Jacob's Pillow Announces Largest Creative Development Residency Program to Date
By: Ashlee Latimer Oct. 19, 2016
Strengthening its role as a center for artist research and development, Jacob's Pillow Dance announces an active, year-round season with its expanded 2016-2017 Creative Development Residency program. This season brings new additions to the program including two technical residencies, cross-genre collaborations, and invited audiences of college students, as well as a diverse roster of 10 artist residencies, the Pillow's largest residency season yet.
"The development of new work is of the utmost importance to the Pillow and the dance field at large," says Jacob's Pillow Director Pamela Tatge. "We're proud to announce the Pillow's largest residency season to date, and look forward to growing the program in the coming years with the addition of the new studio in Fall of 2017."
Jacob's Pillow Creative Development Residencies offer select artists the unique opportunity to work in the Pillow's pastoral, retreat-like atmosphere, which is steeped in decades of significant dance history. Artists are provided free housing on the Pillow grounds in the historic Derby farmhouse, unlimited use of the Doris Duke Theatre and studio spaces, access to the Pillow's rare and extensive Archives, a stipend for their residency, and other Pillow resources such as staff consultation and archival recording. A private informal showing with an invited audience concludes the residency, which is also filmed for the artist as well as kept in the Pillow's Archives. The work created at the Pillow may be at varying stages of development, and may or may not be performed at the Festival.
New this year, in an effort to offer diverse and valuable feedback to residency artists, the audience for the invited showing will include college students from dance departments of nearby colleges including Williams College, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and Bennington College, among others. Artists will also be given an additional stipend in order to bring an outside eye to help inform their work-a dramaturg, another choreographer, related artist, or other experts in the field that the work-in-development explores. The Pillow's recent announcement of a new year-round studio space offers the capacity for more artist residencies in coming years.
Highlights of the 2016-2017 Creative Development Residency season include topical new works that address the turbulent state of politics and society, as well as exciting collaborations with artists from widely different genres. Master choreographer Ronald K. Brown will develop a new work with GRAMMY Award-winning jazz musician and composer Arturo O'Farrill; New York City Ballet principal dancer Sara Mearns will join the international hip-hop duo Honji Wang and Sébastain Ramirez; break dancer Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie will join forces with her brother Ehud Asherie, a jazz pianist and organist; and acclaimed choreographer John Heginbotham will develop a new work with esteemed illustrator, designer, and author Maira Kalman. Choreographer Mark Dendy will create a work that draws connections with this year's chaotic election cycle, and 2016 Jacob's Pillow Dance Award recipient Camille A. Brown will utilize popular hip-hop albums from the 70's to today to explore issues of race, politics, gender, and cultural identity. Previous Creative Development Residency artists include Mark Morris and Yo-Yo Ma; Big Dance Theater; Kate Weare; Kyle Abraham; Jessica Lang; Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener; Bryan Arias; Suzanne Farrell; the Cambodian Project; Kimberly Bartosik; Jodi Melnick; Monica Bill Barnes; Chet Walker; John Jasperse; Dorrance Dance; and many other artists.
2016-2017 Creative Development Residency Season
Artist dates and descriptions follow. Select artist descriptions include links to
supplemental video clips within Jacob's Pillow Dance Interactive, featuring past Jacob's Pillow performances.
Netta Yerushalmy, November 6-20
Praised for her "fierce choreographic imagination" (Claudia La Rocco, The New York Times), artist Netta Yerushalmy will develop a new work co-commissioned by Jacob's Pillow and New York Live Arts, currently titled Paramodernities. As a part of this commission, the Pillow will subsidize three area colleges to provide additional development residencies for Yerushalmy.
Yerushalmy was raised in the Galilee in Israel and has been based in New York City since 2000. She has received a Fellowship in Choreography from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, a Jerome Robbins Fellowship from the Bogliasco Foundation, as well as fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts and Six Points. She is currently an Artist in Residence at Movement Research, Harkness Dance Center, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Extended Life program, with an upcoming residency at Baryshnikov Arts Center. Yerushalmy was previously an Artist-in-Residence at Watermill Center, Djerassi, and Tribeca Performing Arts Center. She made her Jacob's Pillow debut in the Inside/Out Performance Series in 2004.
Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie & Ehud Asherie, December 12-18
"A bona fide b-girl" (Janine Parker, The Boston Globe), Israeli-born performer, choreographer, and 2016 New York Dance and Performance ("Bessie") Award recipient Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie is lauded for her command of the genres of breaking, hip-hop, and house. During Ephrat's residency, she will be developing a new work alongside her brother Ehud Asherie, an acclaimed jazz pianist and organist praised as "a master of swing and stride" (The New Yorker).
As artistic director of Ephrat Asherie Dance (EAD), Ephrat has presented work at the Apollo Theater, FiraTarrega, New York Live Arts, SummerstageNYC, and the Yard, among others. Ephrat has performed and taught throughout the US and abroad, and has appeared on MTV, Comedy Central and at Carnegie Hall, and Madison Square Garden, among other venues. Ephrat is a member of the all-female breaking crew FoxForceFive and of MAWU, a house dance collective. Asherie made her Jacob's Pillow debut in 2013 in the Inside/Out Performance Series, and was last seen at the Pillow during Festival 2016 in Dorrance Dance's ETM: Double Down in the Ted Shawn Theatre.
Ehud Asherie has toured clubs and festivals around the world, including South America, Europe and Asia. Asherie's playing can be heard on countless recordings, including the 2010 Grammy Award winning soundtrack of HBO's Boardwalk Empire. He recently released his twelfth album entitled Shuffle Along (Blue Heron Records), a solo piano performance of Eubie Blake songs from the musical Shuffle Along.
Related video on Jacob's Pillow Dance Interactive, Ephrat Asherie's Step 4.2: http://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/ephrat-asherie-dance/step-4-2/
Marsha Parrilla, February 20-26
During her residency, Boston-based Puerto Rican choreographer, performer, and artistic director Marsha Parrilla will create a new work exploring Puerto Rican identity as it pertains to Blackness and miscegenation in Puerto Rico and the Diaspora. Parrilla is the recipient of the New England Foundation for the Arts' Creative City Grant, the New England Dance Fund, and is the Luminary Artist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Neighborhood Salon, among other accolades.
As a part of her residency, Parrilla will also develop a lecture demonstration that will be featured in the local 10x10 Upstreet Arts Festival in nearby Pittsfield, MA in Berkshire County. Led by Barrington Stage Artistic Director Julianne Boyd, the Fifth Annual Upstreet Arts 10x10 Festival includes more than 70 art shows, film series, comedy, theatre, and dance performances, as well as numerous kids' activities during the month of February in Pittsfield's cultural district.
Parrilla is the artistic director and choreographer of Marsha Parrilla/Danza Orgánica which focuses on using movement as a vehicle for social justice. She is a certified dance teacher, and holds a Masters in Dance Education from New York University.
Ronald K. Brown & Arturo O'Farrill, March 13-18
Praised for his "masterful movement" (Lewis Segal, The Los Angeles Times), choreographer Ronald K. Brown, a 2015 Doris Duke Artist Award recipient, will join GRAMMY Award-winning composer and jazz musician Arturo O'Farrill in the creation of a new collaborative work. Brown is lauded for his blended style of African, Caribbean, contemporary and ballet vocabulary; O'Farrill has been extolled for his unparalleled artistry and ambition-"a magnificent player...sharp, splashy, and driving" (Jon Pareles, The New York Times). During this residency, the two will develop a new piece tentatively titled New Conversations.
Founder and artistic director of Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Brown has set works on companies including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Philadanco, and many others. He is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the 1998 New York Theater and Dance ("Bessie") Award, a 2006 USA Rose Fellow, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and the Choreographer's Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Brown is the recipient of a 2012 Fred and Adele Astaire Award for his choreography for the Tony-Award winning revival of Porgy and Bess. Brown's company made its Jacob's Pillow debut in 1994, and was most recently seen in the Ted Shawn Theatre in 2005.
Composer, musician, and educator O'Farrill developed a career as a solo performer with a wide spectrum of artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Steve Turre, Freddy Cole, The Fort Apache Band, Lester Bowie, Wynton Marsalis, and Harry Belafonte. In 2002, O'Farrill created the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra for Jazz at Lincoln Center, and received GRAMMY Award nominations with the Orchestra in 2006, 2009, and 2011, earning GRAMMY Awards for Best Latin Jazz Album in both 2009 and 2015. O'Farrill made his Jacob's Pillow debut with the Latin Jazz Ensemble in Festival 2015, performing alongside Malpaso Dance Company.www.evidencedance.com
Related video on Jacob's Pillow Dance Interactive, Ronald K. Brown's In Gratitude: http://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/ronald-k-brown/in-gratitude-a-tribute-to-katherine-dunham/
David Dorfman, March 18-26
"Quirky, exuberant" (Karen Campbell, The Boston Globe) with a "powerful talent for telling a story" (Nora FitzGerald, The Washington Post), choreographer David Dorfman will spend his residency developing his work-in-progress Aroundtown. Centered upon the necessity of community and the inevitable evolution of relationships, Aroundtown is a hauntingly poetic and surprisingly humorous work. This residency is supported in partnership with Lumberyard's (formerly American Dance Institute) Incubator program.
Related video on Jacob's Pillow Dance Interactive, David Dorfman's Prophets of Funk: http://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/david-dorfman-dance/prophets-of-funk/
Mark Dendy, March 27-April 2Choreographer Mark Dendy, whose work has been applauded for his "sharp wit" (Andrew Boynton, New Yorker), will spend his residency developing the work Elvis Everywhere. Inspired by an interview with Donald Rumsfeld on his encounter with Elvis Presley in Vegas, Dendy's Elvis Everywhere scrutinizes society's fascination and obsession with celebrity. Dendy utilizes the arc of Elvis's life as a metaphor for the United States, drawing a chilling parallel to today's election cycle.
Lauded for his work's "speed, force, brilliance and surprise" (Alan Kreigsman, The Washington Post), Dendy has received a wide range of accolades for his work including a 1997 Bessie Award, a 2000 Obie Award, the National Society of Arts and Letters Sustained Achievement Award (1990), the Herb Alpert Award and the Joe A. Calloway Award (both in 2000), as well as numerous grants. Founded in 2008 with longtime collaborator Stephen Donovan, his company Mark Dendy Projects focuses on creating socially conscious dance-theatre work.
Camille A. Brown, April 2-9
Regularly garnering acclaim for her "vividness and versatility" (Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times), choreographer, performer, and arts activist Camille A. Brown will be developing her new project ink during her residency. ink seeks to embody choreography that complicates the divide between dance, music, body, and instrument by exploring hip-hop as a musical form, cultural phenomenon, social justice movement, and re-articulation of forgotten histories.
Brown is the Artistic Director of Camille A. Brown & Dancers where she leads her dancers through excavations of ancestral stories, both timeless and traditional, that illustrate narratives which connect history with contemporary culture. Among other accolades, Brown is the 2016 Jacob's Pillow Dance Award recipient, 2016 Guggenheim Fellow, 2014 New York Dance and Performance ("Bessie") Award recipient, 2015 USA Jay Franke & David Herro Fellow, 2015 Doris Duke Artist Award recipient, 2015 TED Fellow, a four-time Princess Grace Award recipient, a three-time recipient of New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, the recipient of the 2014 Joyce Award with DANCECleveland, and a 2014 New York City Center Choreography Fellow. In addition to her 2016 "Bessie" Award nomination for BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play, Brown's TED talk on African-American social dance is currently on TED.com and has more than eight million views on Facebook.www.camilleabrown.org
Related video on Jacob's Pillow Dance Interactive, Camille A. Brown's The Evolution of a Secured Feminine: http://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/camille-a-brown/the-evolution-of-a-secured-feminine/
Joanna Kotze, April 16-23
Performer and choreographer Joanna Kotze's work is "aerobic, recursive, and playful" and "so skilled at drawing the parameters of her off-kilter world" (The Globe and Mail, Martha Schabas). During her residency, Kotze will be developing her new work currently titled Panorama: 39-42. While using location as a collaborator, the work utilizes panorama as a metaphor for multiplicity to draw attention to the universal desire for intimacy and greater impact in the face of a media-driven world. Kotze will be collaborating with dancer Netta Yerushalmy, visual artist Jonathan Allen, and composer Ryan Seaton on this project.
Joanna Kotze received the 2013 New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer. Kotze's choreography has been presented at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Baryshnikov Arts Center, American Dance Institute (ADI), Danspace Project, Bard College's Fisher Center, New York Live Arts Studio Series, Dance New Amsterdam, Movement Research at the Judson Church, and Roulette, among others. Kotze is on faculty at Movement Research and Gibney Dance in New York City and has taught at Barnard College, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Eugene Lang College - The New School for Liberal Arts, Long Island University and the American Dance Festival. She holds a BA in Architecture from Miami University. Kotze made her Jacob's Pillow debut with Wally Cardona in the Doris Duke Theater in 2002.
John Heginbotham & Maira Kalman, April 24-30
The Pillow will host its first-ever technical residency for choreographer John Heginbotham and acclaimed illustrator, author, and designer Maria Kalman. Their Pillow commissioned work in progress, The Principles of Uncertainty, a dance theatre work choreographed and directed by Heginbotham and inspired by the existing and developing written and visual art of Kalman. Kalman will oversee all design elements, and composer and musician Colin Jacobsen of string quartet Brooklyn Rider will curate, arrange, and compose music for the work.
Artistic Director John Heginbotham creates work known for its "tight formal structure and inventive movement, bolstered by a disarming wit and strangeness" (The New Yorker). An alumnus of The School at Jacob's Pillow, Heginbotham received the 2014 Jacob's Pillow Dance Award in recognition of his unique artistic vision. Founded in 2011, Dance Heginbotham made its Jacob's Pillow debut in 2011 in the Inside/Out Performance Series. www.danceheginbotham.org
A contributor of many covers of The New Yorker, Maira Kalman is the author of And the Pursuit of Happiness, The Principles of Uncertainty, and Beloved Dog, as well as eighteen children's books. She is the illustrator of Michael Pollan's Food Rules and the bestselling edition of William Strunk and E.B. White's The Elements of Style. Kalman's work is shown at the Julie Saul Gallery in New York City. www.mairakalman.com
Related video on Jacob's Pillow Dance Interactive, Dance Heginbotham's Chalk & Soot: http://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/dance-heginbotham/chalk-and-soot/
Sara Mearns & Company Wang Ramirez, June 11-18
New York City Ballet principal dancer Sara Mearns will collaborate with international artistic team Honji Wang and Sébastien Ramirez to create a new, cross-genre work currently titled No.1. Wang and Ramirez will choreograph and provide artistic direction; Mearns and Wang will perform in the piece.
Sébastien Ramirez and Honji Wang received a New York Dance and Performance ("Bessie") Award in 2013 for their energetic hip-hop duet, AP15. They were nominated for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative (2012), and won awards at the International Hip-Hop Choreography Competition in Osaka, Japan (2009), and the International Choreography Competition in Hannover, Germany (2012). Together, Ramirez and Wang have produced and choreographed works for the stage collaborated with acclaimed British choreographer Akram Khan, and contributed to the choreography in the production phase of Madonna's Rebel Heart Tour.
Sara Mearns has been a principal with New York City Ballet since 2008, and is known for her roles in Swan Lake; George Balanchine's Symphony in C, Diamonds, and Serenade; Jerome Robbins's Dances at a Gathering, The Four Seasons, and In G Major, among countless others. Mearns is a board member of the Dizzy Feet Foundation and on the advisory board of Dance//NYC. Mearns made her Jacob's Pillow debut in the 2015 Season Opening Gala. In the fall of the same year, Mearns had a Pillow residency working with choreographer Jodi Melnick.
Related video on Jacob's Pillow Dance Interactive, Company Wang Ramirez's Monchichi: http://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/company-wang-ramirez/monchichi/
Sara Mearns and Russell Janzen in Justin Peck's The Bright Motion: http://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/sara-mearns-russell-janzen/bright-motion/
ABOUT JACOB'S PILLOW: Jacob's Pillow, celebrating its 85th Festival in 2017, is a National Historic Landmark, recipient of the National Medal of Arts, and home to America's longest-running international dance festival. Each Festival includes more than 50 national and international dance companies and 350 free and ticketed performances, talks, tours, classes, exhibits, and events. The School at Jacob's Pillow, one of the most prestigious professional dance training centers in the U.S., encompasses the diverse disciplines of Ballet, Cultural Traditions, Contemporary, and Musical Theatre Dance, as well as an Intern Program in various disciplines of arts administration, design, video, and production. The Pillow's extensive Archives, open year-round to the public, chronicle more than a century of dance in photographs, programs, books, costumes, audiotapes, and videos. Year-round Community Programs enrich the lives of children and adults through public classes, residencies in area schools, and an extensive schedule of free public events. Through Jacob's Pillow Curriculum in Motion®, a nationally recognized program, Artist Educators work with Berkshire County teachers and students grades K-12, transforming curricula such as biology, literature, and history into kinesthetic and creative learning experiences. Creative Development Residencies, in which dance companies are invited to live and work at the Pillow and enjoy unlimited studio time; choreography commissions; and the annual $25,000 Jacob's Pillow Dance Award all support visionary dance artists and choreographers. During Creative Development Residencies, artists are invited to spend one to three weeks at the Pillow creating or rehearsing new work, with free housing for the company, unlimited use of studio space, and access to the Pillow's rare and extensive Archives and other Pillow resources. In the beautiful, retreat-like atmosphere of the Pillow, the Creative Development Residencies are rare opportunities for artists to focus on the creative process without distraction. Notable artists who have created or premiered dances at the Pillow include choreographers Antony Tudor, Agnes de Mille, Alvin Ailey, Donald McKayle, Kevin McKenzie, Twyla Tharp, Ralph Lemon, Susan Marshall, Trisha Brown, Ronald K. Brown, Wally Cardona, Andrea Miller, and Trey McIntyre; performed by artists such as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Carmen de Lavallade, Mark Morris, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Edward Villella, Rasta Thomas, and hundreds of others. The Pillow's digital initiatives are aimed at expanding global audiences for dance and offers the opportunity to experience dance and Jacob's Pillow from anywhere in the world via online interactive exhibits, global video networks, and social media. An important part of the Pillow's digital presence, Jacob's Pillow Dance Interactive is a curated online video collection of dance highlights from 1933 to today. On March 2, 2011, President Obama honored Jacob's Pillow with a National Medal of Arts, the highest arts award given by the United States Government, making the Pillow the first dance presenting organization to receive this prestigious award. For more information, visit www.jacobspillow.org.
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