Artists of the Berkshires

COMMUNITY DAY

This event took place on August 16, 2024.

Performance

6pm | Henry J. Leir Stage
The outdoor Henry J. Leir Stage hosted Berkshire Regional Artists for a special one-day-only performance on August 16, as part of Jacob’s Pillow’s annual Community Day. Community Day programs were free and no tickets were required. Artists included Eventual Dance Company, SHINE, Garet&Co., and a Zumba performance with Luana Dias David & students.

3-4pm

Common Ground Interactive Demo with digital technology, music, and dance
Sommers Studio
Tea Party for Kids
Tea Garden | Rain location: Great Lawn Event Tent | Thunder location: Blake’s Barn
Drag Story Hour
Drag story hour will begin at 3:30pm
Sommerspace | Thunder location: Blake’s Barn

4-5pm

Drum Circle with Tamarack Hollow Nature and Cultural Center, led by Aimee Gelinas of Gaia Roots
Great Lawn | Rain location: Great Lawn Event Tent | Thunder location: Sommers Studio

5-6pm

Children’s Creative Movement Class
Sommers Studio
Meet Cooper the Dancing Llama and hear his story
Tea Garden | Rain location: Great Lawn Event Tent | Thunder location: Blake’s Barn

ALL DAY

Crafts with TG’s Clubhouse
Great Lawn | Rain location: Main Path Event Tent | Thunder location: Blake’s Barn
Face Painting
Great Lawn | Rain location: Main Path Event Tent | Thunder location: Blake’s Barn
Berkshire Nursing Table
Great Lawn | Rain location: Main Path Event Tent | Thunder location: HR Quiet Room #1
Popcorn, Snow Cones, Lawn Games & Toys
Water Tower Lawn | Rain location: Main Path Event Tent

Support for Community Day at Jacob’s Pillow is provided in part by Highland Street Foundation.

About the 6pm Artists

Directed by Caitlin Canty, Eventual Dance Company makes dances for the stage and screen. Using elements of theater, circus, and film, EDC dances mine a private human emotional experience in an attempt to breakdown an illusion of loneliness and posit imaginative possibilities that make noise and glitter. Their work has been presented across Massachusetts, including Cambridge Community Television, The Foundry in Cambridge, MA, The Salem Arts Festival, The Somerville Theater, and The School for Contemporary Dance and Thought in Northampton, MA.

SHINE is a vocational dance troupe based out of Berkshire Hills Music Academy in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Berkshire Hills Music Academy is a secondary school that focuses on a music and arts infused curriculum for young adults with disabilities. The SHINE program began under the direction of Mary Ann Holmes in 2018 as a meaningful vocational opportunity for dancers with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The program provides a non-traditional and innovative work setting which highlights each member’s true capacity for creative expression. SHINE dancers channel their passion for dance into group and solo performances for audiences of all ages. In addition to performing, the group uniquely engages audience members to move and dance with them through a series of developmental patterns connecting body and mind in the BrainDance. In the visibility of performance, SHINE dancers open audiences to new ways of appreciating difference and diversity through dispelling stigmas of limitation. The group consists of seven dynamic members that perform throughout the year at venues across New England. SHINE is under the direction of Mary Ann Holmes and Liz O’Brien.

Garet&Co‘s mission is to create a safe, sustainable and uplifting space for local dancers to train and perform at the highest level of contemporary dance. Garet&Co has created a home for contemporary dancers, where dancers can gain both training experience and paid work opportunities in a positive environment, while being supported as both dancers and humans. Garet&Co’s choreographic work dissects emotions on the stage, dealing with themes of struggling mental health and the search for peace within chaos. Pulling from her own experiences first and then collaborating conceptually and in movement with the dancers, Garet hopes that her work gives audiences the opportunity to fully experience the joy, devastation, and catharsis of contemporary dance. Garet strives to create art that comes from a place of personal truth; work that is both guttural and beautiful. Garet&Co believes that art changes the world, and the company is passionately and actively working to be generators of light. Inspired by her own experiences, both positive and negative, in the dance world, Garet works to create safe and positive environments where art and humanity can be at the forefront. Garet graduated from NYU Tisch with a BFA in Dance in May 2021. She was selected as the Choreography Fellowship Recipient for Sacred Heart University in January 2022, and was selected for Young Choreographers Festival 2022 in NYC. Garet&Co has performed across the Northeast, most notably at Symphony Space, Ailey Citigroup Theatre, The Warner Theatre, Dixon Place, and TADA Emerging Artists Theatre.

Luana Dias David’s role as a Latin Dance Teacher and as a Multicultural Dance Instructor throughout the Berkshires has been distinguished by her ability to develop unique routines tailored to individual student abilities, fostering supportive learning environments. For Community Day, Luana and her Zumba students will present a high energy performance fusing Latin-Urban, Reggaeton and Merengue Urbano. In her capacity as a Zumba Jammer Trainer for Europe, Luana has been instrumental in staff development, mentoring and coaching instructor candidates. Her efforts have significantly enhanced staff development and created effective training initiatives. Luana has graced national television screens, with performances on RAi UNO in Italy in 2019 and Rossiya 1 in Russia in 2007/2008. She has also been a featured presenter at the Zumba® Instructor Convention in Orlando, Florida, the most prestigious event for Zumba members worldwide. Additionally, Luana’s expertise extends to personal training, having earned certifications from FIES (Italian Federation of Physical Education and Sports) and AICS (Italian Association Culture of Sports) in Italy.