Joanna Kotze News

Known for its "cutting-edge contemporary work" (Jason Vondersmith, The Portland Tribune), NW Dance Project makes its Jacob's Pillow debut, June 28-July 2 in the Doris Duke Theatre. Based in Portland, Oregon and led by former Royal Winnipeg Ballet principal dancer Sarah Slipper, the company is composed of a cast of classically-trained, versatile contemporary dancers. The program includes works by a range of accomplished choreographers and rising talents: Post-Traumatic-Monster by Felix Landerer, choreographer in residence for Scapino Ballet in the Netherlands; At Some Hour You Return by former Nederlands Dans Theater dancer Ji?i Pokorný; Le Fil Rouge by 2011 Sadler's Wells Global Dance Contest winner and NW Dance Project resident choreographer Ihsan Rustem; and MemoryHouse by Artistic Director Sarah Slipper.

The Jacob's Pillow 85th Anniversary Season kicks off with the Season Opening Gala, the Pillow's signature fundraising event, Saturday, June 17. The event embodies the start of the summer season in the Berkshires, and features exclusive programming, unique and delicious food and drink, and plenty of dancing and live music.

Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival has added two more opportunities for audiences to experience Trisha Brown Dance Company. Originally a five-performance run, August 16-19 in the Ted Shawn Theatre, the Pillow has added a Thursday matinee to the company's schedule. Members of Trisha Brown Dance Company will also perform the site-specific work Trisha Brown: In Plain Site at the Clark Art Institute on Sunday, August 13, a co-presentation of Jacob's Pillow Dance and the Clark. An icon of American dance with extensive Jacob's Pillow connections spanning more than 30 years, choreographer Trisha Brown died March 18, 2017. In a New York Times obituary, chief dance critic Alastair Macaulay wrote “Few dance inventors have so combined the cerebral and sensuous sides of dance as Ms. Brown did, and few have been as influential. Her choreography…helped shape generations of modern dance creators into the 21st century.”

2013 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” award winner for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer, Joanna Kotze presents a work-in-progress of her new interdisciplinary dance performance What will we be like when we get there.

Gibney Dance Company is set to perform a newly commissioned work by Joanna Kotze and re-imagined works by Reggie Wilson at Lower Manhattan's Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center May 4–6. The program marks the second annual edition of GRIT: Gibney Repertory Initiative for Tomorrow, created to simultaneously commission new works from and re-imagine signature works by contemporary dance artists.

Jack Ferver is a New York-based writer, choreographer and director.  His genre-defying performances explore the tragicomedy of the human psyche. Ferver's works integrate and induct an array of psychological and socio-political issues, particularly in the realms of sexual orientation, gender and power struggles. 

Director/Designer Carlos Soto presents Everything Alright as part of New York Live Arts' residency program, Live Feed in Progress. Soto's new work is a musical theater work that follows a group of people faced with the intrusion of a visitor.  The piece revolves around infinite variations of views and values centered on a traumatic event. In the formlessness of the ensemble, characters rotate and no single person plays one role throughout, blurring chronology and place.

Live Artery 2017, New York Live Arts' dynamic showcase of new and recent works by Live Arts residency and commissioned artists, opens January 6 and runs through January 9, 2017.

Features a special work-in-progress presentation of Analogy/Ambros: The Emigrant, part three of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company's Analogy Trilogy; a sneak-preview of Okwui Okpokwasili's Poor People's TV Room; excerpts of new and recent programs by 10 New York Live Arts commissioned artists, and showcases by guest artists.

Following the critical acclaim and record-breaking attendance of Festival 2016, Jacob's Pillow Dance announces its 85th Anniversary Season of exciting programming featuring world premieres, commissions, site-specific work, international artists, live music, and Pillow-exclusive engagements.

Live Artery 2017, New York Live Arts' dynamic showcase of new and recent works by Live Arts residency and commissioned artists, opens January 6 and runs through January 9, 2017.

Join us for a forum with six esteemed thinkers on how women's lives could dramatically change during the 45th U.S. presidency. 

JACK presents The Gentleman Rests, a new opera by Dave Ruder, Oct. 27 - 29, 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.

JACK presents The Gentleman Rests, a new opera by Dave Ruder, Oct. 27 - 29, 2016.

On Saturday, August 27, Jacob's Pillow Dance announced plans to build a new dance studio on the historic Jacob's Pillow campus. The announcement was made by Director Pamela Tatge at the Pillow's 2016 Festival Finale, with the official ground-breaking ceremony to take place at the Pillow on Friday, October 14 at 5pm.

New York Live Arts, home of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and under the artistic leadership of MacArthur Genius Award and National Medal of the Arts recipient Bill T. Jones, announced its upcoming 2016-2017 season today.

Collaborations in Dance often operate on the following formula: Choreographer and designated visual, film and/or sound artist decide to collaborate. They meet, they discuss, they agree on a concept, they work independently for several months. The resulting piece is a dance with supported sound and visuals , and we don't see collaboration. It becomes just about the dance, not about crossing disciplines or being inspired by one another. This disconnect is symptomatic of an increasingly insular and bland dance community.

Starting off its 10th anniversary Fall 2015 season, Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) presents the New York Premiere of Joanna Kotze's FIND YOURSELF HERE, this week, September 17-19 at 7:30PM in the Howard Gilman Performance Space. FIND YOURSELF HERE is a work performed by a sextet of dancers and visual artists who use movement to explore the complexities and possibilities of multi-disciplinary performance.