Brother(hood) Dance!
Wednesday, July 16 at 5:30pm | Henry J. Leir Stage
Those who attended the opening of Jacob’s Garden in 2021 will remember Brother(hood) Dance!, a dynamic dance company that uses movement, agriculture, and technology to challenge norms and inspire social change. At the Pillow this summer, Brother(hood) Dance! will perform Black on Earth, a project that illuminates Black farmers’ resilience, wisdom, and cultural heritage while addressing the urgent issues of food justice and sustainable farming practices.
Founded by Orlando Zane Hunter Jr. and Ricarrdo Valentine, the company’s innovative work fuses the rhythms of the African diaspora with their research into sustainable agricultural practices, creating transformative experiences that connect people to the land, each other, and their shared histories. Their bold approach has earned them recognition as Bessie Award honorees in 2020.
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 of 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.
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.
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.
“Touch of RED held me in its grasp from the second I entered the venue, from the twisting route to my seat, to the stark intimacy immediately on display. It all set my nerves on fire, still burning as I recall the experience.”
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.
“Irresistible.”
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.
“One of the few contemporary dance makes who have created an instantly recognizable style infused with emotional texture and wit.”
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) dance 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.
“Spectacular.”
