Pillow Lab: jumatatu m. poe and Jermone Donte Beacham

Pillow Lab:
jumatatu m. poe and Jermone Donte Beacham

Residency: August 30 – September 10, 2021
Inside the Pillow Lab: October 21, 2021 at 7pm Eastern | Screened on YouTube

Choreographer and performer jumatatu m. poe is known for work that strives to engage and further dialogues with Black queer individuals, creating compelling and challenging work that recognizes History as only one option for the contextualization of the present. In the multi-year series Let ’im Move You, jumatatu m. poe and collaborator Jermone Donte Beacham distill decade-long research of J-Sette performance, a “high step” march popularized by the women’s majorette teams at historically Black colleges in the United States. An amalgam of the performance and complexities of Black joy, poe and Beacham investigate rhythm, pattern, and attention.

In August, poe, Beacham, and artist collaborators presented a site-specific iteration of the series through the works A Study and This is a Success around the Pillow’s campus as part of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival 2021. They continued development at the Pillow Lab with new components of the project before embarking on a five-city tour.

A short video docuseries that provides an intimate look at artists’ development process, titled “Inside the Pillow Lab,” will premiere October 21 on the Pillow’s YouTube channel. No additional registration is required for access.