Jacob's Pillow to Bring Dance to the Berkshires This Winter

This winter, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, the longest running dance festival in the U.S. and National Medal of the Arts recipient, partners with local Berkshire cultural organizations to present dance-related programming throughout 2016. In the midst of preparing for another bustling summer season, the Pillow's winter and spring partnerships will include presentations by former and future Festival artists at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) and informational pre-screening talks by esteemed Jacob's Pillow Scholar-in-Residence Brian Schaefer at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center.

"As we prepare for another busy summer Festival, the Pillow's partnerships with area cultural organizations is a great way for us to collaborate with valued colleagues to bring dance to the Berkshires year-round," says Managing Director Andrea Sholler. "We are continually looking for new ways to engage and educate a wider community, and I am thrilled to be able to include the wit and intelligence of our Pillow scholars as part of our new relationship with the Mahaiwe and continued partnership with MASS MoCA."

Jacob's Pillow's new partnership with the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, MA will be forged around the theater's ongoing HD broadcasts of Bolshoi Ballet productions which include The Taming of the Shrew (January 31), Spartacus (March 13), and Don Quixote (April 24). In collaboration with the Pillow, Jacob's Pillow Scholar-in-Residence Brian Schaefer will host a series of informational talks 20 minutes prior to each broadcast, enriching the screening experience. Schaefer is a New York-based writer and journalist who contributes regularly to The New York Times, Out Magazine, Dance Magazine, and The New Yorker. The talk is included in the $17 ticket per broadcast; each screening begins at 1pm with pre-screening talks beginning at 12:40pm. To purchase tickets call the box office at 413.528.0100 or go to www.mahaiwe.org.

Furthering Jacob's Pillow's and MASS MoCA's ongoing cultural partnership, New York-based company Big Dance Theater will present This Page Left Intentionally Blank, a work-in-progress performance-based audio/docent tour this February. This interactive work aims to change one's experience of a museum by reinventing the ways in which art is seen. Led by the artistic vision of first-ever Jacob's Pillow Dance Award recipients Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, Big Dance Theater has has created more than 20 multidisciplinary works in collaboration with leading actors, dancers, composers, and designers and been presented around the world and in the US. at venues including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Dance Theater Workshop, The Kitchen, New York City Center's Fall for Dance, New York Live Arts, and Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival (2000, 2002, 2007, 2011, and 2015).

An exclusive MASS MoCA engagement, This Left Page Intentionally Blank will take place at noon and 3pm on Wednesday, February 10; Friday, February 12; and Saturday, February 13. Tickets are $5 in addition to the gallery admission fee. Tickets are limited and must be purchased by phone by calling the MASS MoCA box office located on Marshall Street in North Adams, at 413.662.2111 x1. This program is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Irene Hunter Fund for Dance at MASS MoCA in association with Jacob's Pillow Dance.

This spring, Jacob's Pillow will also co-present Festival 2016 artist ZviDance in a one-night-only, work-in-progress showing of On The Road, April 23 at 8pm at MASS MoCA's Hunter Center. This multimedia production examines the upheaval of the 1960s and the Beat Generation's startling notions of social rebellion, which hold surprising relevance today. A master of melding forms, ZviDance is praised by Alastair Macaulay of The New York Times as both "intensely dancey" and "remarkable as theater". For tickets, call the MASS MoCA Box Office at 413.662.2111 or www.massmoca.org. Advance tickets are $12, day-of tickets are $18, and preferred tickets are $22.

ZviDance will return to the Berkshires for Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival 2016 this July to perform the dance triptych Escher/Bacon/Rothko, inspired by the artwork of twentieth-century masters M.C. Escher, Francis Bacon, and Mark Rothko. An evening- length work for 10 dancers, Gotheiner's sweeping and intelligent choreography illuminates layers of connection in each artists' notion of modernity, danced to a compelling original score by composer Scott Killian. Performances will take place in the Doris Duke Theatre, July 20-24. Tickets go on sale to the public April 1.

For more information at Jacob's Pillow and its year-round programs, go to www.jacobspillow.org.