Jacob's Pillow

With several major Berkshire arts organizations now closed until next year it's time to reflect on the intense and often remarkable 2013 high season. It's impossible to be everywhere, often with conflicts on any given night, but we offer highlights of what we managed to review. In addition to the Berkshires we covered five new plays at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. The busy season included a number of interviews with artistic directors, actors and playwrights.

Jacob’s Pillow presents Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in the historic Ted Shawn Theatre, July 3-7. These fiercely-talented performers present Tuplet by Nederlands Dans Theater’s Alexander Ekman; Grace Engine by 2011 Jacob's Pillow Dance Award winner and Artistic Director of Kidd Pivot, Crystal Pite; and Norwegian choreographer Jo Strømgren's wild Necessity, Again.

Michelle Dorrance, Artistic Director of Dorrance Dance, is lauded as "one of the most imaginative tap choreographers working today” (The New Yorker). A 2012 Princess Grace Award Winner, 2012 Field Dance Fund Recipient, and 2011 Bessie Award Winner, Dorrance is among the world’s most sought after tap performers, teachers, and choreographers today.

The 2013 Jacob's Pillow season kicks off with a gala on June 15 and winds down on August 25. Three are numerous highlights including Dance Theatre of Harlem, Compagnie Käfig a word-of-mouth hit of Festival 2012, with six sold-out performances, the return of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, from Brazil Companhia Urbana de Dança, and a return of the stunning, French 3e étage which was astonishing with its 2011 appearance. The legendary Martha Graham Dance Company will perform. Subscriber ticket sales begin January 28 and go on sale to the public on April 8.

With one show already nearly sold out (Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum on Saturday, February 16), MASS MoCA'sWinter/Spring season has started with a bang before it's even been announced. The first big event of the season is FREE Day on Saturday, February 9. This annual event attracts thousands to MASS MoCA for a full day of art-making, tours, contests, demonstrations, performances, and more.

The Joffrey Ballet, one of America’s pioneering ballet companies of the 20th century, makes a rare East Coast appearance to conclude the Jacob’s Pillow 80th Anniversary Season August 22–26. The Joffrey Ballet returns for the first time since its high-profile appearances at the Pillow in the 1950s and 60s, presenting an impressive program that features Taiwanese-American choreographer Edwaard Liang’s Age of Innocence, Russian choreographer Yuri Possokhov’s Bells, and the world premiere of Son of Chamber Symphony by Stanton Welch, Artistic Director of Houston Ballet.

Five years ago, Bill T. Jones (born 1952), one of the most successful and celebrated dancers and choreographers of his generation, with more than 100 works created for the Bill T. Jones/ Arnie Zane Dance Company (founded in 1982), retired from performing. He continues to choreograph for the company. This week he was back on stage for a 2012 work Story/ Time.

The world premiere of Within (Labyrinth Within) by the Swedish choreographer and dancer Pontus Lidberg at Jacob’s Pillow is a daunting and haunting confluence of live dance combined with a projected film behind the performers that at times echoes what’s on stage. In the final sequence the film stands alone completing a complex narrative of estranged marriage, passion, and jealousy.

Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival kicks off June 16 with the 80th Anniversary Gala, followed by “a veritable dance explosion” (Claudia La Rocco of The New York Times) of more than 300 free and ticketed performances, talks, exhibits, classes, and events spanning three months.

The 80th Anniversary Season includes an impressive blend of world premieres, U.S. premieres, live music, company debuts, legendary dance companies, emerging choreographers, and more than 300 ticketed and free events, talks, performances, classes, exhibits, and tours hosted at the Pillow’s 163-acre National Historic Landmark site.

Hancock Shaker Village (HSV) announces the living history museum’s 2012 plans at a press conference today. The 52nd season will run from April 7 through October 28. It includes a major new exhibition titled A Promising Venture: Shaker Photographs from the WPA, which features the work of photographer Noel Vicentini, who was hired as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project in 1936 to document the Shaker villages in upstate New York and western Massachusetts for the newly-formed Index of American Design.

After a weeklong residency, writer, director, and actor Ain Gordon will present his new contemporary theatre piece Not What Happened on Saturday, April 28, at 8 PM in MASS MoCA'S Hunter Center, as part of MASS MoCA's series of work-in-progress showings. Gordon's work, which The New York Times calls "smart" and characterized by "genuine emotion", investigates the notion of place as it relates to forgotten histories.

Darrah Carr Dance will present two separate repertories-ModERIN and Irish Extravaganza. Both will feature Irish duets and fusion works, with the Irish Extravaganza also concentrating on traditional group dances. The program will also feature live music on the accordion and spoons

In the galleries the new exhibition Sanford Biggers: The Cartographer's Conundrum will open on February 5, while the group exhibition Invisible Cities debuts on April 15. Series offered this season will include the exciting Alt Cabaret which features music and dance and MASS MoCA's Thursday night Cinema Lounge series, titled Strategic Thinking, with four films most followed by Q&As with filmmakers.

Over two weekends (October 21-23 and 27-29), the Williamstown Film Festival's "Lucky 13th" season will include two East Coast and four New England premieres, family and late-night slots, titles from Sundance, Tribeca, and Toronto, and films featuring Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Carol Channing, Ezra Miller, Lewis Black, Kate Burton, Tony Shalhoub, Campbell Scott, and Christo. WFF will conclude with a salute to legendary director Sidney Lumet at the Clark Art Institute.

Trisha Brown’s pioneering dance style is a celebrated cornerstone of modern dance. August 10-14, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival salutes the 40th anniversary of the Trisha Brown Dance Company with a commemorative program of works highlighting Brown’s inventive choreographic range.

Although The Supernatural Wife, based on the Greek tragedy Alkestis by Euripides, was given its U.S. premiere, by Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, the multi media Big Dance Theatre has stretched to the snapping point our definition of dance.

It has been 49 years since Lar Lubovitch formed his company in 1968. In performances at Jacob's Pillow we were provided with an overview from the first Philip Glass music to be set to music North Star, from 1978, to a piece from the past year based on the modal jazz classic My Favorite Things by the John Coltrane Quartet. It was a sensual and evocative evening of modernist classicism. The company often evoked visual beauty, harmony, and an exuding joy of creative dance.

Lar Lubovich Dance Compay, which was founded in 1968, appears at Jacob's Pillow from July 20 to 24. The Pillow program includes North Star, a revival from 1978 set to music by Philip Glass, a duet from Meadow (1999), The Legend of Ten (2010), and Coltrane’s Favorite Things (2010), danced to John Coltrane’s version of the classic song “My Favorite Things” from the musical The Sound of Music.

Never Stand Still, a new documentary directed by award-winning producer and director Ron Honsa and narrated by Tony Award-winner and Kennedy Center honoree Bill T. Jones will be screened during BIFF on June 4. Never Stand Still is an inspiring film about dance and the extraordinary performers who have dedicated their lives to it; filmed on location at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, a National Historic Landmark and America’s longest running international dance festival.

In the third and final installment of an interview with Ella Baff, the artistic director of Jacob's Pillow, she discusses plans for the season opening Gala on June 18. Benjamin Millepied, who is the life and artistic partner of Natalie Portman, is the co chair of the event. Philip Glass will give a rare solo performance. Baff recalls with emotion Merce Cunningham who was unable to attend to receive a reward from Pillow. We also discussed his collaborator John Cage.

Ella Baff, the artistic director of Jacob's Pillow, described meeting the President and First Lady during an award ceremony at the White House as a "peak experience." She discussed travel to Cuba where she covered 30 companies in five days. This summer Mark Morris and his company will open the season for Tanglewood and close it for The Pillow.

Recently Ella Baff was invited to the White House to receive the National Medal of Arts on behalf of the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. We discussed her early years in music and dance and how that later shaped her global vision for its world renowned programming. As a part of its mandate there are an average of 200 free events in a dense three month Berkshire program on three stages.

In this final installment of their dialogue Murray and Giuliano discuss cutting edge theatre which is a mainstay of America Repertory Theatre in Cambridge. And why there is nothing like that in the Berkshires. Murray defines an approach as providing information to readers to help in making informed choices. With so much being offered this summer it is less about competition and more about a critical mass of superb theatre.

In the current political turmoil in the Middle East we have seen how Facebook, e mail, and social networking have resulted in resistance and regime changes. Developments in information technologies have eroded the dominance of traditional media systems. Today with access to the internet and web sites anyone can be a critic or journalist. Murray and Giuliano explore the implications and their role in covering the arts.