Jessica VanderKolk Archives

Six college dance students perform in a rough line, leaning back and holding their hands forward. They are wearing pants with suspenders, buttoned shirts withy the sleeves rolled, and red bandanas on their heads.
Sep 30, 2025
  • Jessica VanderKolk

Fall dance production hopes to engage audiences in celebrating Motown music

From a Detroit factory assembly line to a neighborhood stoop and the street it stands on, East Carolina University dance students take audiences on a journey across the decades to...

Sep 29, 2025
  • Jessica VanderKolk

Communication research will study impact of AI in entertainment

Spend any time online lately and artificial intelligence (AI) will offer to answer your internet search query, summarize lengthy documents, improve the tone of your email, and seemingly endless other...

Sep 08, 2025
  • Jessica VanderKolk

ECU musicians create new music experience with electronics, percussion

When you click play on a digital song or drop the needle on a turntable, you expect to hear the same version of a song every time. East Carolina University...

Jun 25, 2025
  • Jessica VanderKolk

ECU festival connects young talent with renowned pianists

California teen Ari Nemet’s fingers flew across the keys as he played a Felix Mendelssohn composition on one of two side-by-side grand pianos on stage at East Carolina University’s A.J....

Jun 24, 2025
  • Jessica VanderKolk

Summer camps create community opportunity, fine arts pipeline

Incoming East Carolina University freshman Taylor O’Neal is flowing through the pipeline of School of Art and Design (SOAD) Summer Camp to ECU college student. O’Neal sat at a computer...

Jun 23, 2025
  • Jessica VanderKolk

New director Lavoie eager to build on strong ECU School of Theatre and Dance

As a playwright, East Carolina University’s new School of Theatre and Dance (SOTD) director has the unique distinction of seeing his work produced on all seven continents during his lifetime....

Jun 13, 2025
  • Jessica VanderKolk

Students, staff, alumni team up for “Much Ado About Nothing”

Those involved with a production of William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” at East Carolina University this weekend hope the audience sees that Shakespeare’s plays are relatable and and that...

Jun 04, 2025
  • Jessica VanderKolk
  • Patricia Earnhardt Tyndall

ECU professors share art, science, culture via Smithsonian exhibits

Visitors to Smithsonian museums this summer will have the chance to see art exhibits touched by two East Carolina University professors. Photography professor Daniel Kariko from the School of Art...

May 22, 2025
  • Jessica VanderKolk

ECU music students compose for high school alma maters in new recruitment effort

Two new East Carolina University Pirate alumni will experience music premieres this month thanks to a new School of Music recruitment program. Brody Hilton and Brett Howard, who both graduated...

Brinkley-Lane Scholar medallion in front of purple flowers.
May 21, 2025
  • Jessica VanderKolk

Brinkley-Lane Profile: Makakoa McGee

Makakoa McGee felt community when he stepped into Fletcher Music Center on a visit to East Carolina University and found the lobby filled with students. “I felt really comfortable there,...

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