Jacob's Pillow 2025

Doris Duke Theatre Reopens

By: Pillow - Feb 12, 2025

 

Jacob’s Pillow announces the nine dance companies that will perform in the historic Ted Shawn Theatre this summer, as its renowned international Dance Festival in the Berkshires returns for a 93rd season, June 25 – August 24. The Festival will showcase visionary companies from around the world, presenting nine weeks of dance events for in-person visitors, and offering online audiences the chance to stream select events and enjoy dance digitally in new ways.

Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival 2025 will feature indoor performances in the landmark Ted Shawn Theatre and the newly-opened Doris Duke Theatre, as well as outdoor performances on the Henry J. Leir Stage. The return of the Doris Duke Theatre restores Jacob’s Pillow to its full presenting capacity for the first time since 2020, reuniting the Festival’s three core performance spaces and offering audiences an unparalleled range of dance experiences across the Pillow’s grounds.

Companies performing in the Ted Shawn Theatre this summer will travel from across the United States and Canada to perform for one week each, representing a dynamic range of genres including ballet, contemporary, tap, hip hop, Irish step, Afro Latin styles, and more. They are, in chronological order: The Center Will Not Hold (A Dorrance Dance Production), BODYTRAFFIC, Trinity Irish Dance Company, The Sarasota Ballet, Stephen Petronio Company, Sekou McMiller & Friends, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Ballet BC, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. 

Companies performing week-long engagements in the Doris Duke Theatre are, in chronological order: Andrew Schneider, Elle Sofe Company, Eun-Me Ahn, Shamel Pitts | TRIBE, Faye Driscoll, and Huang Yi. Descriptions of all companies may be found below.

The outdoor Henry J. Leir Stage will feature nine weeks of events, including presentations from the Contemporary Ballet, Contemporary, and Tap Dance Performance Ensembles at The School at Jacob’s Pillow. Performances on the outdoor Henry J. Leir Stage will be announced in March, with the complete program for Festival 2025 beyond onstage performances (including exhibits, livestreams, PillowTalks, classes and workshops, opportunities to observe dancers in The School at Jacob’s Pillow, community events, and more) to be announced in April.

Festival 2025 will mark the opening of the reimagined Doris Duke Theatre. A landmark international venue for dance and America’s only purpose-built dance theater to open in 2025, the new Duke is an ambitious and technologically advanced theater dedicated to dance of the future. The building’s international design team is led by Francine Houben, founding architect of the leading Dutch architecture firm Mecanoo, in partnership with architecture and landscape architecture firm Marvel, and theater and acoustics consultants Charcoalblue.

“This year, we are honored to present company artists in the Ted Shawn Theatre who have deep professional and cultural roots with Jacob’s Pillow, as well as exciting companies whose histories with us are just beginning,” said Jacob’s Pillow Executive and Artistic Director Pamela Tatge. “Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will perform in the historic Ted Shawn Shawn Theatre as a full company for the first time since 1963. And as part of our opening season in the reimagined Doris Duke Theatre, Shamel Pitts and his company TRIBE will present work they were developing in our Pillow Lab residency program in November 2020, the day before we tragically lost the original Doris Duke Theatre to a fire. These are the types of connections we are making this season, and we hope that all who accept our invitation will see how alive and exciting these rich histories are.”

The 2025 Festival was curated by Tatge, Associate Artistic Director Kim Chan, and Associate Curator Melanie George, supported by International Advisor Cathy Levy and Producing Director Holly Jones. 

Jacob’s Pillow continues to be a home for presentations of premiere works. This year will feature world premieres by The Sarasota Ballet, Andrew Schneider, and Sekou McMiller & Friends, as well as U.S. premieres by Elle Sofe Company, Eun-Me Ahn, and Ballet BC. Artists and companies making their Jacob’s Pillow debuts this season include The Center Will Not Hold (a new collective led by Michelle Dorrance and Ephrat Asherie, performing a work of the same name), Trinity Irish Dance Company, Andrew Schneider, Elle Sofe Company, Shamel Pitts | TRIBE, and Huang Yi.

The Festival also features the return of companies who have not performed at Jacob’s Pillow in many years. In addition to Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, this includes The Sarasota Ballet (first appearance since 2015), Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company (first appearance since 2012), Stephen Petronio Company (first appearance since 2003), and Eun-Me Ahn (first appearance since 2000).

As Jacob’s Pillow continues to strengthen its role in serving artists year-round, the Festival will also feature artists who have recently developed work in the Pillow Lab—a residency program now in its eighth year—and in other studio residencies. These artists include Michelle Dorrance and Ephrat Asherie, Andrew Schneider, Sekou McMiller, Shamel Pitts | TRIBE, and Faye Driscoll.

Member Pre-Sale begins Monday, March 3, with tiered access available to Jacob’s Pillow Members based on Membership level. Tickets will go on sale to the general public on Thursday, April 10. To learn more about the Membership program at Jacob’s Pillow, visit jacobspillow.org/membership. Audiences are encouraged to secure their seats early for this historic season.

Founded by American modern dance pioneer Ted Shawn in 1933, Jacob’s Pillow is home to the longest-running dance festival in the United States. Jacob’s Pillow is a National Historic Landmark, a National Medal of Arts recipient, and a year-round center for dance research and development.

FESTIVAL 2025 PERFORMANCES

Artist dates and descriptions follow; additional programming will be announced this spring. Week-long engagements typically run Wednesday through Sunday, with special Festival events on select Mondays and Tuesdays. Programs and casts are subject to change without notice.

Calendar At A Glance:

• Festival Week 1   June 25-29
  • The Center Will Not Hold: A Dorrance Dance Production   (Ted Shawn Theatre)
• Festival Week 2   July 2-6
  • BODYTRAFFIC   (Ted Shawn Theatre)
• Festival Week 3   July 9-13
  • Trinity Irish Dance Company (opens July 10)   (Ted Shawn Theatre)
  • Opening Week Celebration (July 6-12) (Doris Duke Theatre)
• Festival Week 4   July 16-20
  • The Sarasota Ballet   (Ted Shawn Theatre)
  • Andrew Schneider   (Doris Duke Theatre)
• Festival Week 5   July 23-27
  • Stephen Petronio Company   (Ted Shawn Theatre)
  • Elle Sofe Company   (Doris Duke Theatre)
• Festival Week 6   July 30 – August 3
  • Sekou McMiller & Friends   (Ted Shawn Theatre)
  • Eun-Me Ahn   (Doris Duke Theatre)
• Festival Week 7   August 6-10
  • Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company   (Ted Shawn Theatre)
  • Shamel Pitts | TRIBE   (Doris Duke Theatre)
• Festival Week 8   August 13-17
  • Ballet BC   (Ted Shawn Theatre)
  • Faye Driscoll   (Doris Duke Theatre)
• Festival Week 9   August 20-24
  • Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater   (Ted Shawn Theatre)
  • Huang Yi   (Doris Duke Theatre)

WEEK-LONG PERFORMANCES — TED SHAWN THEATRE
Tickets start at $65

The Center Will Not Hold
A Dorrance Dance Production
Festival Week 1 | Wednesday, June 25 – Sunday, June 29 | Ted Shawn Theatre
Pillow Debut | Live Music

Jacob’s Pillow fan favorites and close collaborators Michelle Dorrance and Ephrat Asherie kick off Festival 2025 with a lively celebration of street, club, and vernacular dances, born from their many years of creating together. Originally crafted in 2022 as a short duet, The Center Will Not Hold premiered as a 30-minute piece at New York City Center’s 2023 Fall For Dance Festival.

Now, in this reimagined evening-length work, Dorrance and Asherie offer an eclectic ensemble of 11 performers, each deeply rooted in regional music and movement—from tap dance and hip hop to breaking, house, Chicago footwork, Detroit jit, litefeet, Memphis jookin, and body percussion. The Center Will Not Hold features original music composed by Donovan Dorrance with live percussion by world-class drummer and percussionist John Angeles.

Jacob’s Pillow has long been an artistic home for Michelle Dorrance, a tap performer, choreographer, teacher, and the Artistic Director of Dorrance Dance, which has headlined at the festival nine times, most recently in 2021 and 2023. An artist “with a transcendent strength of spirit” (The Washington Post), Dorrance received the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award in 2013 and a MacArthur “Genius” Award in 2015. Ephrat Asherie is a b-girl dancer and choreographer whose works are hailed as “a magnificent celebration of movement and art” (Charleston City Paper). She has performed at Jacob’s Pillow numerous times since 2013, and her company, Ephrat Asherie Dance, developed its break-out work Odeon in the Pillow Lab in 2017 and had its world premiere at Festival 2018. Both based in New York City, Dorrance and Asherie have also served as Program Directors at The School at Jacob’s Pillow. 

BODYTRAFFIC

Festival Week 2 | Wednesday, July 2 – Sunday, July 6 | Ted Shawn Theatre
First Appearance Since 2022

With a compelling style that reflects the “invention, attitude, and urban edge” (Boston Globe) of its Los Angeles home, BODYTRAFFIC returns to the Pillow with a program that dives into the power of memory sparked by unexpected reminders. Whether it’s a painting, song, or sensation, the associations we make with the world around us forge lasting connections that provoke deep feelings of nostalgia.

For Festival 2025, BODYTRAFFIC will perform a program featuring Blue Until June—set to the songs of Etta James by their new Creative Partner Trey McIntyre—alongside works by Juel D. Lane and Matthew Neenan. This will be the company’s Ted Shawn Theatre debut, having previously performed on the outdoor Henry J. Leir Stage in 2022, and in the original Doris Duke Theatre in 2013 and 2015.

Founded in 2007, BODYTRAFFIC tours the country and the globe spreading the joy and positive spirit of their home city. Dance Magazine named the company one of “25 to Watch” in 2013, and this past year, Forbes magazine wrote that BODYTRAFFIC’s “incredible” work in the decade since has “made the case for how Los Angeles is becoming a home for great dancers.”

Trinity Irish Dance Company

Festival Week 3 | Thursday, July 10 – Sunday, July 13 | Ted Shawn Theatre
Pillow Debut | Live Music | 35th Anniversary Season

Trinity Irish Dance Company (TIDC) is a uniquely Irish-American company that is the high watermark for their art form. Called “sophisticated and commanding” by the Los Angeles Times and “impossibly complex” by The New York Times, TIDC makes their Jacob’s Pillow debut this summer, presenting “everything you expect, but like nothing you’d imagine.”

Performing in the Ted Shawn Theatre, TIDC’s mixed program will represent their range of genre-defying repertoire as well as classic works, featuring a live band. Among the works presented will be Mark Howard’s Soles, a tribal and timeless rhythmic study; Push, an explosion of hard-driving percussive power that exemplifies the company’s consistent message of female empowerment; and Michelle Dorrance and Melinda Sullivan's American Traffic, a hybrid of Irish step and American tap that plays at the intersection of rhythmic sensibilities and rebellious histories.

Since 1990, TIDC has celebrated Founding Artistic Director Mark Howard’s pioneering vision to fuse vibrant Irish traditions with ever-evolving innovation. TIDC is the birthplace of progressive Irish dance, Howard’s innovative movement genre that “ushered in a new era for Irish step dance” (Chicago Tribune). Considered an American treasure by critics and enthusiasts worldwide, TIDC has performed sold-out tours globally, carving new traditions as they push the boundaries of an ancient and beloved art form. The company celebrates its 35th anniversary this season.

The Sarasota Ballet

Festival Week 4 | Wednesday, July 16 – Sunday, July 20 | Ted Shawn Theatre
First Appearance Since 2015 | World Premiere

Beloved among ballet fans the world over, The Sarasota Ballet returns to Jacob’s Pillow for the first time in ten years. Pushed to new heights under the leadership of director Iain Webb, assistant director Margaret Barbieri (both formerly of The Royal Ballet), and Joseph Volpe executive director (formerly of the Metropolitan Opera), the company has garnered a reputation for its truly diverse repertoire of works.

This summer, the company returns to the Ted Shawn Theatre with a mixed program including a piece by Sir Frederick Ashton and a world premiere work by American choreographer Jessica Lang, the Virginia B. Toulmin & Muriel O’Neil Artist in Residence at The Sarasota Ballet, who has presented three previous world premieres at Jacob’s Pillow with her own company.

The Sarasota Ballet is recognized for its unparalleled active repertoire of the choreography of Sir Frederick Ashton, and is known worldwide as the main exponent of his ballets outside of the United Kingdom. The company has presented an expansive range of over 180 ballets by acclaimed choreographers, including George Balanchine, Sir David Bintley, Gemma Bond, Sir Matthew Bourne, Michel Fokine, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Twyla Tharp, Antony Tudor, and Christopher Wheeldon. The company works to infuse their community and beyond with the highest quality and diversity of dance in America. According to The Guardian’s review of the company’s 2024 tribute to Sir Fredrick Ashton at The Royal Opera House: “the whole programme, danced with grace and care, is a history lesson and a delight.”

Stephen Petronio Company

Festival Week 5 | Wednesday, July 23 – Sunday, July 27 | Ted Shawn Theatre
First Appearance Since 2003

This summer, Jacob’s Pillow is honored to welcome acclaimed director and choreographer Stephen Petronio to present the final performances of the Stephen Petronio Company (SPC), while also marking the culmination of SPC’s 40th anniversary. Petronio, who is regarded as “one of the few contemporary dance makers who have created an instantly recognizable style infused with emotional texture and wit” (The New York Times), will sunset an accomplished 40-year run with his company as he moves into his next creative endeavor: Petronio Projects.

The company’s Festival 2025 program in the Ted Shawn Theatre will include some of Petronio’s signature works, including MiddleSexGorge (1990), BUD (2005), Broken Man (2002), the critically acclaimed American Landscapes (2019), and a new iteration of Petronio’s solo Another Kind of Steve (2024). This appearance comes exactly 40 years after the company’s Pillow debut in the first of three consecutive seasons when they were Artists-in-Residence here.

A recipient of numerous awards, including a New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award, SPC focuses on the creation and presentation of Petronio’s existing and new works, alongside legacy initiatives meant to preserve the history of postmodern dance lineage. The company also advances the future of postmodern dance through new works that honor and extend the history, offering a platform for a greater inclusivity of artistic voices. SPC has performed in 40 countries throughout the world with numerous New York City engagements, including 25 seasons at The Joyce Theater.

Sekou McMiller & Friends

Festival Week 6 | Wednesday, July 30 – Sunday, August 3 | Ted Shawn Theatre
World Premiere | Live Music

With a musical flair and explosive energy, dancer and choreographer Sekou McMiller is at the forefront of Afro Latin Dance performance and education. His unique fusion style, rooted in Afro-Caribbean traditions and laced with a range of dance techniques from the African Diaspora, brought Jacob’s Pillow audiences to their feet dancing last summer as Sekou McMiller & Friends performed on the outdoor stage.

For Festival 2025, in his Ted Shawn Theatre debut, McMiller will present the world premiere of Urban Love Suite, the latest incarnation of his dance and music project Afro Latin Jazz and Soul Experience. A joy-filled rhythmical journey through African American, Afro Latino/a/e and West African music and dance traditions, Urban Love Suite celebrates the cultural love affair between Black and Brown peoples, through encounters in cityscapes including Harlem, the Bronx, Dakar, São Paulo, Los Angeles, and Chicago. This world premiere is supported by the Joan B. Hunter New Work Commission.

McMiller’s diverse career as a dancer, choreographer, and educator has garnered him broad recognition worldwide. His choreographic work has been featured at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Dance Chicago, The Actors Fund Theater, New York City Center, Ailey CitiGroup Theater, Symphony Space, Edison Ballroom, and the United Nations General Assembly. He has appeared in films including In the Heights, performed off-Broadway, and performed and choreographed for Pitbull and Madonna and for top Latin music artists including Gilberto Santa Rosa, Willie Colón, Tito Rojas, and Tito Nieves. He has also performed at numerous Jacob’s Pillow special events, participated in the Pillow Lab residency series, and served as Choreographer/Director of the Musical Theatre program at The School at Jacob’s Pillow in 2024.

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company

Festival Week 7 | Wednesday, August 6 – Sunday, August 10 | Ted Shawn Theatre

First Appearance Since 2012

Now in its 43rd year, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company is one of the most innovative and powerful forces in the contemporary dance world. Emerging from years of collaboration between Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, their performances foreshadow issues of identity, form, and social commentary that would change the face of American dance.

A Tony Award-winning choreographer, dancer, and director, Bill T. Jones has received a MacArthur "Genius" Award, recognition at the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors, two Tony Awards for Best Choreography, and the 2010 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award. Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company has performed worldwide in over 200 cities, in 30 countries on six continents. The company has a storied history performing at Jacob’s Pillow, having appeared ten times previously, beginning in 1989 and most recently in 2012.

This summer, the company will present an electric program featuring two seminal works by its founders: Continuous Replay (1977/1991), an explosive work that traces its roots to Zane’s interest in photography and film; and the exuberant Bessie Award-winning D-Man in the Waters (1989), a work set to music by Felix Mendelssohn that captures the resilience of a generation during the 1980s AIDS epidemic. In addition to these signature works, Jones will also present a pièce d’occasion: a site-based version of Story/Time (2012) with new stories and live music accompaniment by Ted Coffey.

Ballet BC

Festival Week 8 | Wednesday, August 13 – Sunday, August 17 | Ted Shawn Theatre
First Appearance Since 2019| U.S. Premiere

Formed in 1986 and based in British Columbia, Ballet BC is well-known in Canada and around the world for pushing the physical and emotional boundaries of contemporary dance with performances that are “visually stunning and emotionally profound” (PBS). The company returns to the Ted Shawn Theatre stage for the first time since 2019 with a program that includes the U.S. premiere of BOLERO X by Shahar Binyamini, SWAY by the company’s artistic director Medhi Walerski, and the U.S. premiere of Obsidian by Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber.

Ballet BC presents a diverse repertoire in its international tours, as well as its regular runs at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver. Collaborating choreographers include William Forsythe, Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, Medhi Walerski, Ohad Naharin, Crystal Pite, Johan Inger, Imre and Marne van Opstal, Adi Salant, Ji?í Pokorný, Micaela Taylor, Marco Goecke, Fernando Hernando Magadan, Dorotea Saykaly, and Aszure Barton. “We are a company,” says Ballet BC, “that aims to create dance at its most essential: visceral, powerful, thought-provoking, and transformative.”

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Festival Week 9 | Wednesday, August 20 – Sunday, August 24 | Ted Shawn Theatre
First Appearance by Full Company Since 1963

An unrivaled force since 1958, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is one of the most acclaimed dance companies in the world. With a repertory that boasts close to 300 works by more than 100 choreographers, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has performed in more than 70 countries on six continents, and has been designated by the United States Congress as a "vital American Cultural Ambassador to the World.”

This summer at Jacob’s Pillow, for the first time in 62 years, the full company of extraordinary dancers will bring to life audience favorites and thrilling new works by choreographers for whom Alvin Ailey paved the way, reminding us that dance is both a reflection of our past and a guide to our future.

Alvin Ailey began his close association with the Pillow in 1954 as a performer, choreographer, and acting director of the Lester Horton Dance Theatre, and he first brought his company here in 1959. He adapted Revelations into its present form for Pillow performances in 1961, and this landmark work—which has been internationally celebrated ever since—will be part of the company’s mixed program this summer.

In addition, programming on the outdoor Henry J. Leir Stage during this week will feature works by artists connected to the lineage illuminated in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s recent Edges of Ailey, the first large-scale museum exhibition to celebrate Ailey’s enduring legacy. Events on the outdoor stage are ticketed separately, with further details to be announced soon.

Forged during a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was established to uplift the African American experience while transcending boundaries of race, faith, and nationality with its universal humanity. With dancers of all backgrounds, an extraordinary library of works, and wide-ranging collaborations with choreographers, it was truly the first modern dance company of its kind. 

WEEK-LONG PERFORMANCES — DORIS DUKE THEATRE
Tickets start at $65

The reimagined Doris Duke Theatre will host an Opening Week Celebration during Festival Week 3, with programming to be announced. Week-long engagements in the new Duke will begin in Festival Week 4.

Andrew Schneider

Festival Week 4 | Wednesday, July 16 – Sunday, July 20 | Doris Duke Theatre

Pillow Debut | World Premiere | Live Music

Jacob’s Pillow welcomes Obie Award-winning performer, writer, and artist Andrew Schneider, whose “inventive” and “astounding” work in interactive electronics “continually finds new ways … to surprise and mystify us.” (The New York Times). In HERE, commissioned this year by the Pillow, Schneider joins with Berlin-based dancers and collaborators Margaux Marielle-Trehouart and Joel Suarez Gomez (Sasha Waltz & Guests, Mouvoir, Lausitz Festival) to tell the story of a single space over eons, in which innumerable lives, dreams, and travesties float through the present moment.

We know what it's like to miss someone because they are not here, but what does it feel like to miss someone because they are not now? Inspired by concepts of simultaneity and quantum entanglement, and using wireless in-ear technology and spatialized audio, Schneider and company explore the limits of connection and storytelling through hyper-precise attention to synchronicities of bodies in space over time—both cosmic and mundane.

Schneider has created Off-Broadway designs which include Dolphins and Sharks at the Labyrinth Theater; Small Mouth Sounds at Ars Nova and the Signature Theater; and Roosevelvis at the Vineyard Theater. He is a member of the arts incubator ONX in New York City, is a 2020 recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award and a Sundance “Art of the Practice” fellow, and received a fellowship in 2022 from the Junge Akademie/Akademie Der Künste in Berlin. Schneider was a 2019 Professor of the Practice and Visiting Fellow in Theater Arts and Performance Studies through the Brown Arts Initiative at Brown University.

To complement his week-long performance run, Schneider has been commissioned by Jacob’s Pillow to create an immersive / binaural sound experience that crossfades with reality. Audiences will access this experience using their own devices and headphones as they navigate the world around them.

Elle Sofe Company

Festival Week 5 | Wednesday, July 23 – Sunday, July 27 | Doris Duke Theatre
U.S. Debut | U.S. Premiere | Live Music

Hailing from Norway, Elle Sofe Company make their U.S. debut to present Vástádus eana – the answer is land, a “powerful” (Vancouver Sun) and critically-acclaimed performance that combines dance with yoik, a traditional singing style of the Sámi people who are Indigenous to the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia.

Supported by polyphonic music and costumes inspired by traditional clothing, the piece is inspired by political demonstrations, Sámi spiritual practices, and formation dance. Vástádus eana – the answer is land explores community and kinship between people, nature, and the earth. The yoik, composed specifically for the performance, serves as a musical pillar throughout a performance that reflects on the power of standing together and the awareness of the earth we all stand on and share.

Company founder Elle Sofe Sara is a featured artist at the Arctic Arts Festival in Harstad and a winner of the 2019 Moon Jury Award at the Imagine Native Film Festival. Now coming to the U.S. for the first time, Vástádus eana – the answer is land has toured internationally, and received the 2021/2022 Norwegian Critics Award for Dance.

Eun-Me Ahn

Festival Week 6 | Wednesday, July 30 – Sunday, August 3 | Doris Duke Theatre
First Appearance Since 2000 | U.S. Premiere

Eun-Me Ahn is a leading artist of the Korean performing arts scene, known for her avant-garde choreographic worlds and technicolor productions. In her return to Jacob’s Pillow for the first time since 2000, Ahn will present the official U.S. premiere of Dragons, a “spectacular” (BroadwayWorld) work with tumbling and 3D holographic choreography that juggles speed, scale, and illusion.

The work was conceived before the pandemic and transformed by the reality of her initial cast of pan-Asian dancers being split and isolated through it. Dragons incorporates the 3D holographic presence of the remote cast with live choreography for eight on-stage dancers, many of whom were born in 2000—the year of the dragon on the Asian Zodiac calendar.

A graduate of contemporary dance at Ewha Womans University in Seoul and from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Ahn is internationally renowned, with over 150 pieces in her repertoire. Her work has toured widely in Asia and Europe through invitations from the Pina Bausch Foundation in Wuppertal, Germany, and an association with Théâtre de la Ville in Paris.

Shamel Pitts | TRIBE

Festival Week 7 | Wednesday, August 6 – Sunday, August 10 | Doris Duke Theatre

Pillow Debut

Dancer, artist, and choreographer Shamel Pitts creates provocative dance works that “push against the boundaries of identity” (Dance Magazine). His company TRIBE will perform Touch of RED, inspired by the rapid-fire footwork of boxing, the African American jazz dance style Lindy Hop, Gaga movement language, and nightlife culture. Set in a stylized ring, this dance duet examines the way Black men are perceived and perceive themselves in contemporary society.

This is a notable homecoming for Pitts and his company, whose Pillow Lab residency work on Touch of RED in November 2020 was disrupted when the original Doris Duke Theatre was lost to a fire. Since then, TRIBE premiered Touch of RED in a sold-out weekend in October 2022 at MASS MoCA, co-presented by Jacob’s Pillow. This will be the first time this remarkable duet is performed at the Festival.

Pitts is a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2024 Doris Duke Artist, and recently received a 2024 MacArthur Fellowship. He is the recipient of a 2018 Princess Grace Award in Choreography, a 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship Award in Choreography, and a 2024 Knight Choreography Prize. Pitts’s “BLACK series” has toured extensively worldwide since 2016. 

To complement his week-long performance run in the Doris Duke Theatre, Shamel Pitts has also been commissioned by Jacob’s Pillow to create and release a digital-first work in summer 2025 and will create a series of cinematic 3D experiences, in collaboration with TRIBE’s Transmedia Artist Lucca Del Carlo, that accompany his in-person performance of Touch of RED.

Faye Driscoll
Festival Week 8 | Wednesday, August 13 – Sunday, August 17 | Doris Duke Theatre
First Appearance Since 2018

Faye Driscoll is a Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award and Doris Duke Award-winning performance maker who has been hailed as a “startlingly original talent” by The New York Times and “a post-millenium postmodern wild woman” by The Village Voice. She returns to the Pillow to present her piece Weathering, first developed in a Pillow Lab residency in 2022.

Weathering is a multi-sensory performance sculpture made of bodies, sounds, scents, liquids, and objects, in which ten people enact a glacially morphing tableau vivant on a mobile raft-like stage surging through the Anthropocene, with the audience embanking the performers. This symphonically active, luminously living work is a breathing, leaking, choreography of micro-events within a momentum thrusting from just beyond the perceivable.

Driscoll received the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award in 2018 and has been presented across the U.S. and internationally at Tanz im August, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, La Biennale di Venezia, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Melbourne Festival, Belfast International Arts Festival, Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens, and Centro de Arte Experimental in Buenos Aires.

Huang Yi
Festival Week 9 | Wednesday, August 20 – Sunday, August 24 | Doris Duke Theatre
Pillow Debut

Named by Dance Magazine as one of the “25 to Watch” in 2011, Taiwanese dancer, choreographer, and inventor Huang Yi creates partnership between humans and robots. Huang will appear for his first-ever engagement at Jacob’s Pillow to present Ink, in which he and audio-visual pioneer Ryoichi Kurokawa dismantle and reconstruct the lines from a hundred artworks in renowned calligrapher Tong Yang-Tze’s Silent Music series.

Exploring textures of movement, sound, visual art, and space, Huang and his dancers perform alongside stunning holographic projection and two industrial robots. Mixing movement with mechanical and multimedia elements to create dance that corresponds with the flow of data, Ink makes each performer, whether human or machine, a dancing instrument. 

Ink was co-commissioned by the National Taichung Theater and National Theater, Taipei in Taiwan and had its world premiere in June 2023.