The longer you live, the older you get. Hmm. This not-exactly-apocalyptic statement refers (obliquely) to recollection. When I attended Jacob’s Pillow’s 90th Anniversary Gala last week, memories crowded in. Sixty-eight years ago, I made my debut on the Pillow stage in Taken With Tongues: A Study in Fanaticism by Harriette Ann Gray. Crammed into two cars (or was it three?), we dancers and … [Read more...]
Two Hours of Twenty-Four
by Deborah Jowitt Here’s what surprises me. I’m used to watching dance while sitting in a darkened theater surrounded by mostly silent people who’ve been given a fragile world to watch, examine, and think about. Every extraneous thought (well, almost every one), and every momentary discomfort gets pushed aside. These days, peering at dancing figures on a small screen, or past them to a grove of … [Read more...]
Rooftop Rooms
People dancing in their rooms, their legs grazing furniture, their possessions on view for all to see. People dancing in meadows, in parks, on rooftops, through empty city streets, by the ocean. They are sometimes masked and almost always alone. Only longtime mates can sweat together. It’s 2020, and a pandemic has re-envisioned solitude. What ties these dancers together is the choreography … [Read more...]
Noh Transformations
Anyone who has seen a Japanese Noh play will not forget it easily. The poetic speech, the masked characters and their slow, ceremonious behavior, the tiny details that expose a world. Karole Armitage has studied and thought about the form for many years, perhaps while performing in Merce Cunningham’s company or being the resident choreographer for the Ballet de Lorraine (among many other … [Read more...]
Martha Over the Years
When Janet Eilber, artistic director of the Martha Graham Dance Company, stepped through Jacob’s Pillow’s front curtain to introduce the group’s performance, she mentioned that this was the 94th year of the MGDC, which made it the oldest dance company in the United States. Actually Graham’s history travels twistily backward even further, when she and the Pillow’s founder, Ted Shawn, danced … [Read more...]
A Ballerina Adventures in Postmodern Worlds
It wouldn’t be entirely fair to call Sara Mearns a force of nature, given her discipline, her skills as a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, and her interest in exploring new possibilities. However having seen her perform August 14-18 in Jacob’s Pillow’s Doris Duke Theater, I’m strenuously tempted. The program titled “Sara Mearns: Beyond Ballet” features her in five works. … [Read more...]
Borne on the Winds
The tall, robust, gray-haired man standing outside Jacob’s Pillow’s Ted Shawn Theater during intermission is explaining his reaction to Andrea Miller’s Boat to two attentive listeners. The members of her company, Gallim, he says, never stand still! He can’t get over that. It’s not entirely true, of course. The eight marvelous dancers who make up Gallim do pause in their dancing or stand and … [Read more...]
What Stands May Fall
I didn’t read Maura Keefe’s program essay while sitting in Jacob’s Pillow’s Doris Duke Theater, waiting for the day to start. I didn’t read the program note by the versatile and highly regarded cellist Maya Beiser. I didn’t read the spoken text that was part of David Lang’s score. And, once the piece began, I didn’t identify one of the projected slides as showing Santiago Calatrava’s … [Read more...]
Anthologizing Abraham
When I watch a dance that I’ve also seen a few years earlier, I perceive it differently. Maybe I hear it differently too. Has it changed? Maybe. Have I changed? Of course. So has the world. I’ve viewed and written about all but one of the works dating from 2011, 2017, and 2018 that members of A.I.M (Abraham in Motion) performed this past week at Jacob’s Pillow. Some new dancers have taken on the … [Read more...]
The Worlds of Mark Morris
Mark Morris can be a playful fellow, and for his latest work, Sport, he collaborated with a playful musician, who was no longer living. Erik Satie wrote his Sports et Divertissements in 1914 (an unfortunate date) and published it, updated, in 1923. His original little book consisted of an introduction and the scores of twenty piano pieces under a minute in length, illustrations of each by Charles … [Read more...]