The School at Jacob’s Pillow
Musical Theatre Performance Ensemble

This performance took place on August 17, 2024.

Performances by The School at Jacob’s Pillow Performance Ensembles provide an inside look at The School experience and feature repertoire created on the dancers by leading choreographers who serve as program faculty. This performance was the culmination of the 2024 Musical Theatre Program, led by Choreographer/Directors Sekou McMiller, Luis Salgado, and Karla Puno Garcia.

Dancers of The School at Jacob’s Pillow are apprentices, trainees, pre-professionals, and early-career professionals from around the world. The School’s professional advancement programs are held onsite during the Festival to nurture the artistic voices and growth of the next generation of dance artists.

STREB

Digital Screening | December 1, 2021 – January 6, 2022

Bring Jacob’s Pillow home for the holidays with a special edition of STREB Extreme Action Company’s 2021 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival performance, featuring a unique retrospective of Elizabeth Streb’s work from the ’70s and ’80s alongside bonus behind-the-scenes and archival content.

The family-friendly performance will feature nearly 50 minutes of STREB Extreme Action Company’s performance on the outdoor stage at Jacob’s Pillow this summer, marking the company’s first return in over 20 years. The works included STREB’s signature style: bravery and sheer athleticism.

The company revisits a number of its early works, including a collection of founder and artistic director Elizabeth Streb’s classic solos from the 1970s-80s and several of her early equipment experiments from the 90s, placing them in direct contrast with the jaw-dropping extreme action opuses and large scale “action machines” the company has become known for in the 21st century. 

Explore past Pillow Performances and Essays on Jacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive:

• Elizabeth Streb in Little Ease (1985) in 1997
• Multimedia Essay: Women in Dance: Elizabeth Streb by Maura Keefe

Pillow Lab:
jumatatu m. poe and Jermone Donte Beacham

Residency: August 30 – September 10, 2021
Inside the Pillow Lab: October 21, 2021 at 7pm Eastern | Screened on YouTube

Choreographer and performer jumatatu m. poe is known for work that strives to engage and further dialogues with Black queer individuals, creating compelling and challenging work that recognizes History as only one option for the contextualization of the present. In the multi-year series Let ’im Move You, jumatatu m. poe and collaborator Jermone Donte Beacham distill decade-long research of J-Sette performance, a “high step” march popularized by the women’s majorette teams at historically Black colleges in the United States. An amalgam of the performance and complexities of Black joy, poe and Beacham investigate rhythm, pattern, and attention.

In August, poe, Beacham, and artist collaborators presented a site-specific iteration of the series through the works A Study and This is a Success around the Pillow’s campus as part of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival 2021. They continued development at the Pillow Lab with new components of the project before embarking on a five-city tour.

A short video docuseries that provides an intimate look at artists’ development process, titled “Inside the Pillow Lab,” will premiere October 21 on the Pillow’s YouTube channel. No additional registration is required for access.

PillowTalk: Elizabeth Streb

Digital Screening | Premieres September 3

A true original in the performing arts, Streb discusses her concepts of extreme action, which challenge the assumptions of art, aging, injury, gender, and human possibility.

PillowTalks are a curated series of entertaining and informative discussions with choreographers, writers, filmmakers, and cultural experts. Moderated by Pillow Scholars, PillowTalks provide an opportunity to gain behind-the-scenes insight into the field of dance. Hour-long PillowTalks take place on-site on Sundays at 3:30pm at Blake’s Barn (next to the Box Office), and are free and open to the public with advance registration. Recordings of online PillowTalks will be shared throughout the summer, premiering Fridays at 4pm, and remain on YouTube indefinitely.

The 2021 PillowTalk Series features conversations with Festival Artists like Ana Maria Alvarez, Artistic Director of CONTRA-TIEMPO, choreographer and founder of STREB Action Company, Elizabeth Streb; and former editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine Wendy Perron. For the first time, the PillowTalk Series will feature two exclusively online talks: one with MacArthur Fellows Saidiya Hartman and Okwui Okpokwasili; and another with South African artist William Kentridge.

This is an online film presentation of a live event that occurred at Jacob’s Pillow on August 22.

PillowTalk: Celebrating Warren Davis

Digital Screening | Premieres August 13

This craftsman who provided the Ted Shawn Theatre’s immense beams was a local hero, a pioneering Black businessman connected with W.E.B. DuBois. Local historian Bernard Drew will be in conversation with Director of Preservation Norton Owen, and members of Davis’s family will be in attendance.

PillowTalks are a curated series of entertaining and informative discussions with choreographers, writers, filmmakers, and cultural experts. Moderated by Pillow Scholars, PillowTalks provide an opportunity to gain behind-the-scenes insight into the field of dance. Hour-long PillowTalks take place on-site on Sundays at 3:30pm at Blake’s Barn (next to the Box Office), and are free and open to the public with advance registration. Recordings of online PillowTalks will be shared throughout the summer, premiering Fridays at 4pm, and remain on YouTube indefinitely.

The 2021 PillowTalk Series features conversations with Festival Artists like Ana Maria Alvarez, Artistic Director of CONTRA-TIEMPO, choreographer and founder of STREB Action Company, Elizabeth Streb; and former editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine Wendy Perron. For the first time, the PillowTalk Series will feature two exclusively online talks: one with MacArthur Fellows Saidiya Hartman and Okwui Okpokwasili; and another with South African artist William Kentridge.

This is an online film presentation of a live event that occurred at Jacob’s Pillow on August 1.

PillowTalk: CONTRA-TIEMPO’s Ana Maria Alvarez

Digital Screening | Premieres July 23

This impressive Cuban-American artist talks about her success in boldly traversing the worlds of social dance, political activism, community organizing, and art making.

PillowTalks are a curated series of entertaining and informative discussions with choreographers, writers, filmmakers, and cultural experts. Moderated by Pillow Scholars, PillowTalks provide an opportunity to gain behind-the-scenes insight into the field of dance. Hour-long PillowTalks take place on-site on Sundays at 3:30pm at Blake’s Barn (next to the Box Office), and are free and open to the public with advance registration. Recordings of online PillowTalks will be shared throughout the summer, premiering Fridays at 4pm, and remain on YouTube indefinitely.

The 2021 PillowTalk Series features conversations with Festival Artists like Ana Maria Alvarez, Artistic Director of CONTRA-TIEMPO, choreographer and founder of STREB Action Company, Elizabeth Streb; and former editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine Wendy Perron. For the first time, the PillowTalk Series will feature two exclusively online talks: one with MacArthur Fellows Saidiya Hartman and Okwui Okpokwasili; and another with South African artist William Kentridge.

This is an online film presentation of a live event that occurred at Jacob’s Pillow on July 11.

PillowTalk: William Kentridge: Starve the Algorithm

Digital Screening | Premieres July 2

South African artist William Kentridge collaborates with Wayne Ashley, Xander Seren, and Neil Souza in a Pillow-commissioned project envisioning a new virtual performing arts platform. This event is made possible by a gift from Hunter Runnette and Mark VandenBosch.

PillowTalks are a curated series of entertaining and informative discussions with choreographers, writers, filmmakers, and cultural experts. Moderated by Pillow Scholars, PillowTalks provide an opportunity to gain behind-the-scenes insight into the field of dance. Hour-long PillowTalks take place on-site on Sundays at 3:30pm at Blake’s Barn (next to the Box Office), and are free and open to the public with advance registration. Recordings of online PillowTalks will be shared throughout the summer, premiering Fridays at 4pm, and remain on YouTube indefinitely.

The 2021 PillowTalk Series features conversations with Festival Artists like Ana Maria Alvarez, Artistic Director of CONTRA-TIEMPO, choreographer and founder of STREB Action Company, Elizabeth Streb; and former editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine Wendy Perron. For the first time, the PillowTalk Series will feature two exclusively online talks: one with MacArthur Fellows Saidiya Hartman and Okwui Okpokwasili; and another with South African artist William Kentridge.

PillowTalk: Okwui Okpokwasili & Saidiya Hartman

Digital Screening | Premieres July 9

Two MacArthur Award recipients, multidisciplinary artist Okwui Okpokwasili and scholar Saidiya Hartman, come together for a meaningful discussion about the afterlife of slavery in modern American society and other timely topics.

PillowTalks are a curated series of entertaining and informative discussions with choreographers, writers, filmmakers, and cultural experts. Moderated by Pillow Scholars, PillowTalks provide an opportunity to gain behind-the-scenes insight into the field of dance. Hour-long PillowTalks take place on-site on Sundays at 3:30pm at Blake’s Barn (next to the Box Office), and are free and open to the public with advance registration. Recordings of online PillowTalks will be shared throughout the summer, premiering Fridays at 4pm, and remain on YouTube indefinitely.

The 2021 PillowTalk Series features conversations with Festival Artists like Ana Maria Alvarez, Artistic Director of CONTRA-TIEMPO, choreographer and founder of STREB Action Company, Elizabeth Streb; and former editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine Wendy Perron. For the first time, the PillowTalk Series will feature two exclusively online talks: one with MacArthur Fellows Saidiya Hartman and Okwui Okpokwasili; and another with South African artist William Kentridge.

PillowTalk: Ballet Coast to Coast

Digital Screening | Premieres September 10

Mirroring the current performance program, this discussion includes Pacific Northwest Ballet’s artistic director, Peter Boal, Houston Ballet’s Harper Watters, and Boston Ballet’s Lia Cirio, with Scholar-in-Residence Theresa Ruth Howard.

PillowTalks are a curated series of entertaining and informative discussions with choreographers, writers, filmmakers, and cultural experts. Moderated by Pillow Scholars, PillowTalks provide an opportunity to gain behind-the-scenes insight into the field of dance. Hour-long PillowTalks take place on-site on Sundays at 3:30pm (next to the Box Office), and are free and open to the public with advance registration. Recordings of online PillowTalks will be shared throughout the summer, premiering Fridays at 4pm, and remain on YouTube indefinitely.

The 2021 PillowTalk Series features conversations with Festival Artists like Ana Maria Alvarez, Artistic Director of CONTRA-TIEMPO, choreographer and founder of STREB Action Company, Elizabeth Streb; and former editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine Wendy Perron. For the first time, the PillowTalk Series will feature two exclusively online talks: one with MacArthur Fellows Saidiya Hartman and Okwui Okpokwasili; and another with South African artist William Kentridge.

This is an online film presentation of a live event occurring at Jacob’s Pillow August 29. If you are interested in booking a ticket to attend this event in-person, please click here.

PillowTalk: History of Jazz Dance

Digital Screening | Premieres August 27

As a foremost tradition-bearer of Black American social dance, LaTasha Barnes places jazz dance in the context of House, Hip-Hop, Waacking, and Lindy Hop.

PillowTalks are a curated series of entertaining and informative discussions with choreographers, writers, filmmakers, and cultural experts. Moderated by Pillow Scholars, PillowTalks provide an opportunity to gain behind-the-scenes insight into the field of dance. Hour-long PillowTalks take place on-site on Sundays at 3:30pm (next to the Box Office), and are free and open to the public with advance registration. Recordings of online PillowTalks will be shared throughout the summer, premiering Fridays at 4pm, and remain on YouTube indefinitely.

The 2021 PillowTalk Series features conversations with Festival Artists like Ana Maria Alvarez, Artistic Director of CONTRA-TIEMPO, choreographer and founder of STREB Action Company, Elizabeth Streb; and former editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine Wendy Perron. For the first time, the PillowTalk Series will feature two exclusively online talks: one with MacArthur Fellows Saidiya Hartman and Okwui Okpokwasili; and another with South African artist William Kentridge.

This is an online film presentation of a live event that occurred at Jacob’s Pillow on August 15.