Virtual Pillow: Celebrating Isadora Duncan

With Lori Belilove and Sara Mearns

Jacob’s Pillow on YouTube | Wednesday, May 27, 2020 | 5pm EDT

In celebration of modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan’s 143rd birthday, Jacob’s Pillow will screen an incomparable program of Duncan dances prefaced by a live online conversation with two of the artists. 

Performed by Lori Belilove and the Isadora Duncan Dance Company, with guest artist Sara Mearns of the New York City Ballet, this outdoor presentation on the Pillow’s spectacular Inside/Out Stage from Festival 2019 showcases Duncan’s work in an unforgettable setting. 

Tune in on Wednesday, May 27 at 5pm to hear Lori Belilove and Sara Mearns in conversation with Director of Preservation Norton Owen, all of whom will be online after the 40-minute video to respond to your questions and comments directly in the chat.

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The Art of Isadora is comprised of solos and group works from the repertory of Isadora Duncan. Stagings and recreations by Lori Belilove, Artistic Director of the Isadora Duncan Dance Company. With guest artist Sara Mearns. Company Dancers: Nikki Poulos, Hayley Rose, Emily D’Angelo, Faith Kimberling, Rebecca Allen, Caroline Yamada.

Click here to view the full program.

A Virtual Event Supporting Jacob’s Pillow
June 20, 2020 | 7pm EDT

Hosted by Wendy Whelan and Kyle Abraham

Featuring performances by A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, Michelle Dorrance, Irene Rodríguez, Jabu Graybeal, Daniel Ulbricht & Danielle Diniz, Christopher R. Wilson, and more!

Closed captioning in English is available for this video. Click here to view a PDF of the show program.

Join us online for a very special evening, as Jacob’s Pillow—the only National Historic Landmark dedicated to dance—celebrates the magic and talent of a world of artists finding new ways to come together. In addition to one-time-only performances, Dance We Must includes pop-up visits by Artistic Directors from around the world, surprise guests, and the presentation of the 2020 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award.

Connect with the joy and transformative power of dance as we navigate these uncertain times.

For 88 years, Jacob’s Pillow has been hallowed ground for dancers and all who love dance. After canceling our Festival for the first time in our history, we are doing everything possible to keep the dance community around the world connected. We are working to be a virtual crossroads for the field while sustaining our key programs, buildings, and grounds to stay strong for when artists and audiences can come together again.

Dance We Must will support the Pillow in continuing to serve as a beacon for dance while helping the communities we serve across the globe and in our region.

For questions, contact Ina Clark, Director of Philanthropy, at [email protected].

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Dance We Must Committee

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Ted Shawn Illustration © The Al Hirschfeld Foundation. www.AlHirschfeldFoundation.org

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Special Thanks to our Event Producer:

This event took place February 22, 2020.

Between me and the other world
by Zaccho Dance Theatre

Saturday, Feb 22, 2020
Pre-Show panel at 6pm
Performances at 7, 7:30, 8, 8:30, 9, and 9:30pm

Co-presented by The Town of Great Barrington’s W.E.B. Du Bois Legacy Committee, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, BRIDGE, MCLA Presents!, and MCLA Institute for Arts and Humanities

If inclement weather: Snow date is Sunday Feb 23

San Francisco-based choreographer, director, and performance innovator Joanna Haigood explores issues of race and identity in her performance installation, Between me and the other world, a dynamic exploration of scholar and Great Barrington-born civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois’ seminal work The Souls of Black Folk, as part of the Legacy Committee of the Town of Great Barrington’s annual birthday celebration of  W.E.B. Du Bois.

Between me and the other world was created in collaboration with composer Dr. Anthony Brown, video artist David Szlasa, and scenic designer Sean Riley, who collectively recontextualize Du Bois’ ideas through live performance, contemporary imagery sourced from current events, and a sonic terrain that travels spirituals, jazz, and a 21st century postmodern soundscape.

In the performance installation, audiences are welcome to move around the space and meander between moving projections and dancers for different vantage points. Rotating performances loop every 30 minutes.

The performance is co-presented by The Town of Great Barrington’s W.E.B. Du Bois Legacy Committee, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, BRIDGE, MCLA Presents!, and MCLA Institute for Arts and Humanities. Additional sponsors include Berkshire Bank Foundation, Greylock Federal Credit Union, and The Du Bois Center at Great Barrington. In partnership with NAACP Berkshire County Branch, Boys & Girls Club of the Berkshires, Discover Pittsfield’s 10×10 Upstreet Arts Festival, and First Congregational Church, Great Barrington.

Haigood’s week-long residency that precedes the engagement is made possible with additional support from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

The partners thank The Ford Foundation for its leadership support to make this celebration possible.

Want more? On Feb 15, join Joanna Haigood for a free public movement workshop, Such is our soul, at the Boys & Girls Club of the Berkshires in Pittsfield.

 

 

 

 

Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Boléro by Vuyani Dance Theatre
Feb 1, 2020 | 8pm

Co-Presented with MASS MoCA

Gregory Maqoma, one of South Africa’s most celebrated artists, returns to MASS MoCA with Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Boléro. Carried by the transformative singing of an African choir, the work weaves a narrative of greed, power, and the pain of mourning with a moving live score interrogating Ravel’s music through South African vocal traditions. Maqoma founded Vuyani Dance Theatre in 1999 with the vision to build a platform for artists in South Africa and beyond—where collaboration could be a catalyst for breaking cultural barriers. Maqoma’s collaborations with top artists from around the globe include William Kentridge’s acclaimed production The Head and the Load and Idris Elba and Kwame Kwei-Armah’s new multimedia musical Tree, among others.

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This event has been cancelled.

Deep Blue Sea: Bill T. Jones | Diller Scofidio + Renfro | Peter Nigrini
Mar 21, 2020 | 8pm

Co-Presented with MASS MoCA

Deep Blue Sea, which will have its world premiere in April at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City, is a culmination of years of work by the iconic Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award-winning choreographer Bill T. Jones. This work-in-progress performance follows an artist residency that will transform MASS MoCA’s largest venue, the Hunter Center, which will be stretched to the very limits of its physical capacity. The work, a meditation on the nature of finding community in this confusing era of ours, will eventually incorporate a cast of 100 performers.

Jones conceived this highly personal work in pursuit of the elusive “we” during these fractious times through a cast of 100 dancers/community members led by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, a deconstructed text from Martin Luther King Jr.‘s “I Have a Dream” speech, and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. The large-scale project’s collaborators include Elizabeth Diller of the renowned architecture team Diller Scofidio + Renfro, projection designer Peter Nigrini, and lighting designer Robert Wierzel. The soundscape is an original composition by Nick Hallett with an electronic component by New York-based music producer Hprizm aka High Priest.

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ink by Camille A. Brown & Dancers
Nov 2, 8pm & Nov 3, 2pm, 2019

Co-Presented with MASS MoCA

ink, the final installation of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award-winning choreographer Camille A. Brown’s trilogy about identity (along with Mr. TOL E. RAncE and BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play), celebrates the rituals, gestural vocabulary, and traditions that remain ingrained within the lineage of the African Diaspora. Reclaiming African-American narratives by examining the culture of black life that is often appropriated, rewritten, or silenced—the choreography is an amalgamation of African-American social dance, African, tap, jazz, modern, and hip-hop styles, accompanied by a smoking-hot live band that elides elements of blues, hip-hop, jazz, and swing.

Explore Camille A. Brown on Jacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive:

• Camille A. Brown & Dancers in BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play from 2017
• Camille A. Brown in The Evolution of a Secured Feminine from 2010
• Camille A. Brown from Women in Dance by Maura Keefe

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Pillow Pop-Up: Jabu Graybeal at The Red Lion Inn

Tuesday, August 13, 2019 at 4 pm

Catch Jacob’s Pillow alum Jabu Graybeal at the historic Red Lion Inn for pop-up tap solos throughout the hotel! Jabu Graybeal is also an alumnus of the North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble (NYCTE) and YoungArts Foundation and has performed with a diverse group of companies including Caleb Teicher & Company and Chloe Arnold’s Apartment 33. Under a nomination from Michelle Dorrance, he was hailed by DanceSpirit Magazine as a dancer to look out for in the next generation of tap.

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Jacob’s Pillow collaborates with Berkshire institutions to co-present performances, residencies, and talks thereby expanding engagement in dance across the region. Learn more about Jacob’s Pillow Co-Presentations.

Thursday, September 19, 2019 at 6pm

OFF-SITE | FREE | FAMILY-FRIENDLY | OUTDOOR

Barkha Dance Company (BDC) creates works to forge links between contemporary themes and traditional Indian Kathak dance, and to help guide audiences to a better understanding of Indian culture and art form. Artistic Director, Barkha Patel has presented her solos at Jacob’s Pillow and the NJPAC. Recently, Pangea Dance Series commissioned BDC to create a 15-minute production exploring immigrant experiences. BDC continues to focus on aesthetic and cultural access through production pieces that open audiences’ eyes to new stories, art, and experiences.

For Third Thursday, Kathak dancer Jin Won performs a solo by Patel of pure Kathak dance accompanied with live music by Mike Lukshis on Tabla, the main percussion instrument of Kathak, and Rohan Prabhudesai on harmonium.

Be featured in our National Dance Day Video!

Willing audience members of all ages and dance abilities will be guided in learning the 2019 National Dance Day routine by special guest community artists. This fun and easy-to-learn dance will be filmed by Jacob’s Pillow and featured in its social media celebration on Saturday, September 21. You can preview the routine on the America Dance Movement website.

Full Schedule

6pm: Performance by Barkha Dance Company
6:30pm: National Dance Day lesson & video shoot
7pm: Latin Dance with Berkshire Salsa

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ABOUT THIRD THURSDAY

Third Thursday runs May-September from 5-8pm in Downtown Pittsfield. North Street is closed to vehicular traffic from West Street to Linden Street and filled with music, street performers, local food, community activities, craft vendors, and plenty more. Organized by the City of Pittsfield Office of Cultural Development. Visit their website or call 413.499.9348 for more information.

Pillow Pop-Up: Martha Graham Dance Company at the Clark Art Institute

Sunday, August 18, 2019 at 1pm

After a week of performances at Jacob’s Pillow, the celebrated Martha Graham Dance Company performs a special site-specific iteration of The EVE Project, a two-year initiative that commemorates the ratification of the 19th Amendment, at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA. In dialogue with the Clark’s idyllic landscape and galleries, the company pairs Graham’s Diversion of Angels, Ekstasis, and Lamentation with a contemporary piece titled 19 Power Poses for the 19th.

Visitors are encouraged to bring a lawn chair or blanket for outdoor seating. This event is FREE, with no reservation required.

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Jacob’s Pillow collaborates with Berkshire institutions to co-present performances, residencies, and talks thereby expanding engagement in dance across the region. Learn more about Jacob’s Pillow Co-Presentations.

Thursday, August 15, 2019 at 6pm

OFF-SITE | FREE | FAMILY-FRIENDLY | OUTDOOR

Join us in the Dance Zone at the north end of Pittsfield’s Third Thursday cultural street festival for this family-friendly pop-up performance. Tapped In brings together standout alums from The School at Jacob’s Pillow to downtown Pittsfield for one night only. Tap dancers Christina Carminucci, Jackson Clayton, Jabu Graybeal, and Demi Remick will be performing tap solos.

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About Third Thursday

Third Thursday runs May-September from 5-8pm in Downtown Pittsfield. North Street is closed to vehicular traffic from West Street to Linden Street and filled with music, street performers, local food, community activities, craft vendors, and plenty more. Organized by the City of Pittsfield Office of Cultural Development. Visit their website or call 413.499.9348 for more information.

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About the Artists

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