Durham lights up new sculpture

A few nights ago, Retta Law glanced out the window of her home just across the street from the new Durham Performing Arts Center and stopped in her tracks.

A narrow beam of bright white light was shining straight up through the fog.

"It went up and up, as far as you could see," she said. "My husband was downstairs, and I called him and said, 'Come here, you have to see this.' It just about wiped me out."

What she had seen was the testing of the new light sculpture, "Sleep No More" by Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa, on the grounds of the DPAC.

On Monday night, Law and her husband, former Durham Bulls public address announcer Bill Law, walked over to join the crowd braving an icy wind to watch the sculpture light up again, this time officially, for the ribbon-cutting and open house marking the opening of the DPAC.

"It's nothing short of spectacular," she said, speaking of both the sculpture and the $44 million, 2,800-seat performance venue. "I think this city is so fortunate to have all of it. Durham has really come into its own. It's an art town, and I love it. I thought I would never feel this way about Durham."

The DPAC welcomed its first crowds Sunday night with a sold-out concert by B.B. King, but Monday's event was the official opening. A children's chorus preceded the lighting of the sculpture by singing, "This little light of mine/Durham's gonna let it shine," and Capitol Broadcasting CEO Jim Goodmon, who commissioned the sculpture and donated it to the city, introduced Plensa.

Plensa calls the light beam elements of his sculptures "bridges."

"To me, the important thing is bridges going vertically," he said. "Connecting Earth and heaven. Connecting body with soul. We will love to look up and walk up to the heavens."

Inside the airy, glass-walled DPAC, people listened to bands playing in the lobbies on all three floors and explored the auditorium.

Sandy Ogburn and her daughter, Erin Valentine, took seats in the very top row of the balcony, looking down at the spacious auditorium while the Chuck Davis African Dance Ensemble performed on the floor far below.

"It's a fabulous facility," said Ogburn, who served on the Durham City Council from 1987 to 1995. "In 1987, I started working on downtown redevelopment. I don't think anybody then could have really envisioned this. It's nice to sit here and think, 'It took a while, but we did good.' "