FUTURE FIGURES: Dance and Emerging Technologies

Saturday, July 12, 2025, 11:15am-3:30pm | Jameson Family Lobby, Doris Duke Theatre

Catalyzed by curiosity around the ways that technology is reshaping our cultural landscape, FUTURE FIGURES: Dance and Emerging Technologies offers a series of artist talks aiming to cultivate a sense of wonder and possibility surrounding the use of new technology to advance the field of dance, and provide more access for all.

From 11:15am to 3:30pm, preeminent choreographers working at the intersection of dance and technology will gather in the Jameson Family Lobby for this special summit which will be facilitated by Sydney Skybetter, Faculty Director at Brown University’s Art Institute. The full schedule of talks and speakers will be announced soon.

FUTURE FIGURES is presented in partnership with Onassis ONX, and made possible in part with special underwriting support provided by the Doris Duke Foundation, YoungArts, and the Onassis Foundation. 

Fourth Annual Du Bois Forum Roundtable & Celebration at Jacob’s Pillow

Friday, July 18 at 4pm | Pillow Grounds

At this fourth-annual gathering of the Du Bois Forum at Jacob’s Pillow, leading writers and artists will reflect upon the intellectual and artistic traditions that W.E.B. Du Bois shaped and the urgency of this work in our current historical moment. This event includes a roundtable discussion, an evening performance by Red Clay Dance Company on the outdoor Henry J. Leir Stage, as well as a private dinner designed by James Beard award-winning chef Bryant Terry, author of Black Food. For more information, please contact [email protected].

Legacies of the Black Berkshires:
An Evening with David Levering Lewis
Friday, July 7

Join Great Barrington’s Du Bois Freedom Center and the Du Bois Forum for an evening in honor of historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning Du Bois biographer Dr. David Levering Lewis. 

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Schedule

4:30pm: PillowTalk at Blake’s Barn
Scholars, writers, and artists will reflect upon Dr. Lewis’ scholarship, public engagement, and expansive intellectual legacy. 

6pm: waheedworks Performance on the outdoor Henry J. Leir Stage
Choose What You Pay tickets
Tommie-Waheed Evans merges urban street dance and contemporary dance through movement propelled by gospel music and polyrhythmic sounds. He established waheedworks in Philadelphia in 2006 with a mission to create a radically collaborative body of work that speaks to human life through movement. At the Pillow, Evans and his company will present Bodies as Site of Faith and Protest, a work that explores the idea of bodies uniting in protest, moving alongside and within Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech “We Shall Overcome.”

7:30pm: Dinner at the Pillow Cafe with Bryant Terry
Fixed price menu $65, registration is required 24 hours in advance, limited availability
Join James Beard award-winning chef Bryant Terry, author of Black Food, for a Du Bois-inspired menu under the stars, working in collaboration with the staff of the Pillow Cafe. This event also features a performance by Lecolion Washington and the Community Music Center of Boston, the largest outside provider of arts education to the Boston Public Schools.

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This event is sponsored by The Du Bois Freedom Center, The Tufts University Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, The Du Bois Forum, and Community Music Center of Boston.

 

PillowTalks are a free curated series of entertaining and informative discussions with choreographers, writers, filmmakers, and cultural experts.

Moderated by Pillow Scholars, PillowTalks provide an excellent opportunity to gain behind-the-scenes insight. The hour-long PillowTalks are held onsite at Blake’s Barn (next to the Box Office). All PillowTalks are free and open to the public during the Festival.

2024 PillowTalks

Leading Dance Theatre of Harlem
Sat., August 24, 4pm
Following in the footsteps of Arthur Mitchell and Virginia Johnson, choreographer Robert Garland became the third director of Dance Theatre of Harlem in 2023, a trajectory he discusses here with Theresa Ruth Howard.

Fifty Years of the Trocks
This talk took place on June 29, 2024.
Since its first performances in 1973, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo has both amazed and delighted audiences with its all-male performances of classic ballets, explored here with director Tory Dobrin.

The Royal Ballet
This talk took place on July 6, 2024.
As director of one of the world’s most famous and celebrated companies, Kevin O’Hare talked about his desire to bring his dancers to Jacob’s Pillow for the first time, in conversation with Scholar-in-Residence Theresa Ruth Howard.

Lives Beyond Motion
This talk took place on July 13.
Former dancer Keith Glassman interviewed dozens of American men to address this topic, and his resulting film encompasses a wide range of Pillow artists. This screening will be followed by a brief discussion.

Breaking Form
This talk took place on July 14.
For more than 40 years, choreographer Jane Comfort has been grappling with hot-button issues including gender, AIDS, and social injustice, and this feature-length film addresses it all. Watch the trailer here.

Envisioning Social Tango
This talk took place on July 20.
While directing Social Tango Project, Agustina Videla also creates films with Pablo Destito, and here they share some examples of their film work and talk about how these two pursuits intersect. 

You, The Choreographer
This talk took place on July 27.
A comprehensive new book by Vladimir Angelov considers all aspects of dance-making, while Moses Pendleton has been creating works for MOMIX and others for decades. Here they discuss it all.

Obsessed with Light
This talk took place on July 28.
This new 90-minute documentary about pioneering dancer Loïe Fuller includes a jaw-dropping assortment of imagery and surprising interviews with Bill T. Jones, William Kentridge, MOMIX’s Moses Pendleton, and more.

Snakehips in Our DNA
This talk took place on August 3.
Inspired by Harlem Renaissance-era dancer Earl ‘Snakehips’ Tucker, this work by director/dramaturg Talvin Wilks and new media artist LaJuné McMillian will be discussed while it’s on view in Sommers Studio.

Margaret Craske and Her Teachings
This talk took place on August 10.
The British ballet teacher Margaret Craske (1892-1990) was a core member of the Pillow’s faculty for more than 20 years, and disciple Diana Byer here unveils an exciting new initiative to document Craske’s teachings in partnership with Dancio.

John Lindquist: As Of Today
This talk took place on August 11.
Kicking off with documentary excerpts on photographer John Lindquist’s Pillow career, this event also features Lindquist protégé Stephan Driscoll with behind-the-scenes stories.

Searching for Goya
This event took place on August 17.
Noche Flamenca’s Martín Santangelo consulted with prominent art curators in conceptualizing the company’s Searching for Goya, and here he’s in conversation with Clark Art Institute curator Anne Leonard.

This event took place June 12, 2021.

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A Virtual Gala to Benefit Jacob’s Pillow
Saturday, June 12 | 7pm EDT

Streaming on-demand through Saturday, June 19 at 7pm EDT

Dance has persisted all over the world this past year—in kitchens, in bedrooms, on street corners, and in nature. At a time when many international borders are closed and travel is constrained, Jacob’s Pillow invites audiences from around the world to connect for a virtual, global celebration of dance. Global Pillow visits Pillow friends and companies around the world, finds out how they are thinking about the future, and sees what they’ve been making while we have been separated. 

This unforgettable event features performances by Black Grace (New Zealand), Candoco Dance Company (United Kingdom), Companhia Urbana de Dança (Brazil), Germaine Acogny (Senegal), Hong Kong Ballet (Hong Kong), Nederlands Dans Theater (Netherlands), Nrityagram Dance Ensemble (India), Paris Opera Ballet (France), and others.

Global Pillow also features Dormeshia, the recipient of the 2021 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award, who premieres a new work.

For 89 years, Jacob’s Pillow has served as an international crossroads for dancers and all who love dance, a place deeply rooted in the local community but with a global reach. After canceling our Festival in 2020 for the first time in our history, and losing our beloved Doris Duke Theatre in a November fire, we have worked to keep the dance community around the world engaged and connected. We ask for your support as we bring artists and audiences safely back together again for Festival 2021, evolve our digital platform, renovate the Ted Shawn Theatre so that it is equipped for artists and audiences post-COVID, and rebuild our lost theater. 

Global Pillow is free and available on demand through June 19 at 7pm EDT. Pre-registration is required.

Audio description provided by Gravity Access Services.

Jacob’s Pillow will donate a portion of the net proceeds from the event to support the educational programs of the Ohketeau Cultural Center, a new center for Indigenous arts and community located in Ashfield, MA serving central and Western MA and beyond; and the New England Foundation for the Arts’ New England Dance Fund, providing catalytic support to advance the careers of regional dance artists.

Dance Party: Join us after the Global Pillow premiere on June 12 for a celebratory dance party hosted by the incomparable duo of Christal Brown, Founding Artistic Director of INSPIRIT, and New York-based DJ DP One. Free and open to all. Hosted on Zoom. RSVP to the Dance Party here.

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Special Pre-Show Packages

Special Pre-Show Packages are available at $5,000 and $10,000. Each package features a private Zoom room that opens at 6:15pm EST for 2 hosts and up to 8 guests. This 45-minute gathering space includes a 10-minute visit from an artist dear to Jacob’s Pillow. Host and guests receive Global Pillow outdoor seat cushions, plus a set of hors d’oeuvres recipes from the international companies participating in the event. Hosts also receive Pillow wine glasses and Pillow baseball caps. All Special Package holders are listed as part of the Gala Committee on our website and acknowledged on screen during the streamed event. Special Package holders at the $10,000 level are also acknowledged as a sponsor of one of the companies performing at the event.

For more information or to purchase a pre-show package, please contact Ina Clark, Jacob’s Pillow Director of Philanthropy, at [email protected].

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Global Pillow Committee

* Member of the Jacob’s Pillow Board of Trustees

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“Global Pillow” logo features artwork by Ivan Chermayeff.

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Special Thanks to our Event Producer: