in the City of Light: Paris’s Cabarets, 1881-1914” and “Cheap Thrills: The Highs and Lows of Cabaret Culture in Paris, 1881-1939,” Baldwin Auditorium, Duke East Campus
Outstanding! I cannot wait to attend.