Jacob's Pillow Announces 2026-27 Pillow Lab Residency Artists

Jacob's Pillow has announced the 2026-27 cohort of artists selected for the Pillow Lab residency program as it celebrates its 10th anniversary. The season will feature Bijayini Satpathy, Soles of Duende, Eduardo Torres, Brandon Kazen-Maddox, MAX & Peter Chu, Vanessa Sanchez and Viveca Vázquez.

Created in 2017, the Pillow Lab supports U.S.-based and international dance artists during the development, research and technical stages of new choreographic projects. A portion of this season's artists will work in the Doris Duke Theatre, which opened in July 2025 and includes a makerspace designed to support emerging technologies.

"We created the Pillow Lab as a new chapter in Jacob's Pillow's decades-long history of supporting artists in residence, while also expanding our year-round programming," said Executive and Artistic Director Pamela Tatge. "Ten years into the Pillow Lab, our ability to offer both developmental residencies and technical production residencies has expanded the ways we can support artists and contribute to the future of dance."

Each residency will culminate in an informal work-in-progress showing for an invited audience, with the presentations also livestreamed for Jacob's Pillow members.

Bijayini Satpathy

Bijayini Satpathy will participate in a developmental residency October 21-November 1, culminating in an invited showing October 31 at the Perles Family Studio.

Satpathy and the Bijayini Satpathy Dance Collective will develop Mukura ("mirror"), an exploration of the gendered body in the Indian classical dance form Odissi. Drawing on the Mahabharata, the ensemble work centers three characters negotiating assigned gender roles, notions of virtue and shame, and their own desires.

Soles of Duende

Soles of Duende will undertake a technical production residency October 28-November 8, with an invited showing November 7 in the Doris Duke Theatre.

The multicultural trio will develop The Kitchen, an evening-length interdisciplinary work bringing together tap, flamenco and kathak in a shared domestic space. The project explores home, intimacy, belonging and the ways relationships fracture and reform under interpersonal and political pressures.

Eduardo Torres

Eduardo Torres will participate in a developmental residency November 4-15, with an invited showing November 14 at the Perles Family Studio.

Torres, the son of mambo artist Eddie Torres, will develop a choreographic research project exploring the evolution and future of New York-style mambo. Through studio experimentation, archival research and collaboration, the residency will examine mambo as both a living cultural practice and an evolving movement language.

Brandon Kazen-Maddox

Brandon Kazen-Maddox will be in residence February 17-28, 2027, with an invited showing February 27 at the Perles Family Studio.

Kazen-Maddox will develop (FREEDOM), an autobiographical solo tracing their experience as a Black, queer, hearing child raised in a white, deaf world. The interdisciplinary work combines ASL, spoken word, Simultaneous Communication, music, projected subtitles, aerial arts and dance. The residency is produced by Up Until Now Collective.

MAX & Peter Chu

Choreographer Peter Chu and Media Art Xploration Artistic Director Kay Matschullat will undertake a technical production residency February 24-March 7, with an invited showing March 6 in the Doris Duke Theatre.

They will develop Dancing with Black Holes, an immersive work translating astrophysical data into a human experience inspired by gravitational waves and the event horizon of a black hole. Chu will provide choreography, with the project conceived by Matschullat and informed by research from scientific collaborator Max Isi.

Vanessa Sanchez

Vanessa Sanchez will participate in a developmental residency March 3-14, with an invited showing March 13 at the Perles Family Studio.

Sanchez will develop Ahualulco, a multidisciplinary dance and music work exploring cultural, historical and rhythmic connections between Veracruz, Mexico and Cuba. The project combines Son Jarocho zapateado, Afro-Cuban folkloric movement and original tap choreography with live music. Sanchez plans to develop the work into a 60-minute production featuring 12 percussive artists for a fall 2027 premiere.

Viveca Vázquez

Puerto Rican experimental dance artist Viveca Vázquez will undertake a developmental residency March 17-28, with an invited showing March 27 at the Perles Family Studio.

Vázquez will continue developing Indocente (Unruly), revisiting more than four decades of her dance-making in Puerto Rico. The project will draw from her archive to explore approaches to dance reconstruction rooted in the improvisational practices central to her work. It will incorporate Mira y Qué, Mascando inglés and Ujú.