Saturday, July 7, 2018 at 6:15pm

Gaga: The Language of Ohad Naharin has attracted dancers from around the world to study with Naharin and former members of his Batsheva Dance Company. To conclude their two weeks of movement research in The School at Jacob’s Pillow, they invite audiences to an open rehearsal where dancers apply Gaga principles to deeply explore and embody Naharin’s movement vocabulary.

FREE                 FAMILY-FRIENDLY              OUTDOOR               GAGA

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Saturday, June 30, 2018 at 6:15PM

Gaga: The Language of Ohad Naharin has attracted dancers from around the world to study with Naharin and former members of his Batsheva Dance Company. Following their first week of movement research in The School at Jacob’s Pillow, dancers invite audiences to an open rehearsal where dancers apply Gaga principles to deeply explore and embody Naharin’s movement vocabulary.

FREE                 FAMILY-FRIENDLY              OUTDOOR               GAGA

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Thursday, August 15, 2019 at 6:15pm

FREE | FAMILY-FRIENDLY | OUTDOOR | BALLET

Returning to Inside/Out for the second consecutive summer, Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami (DDTM) was founded by former Miami City Ballet principals Carlos Guerra and Jennifer Kronenberg. Praised as “athletic, energetic, sexy” by The New  York Times, the cutting edge company continues to garner recognition for their profound energy and electricity, offering audiences a fresh, innovative, and diverse ballet experience. They perform Imagined Notions by resident choreographer Yanis Pikieris, an exuberant showpiece that highlights the versatility of the dancers to an enchanting score by Karl Jenkins.

Primarily comprised of local artists hailing from Cuba, USA, Venezuela, Brazil, and beyond, the company, its cultural programming, and its collaborative pursuits are especially unique in their distinct reflection of South Florida. Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami has been an ambassador for Miami Arts & Culture, spreading its wings beyond its residence at the beautiful South Miami Dade Cultural Arts Center, performing by invitation at Danzar por la Paz Gala in Buenos Aires, Argentina, The Great Friends Dance Festival in Newport, Rhode Island, The International Ballet Festival of Miami, The Joyce Theater, and Jacob’s Pillow. Proud recipient of a 2017 Knight Arts Challenge Award, DDTM has most recently been awarded an inaugural Knight New Works Miami grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Friday, June 22, 2018 at 6:15PM

Renowned classical dance soloists Barkha Patel and Vinod Para perform a showcase of classical Indian dance styles—Kathak and Bharatanatyam—with a talkback moderated by Associate Professor of Dance at Wesleyan University, Dr. Hari Krishnan.

Barkha Patel will perform a piece that epitomizes Indian classical Kathak dance. The audience is exposed to pure movement that emphasizes form, motion, and speed through stylistically rapid movement, pirouettes, claps, and footwork, accompanied by the sound of ghungroos (ankle bells). Following, Vinod Para showcases virtuosic Bharatanatyam technique in the world premiere of Black Box 3, created specially for the Inside/Out Performance Series. The work features complex footwork, intricate gestures, architectural design, and a pulsating sound design of Indian, global percussion, and vocalized drum syllables.

FREE             FAMILY-FRIENDLY              OUTDOOR

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Thursday, June 21, 2018 at 6:15PM

Efsane Crimean Tatar Ensemble, based at the Crimean Tatar Cultural Center in Brooklyn, is a 40 member ensemble that preserves and promotes the cultural heritage and history of Crimean Tatars, the indigenous people of the Crimean peninsula. Their vibrant music and dance traditions have substantial similarities with other cultures around the Black Sea, but with a special flair that captivates the ear and the eye: uniquely accented 7/8 dance rhythms and precise, athletic dance steps that bring energy to any performance. As the only US-based group performing these dance traditions, they have danced in a variety of venues including Lincoln Center, the Lowell Folk Festival in Massachusetts, and the Ukrainian Tryrub Festival in Philadelphia. Presented in collaboration with the Center for Traditional Music and Dance.

FREE                 FAMILY-FRIENDLY              OUTDOOR             TRADITIONAL

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Wednesday, June 20, 2018 at 6:15PM

Committed to the preservation of Afro-Cuban culture through dance, song, and music, Oyu Oro Afro Cuban Dance Ensemble was founded in 1998 in Cuba and re-formed in New York City in 2005 by Danys “La Mora” Perez, an international Afro-Cuban folklorist and dance ethnographer. The ensemble presents high caliber and authentic folkloric dance performances that represent Cuba’s unique history and cultural landscape, exploring traditional dance forms from the Yoruba, Congo, Carabali, Arara, and Dahomeyan cultures of West Africa; the rich Haitian influences that remain in Cuba of tumba francesa, vodu, gaga, tajona, and Haitian bembe; and the popular dances of Cuban heritage, including rumba, conga, chancletas, and son. Presented in collaboration with the Center for Traditional Music and Dance.

FREE             FAMILY-FRIENDLY              OUTDOOR             LIVE MUSIC

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Wednesday, June 27, 2018 at 6:15PM

Translucent Borders: Cross-cultural collaborations

Translucent Borders will host a three-day residency at Jacob’s Pillow, bringing together for the first time its global collaborators from Cuba, The Middle East, Ghana, Trinidad and Tobago, the United States, and Italy, with some artists making their U.S. debuts. The residency will culminate in the debut presentation of intercultural works-in-progress with more than twenty musicians and dancers as part of the Inside/Out Performance Series. Other activities will be open to the public. Jacob’s Pillow was selected as the site for this residency for both its retreat-like setting and its rich history as a force in the cultural exchange of dance.

Tuesday, June 26 at 5pm | Join us for a presentation in Blake’s Barn by the Translucent Borders team and hear about this work, soon to be shared with the public for the first time.

FREE                 FAMILY-FRIENDLY              OUTDOOR              INTER-CULTURAL

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About Translucent Borders

How do music and dance defy borders? Translucent Borders is a three-year exploration of intercultural dialogue, practice and exchange led by New York University (NYU) Tisch Arts Professor, Dr. Andy Teirstein, which focuses on the role of dance and music at geographic, cultural, and economic borders. The project explores the ways in which dancers and musicians act as catalysts for creative engagement across disparate cultures. Translucent Borders began as a Working Group of The NYU Global Institute for Advanced Study in 2015 and has since facilitated global conversations between dance and music artists in Israel, Greece, Cuba, and Ghana through interviews, knowledge-sharing circles, master classes, directed improvisatory lab work, and collaborations.

Choreographers include Sulley Imoro (Ghana), Dege Feder (Israel), Sahar Damoni (Palestine), Donald Byrd (USA), Jim Martin (USA), Danys La Mora Perez (Cuba), and LaShaun Prescott (Trinidad and Tobago). These dance artists will be collaborating with composers Meirigah Abubakari (Ghana), Firas Zreik (Palestine), Amal Murkus (Palestine), Neta Weiner and Muhammad (Israel), Yair Dalal (Israel), Marco and Angela Ambrosini (Italy), Francisco Mora Catlett (Mexico), Andy Teirstein (USA), and Valerie Naranjo (USA).

This began in 2016 in the refugee camps on the island of Lesbos, and have continued in Ghanaian drum circles, in choreographic improvisations in Tel Aviv, in dance rehearsals in the Palestinian West Bank, with Bedouin musicians on the Israeli border with Egypt, and in Cuban Rumba sessions. In Translucent Borders site visits, they trusted in a set of keys that open locked gates, sometimes beginning with a violin, a drum, and a few dance steps. They have also brought a camera, creating a film record of interviews, jam sessions, and song and dance swaps.

Ephrat Asherie Dance | April 28, 2018 at 8pm

Preview this brand new work before its world premiere in the Doris Duke Theatre! Ephrat Asherie Dance presents a special sneak peek of the work-in-progress Odeon, two months before its highly anticipated world premiere at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival 2018 (June 27–July 1). In this new work, The Boston Globe’s “bona fide b-girl” and New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Award winner Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie layers breaking, hip-hop, house, and vogue to the buoyant Afro-Brazilian rhythms of 20th century composer Ernesto Nazareth, played live by acclaimed pianist and Asherie’s brother, Ehud Asherie.

Odeon was created in part through two residencies at Jacob’s Pillow.

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About Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie

Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie, a 2016 Bessie Award Winner for Innovative Achievement in Dance, is a New York City based B-girl, dancer, and choreographer. As artistic director of Ephrat Asherie Dance (EAD) she has presented work at the Apollo Theater, FiraTarrega, Jacob’s Pillow, New York Live Arts, Summerstage, and the Yard, among others. Asherie has received numerous awards to support her work including a Mondo Cane! commission from Dixon Place, a creative development residency at the Pillow Lab from Jacob’s Pillow, Workspace and Extended Life Residencies from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, a Travel and Study Grant from the Jerome Foundation and two residencies through the CUNY Dance Initiative. Her first evening-length work, A Single Ride, received two Bessie nominations in 2012 for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer and Outstanding Sound Design by Marty Beller. Most recently Asherie received a National Dance Project award to support the development and touring of her newest work, Odeon. Asherie is a regular guest artist with Dorrance Dance and has worked and collaborated with Doug Elkins, Rennie Harris, Bill Irwin, David Parsons, Gus Solomons Jr., and Buddha Stretch, among others.

Okwui Okpokwasili’s Poor People’s TV Room | April 7, 2018 at 8pm

Okwui Okpokwasili is praised as a “standout in New York’s crowded performance scene” (The New Yorker).

Created in collaboration with director and visual artist Peter Born, Okpokwasili’s Poor People’s TV Room looks at the intersection of history and women’s bodies, drawing from two incidents in Nigeria—the Women’s War of 1929 and the Boko Haram kidnappings, which sparked the Bring Back Our Girls movement. Looking backward and forward simultaneously, Poor People’s TV Room pulls audiences through an ancestral fever dream shared between four women, linked through time and fractured memories by a harrowing combination of text, movement, and sound.

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About Okwui Okpokwasili

Okwui Okpokwasili is a New York-based writer, performer, and choreographer. In partnership with collaborator Peter Born, Okpokwasili creates multidisciplinary projects that are raw, intimate experiences. Their first New York production, Pent-Up: A Revenge Dance, premiered at Performance Space 122 and received a 2010 New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Award for Outstanding Production, and an immersive installation version was featured in the 2008 Prelude Festival. Their second collaboration, Bronx Gothic, won a 2014 New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Award for Outstanding Production and continues to tour nationally and internationally. In June of 2014, they presented an installation version entitled Bronx Gothic: The Oval as part of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s River to River Festival.

Okpokwasili‘s residencies and awards include The French American Cultural Exchange (2006-2007); Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography Choreographic Fellowship (2012); Baryshnikov Arts Center Artist-inResidence (2013); New York Live Arts Studio Series (2013); Under Construction at the Park Avenue Armory (2013); New York Foundation for the Arts’ Fellowship in Choreography (2013); Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Extended Life Program (2014-15); The Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ artist grant in dance (2014); BRIClab (2015); Columbia University (2015); and the Rauschenberg Residency (2015).

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The presentation of Poor People’s TV Room by Okwui Okpokwasili was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

August 9-11, 2017 | Koma’s The Ghost Festival

In a special post-show presentation, Koma presents his first solo work—a mobile, interactive performance/visual art installation. Catch this free performance on the Pillow grounds after Camille A. Brown & Dancers or Elvis Everywhere.

The Ghost Festival is the first multi-disciplinary solo project by Koma. Using a mobile trailer, he creates a gallery of works meant to be both an interactive visual art installment and performance space. Koma envisions a meditative and communal space to honor the connection between past and present, and provide a home for lost spirits. Truly a solo project, all aspects of the work including creation, preparation, and performance are entirely executed by the artist himself. Koma has brought The Ghost Festival to The Yard and American Dance Festival in 2016, and an iteration of this project was commissioned by Danspace Project for performance in May of 2017.

Koma’s appearances at the Pillow as Eiko & Koma date back to the early 1990s. Their work has been presented at prestigious venues including The Joyce Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and a month-long living exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.