Inside the Pillow Lab:
Brian Brooks/Moving Company

Inside the Pillow Lab: Brian Brooks/Moving Company

October 29, 2020 at 7pm Eastern | Screened on YouTube

In a residency originally slated for March 2020 and cancelled due to the pandemic, Brian Brooks and his group of dancers, The Moving Company, return to the studio for the first time anywhere since March 13. Brooks will revisit Closing Distance, which premiered in January 2020 and is a prescient exploration of the human desire to connect physically and emotionally, with dancers in close contact, often arranging and rearranging one another’s bodies. Closing Distance is set to Caroline Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize-winning suite “Partita for 8 Voices,” recorded by Williamstown, MA-based vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth. Shaw, who wrote the suite during the ensemble’s annual residency at MASS MoCA, has cited Sol Lewitt’s line drawings as an influence.

Brooks and The Moving Company will also develop a new, outdoor site-based performance for audiences to experience while indoor venues remain restricted.

The Moving Company, based in New York City, creates and performs new work by founding choreographer Brian Brooks. Since 2002 the group has toured internationally, with presentations and residencies provided by The Joyce Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Jacob’s Pillow, NY City Center’s Fall for Dance, The Guggenheim Museum, Lumberyard Performing Arts, the American Dance Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and the 92nd Street Y Harkness Festival. A Guggenheim Fellow, Brooks recently completed a Mellon Foundation Creative Artist Fellowship at University of Washington, researching the intersection of performance and augmented reality technologies. He has collaborated with New York City Ballet Associate Artistic Director and former principal dancer Wendy Whelan since 2012, including the Jacob’s Pillow co-commissioned project Restless Creature.

“It’s challenging to find a more prescient institution seemingly so well designed for this moment. With already scarce resources for the arts now demolished, the opportunity to participate in a quarantined residency will allow my company and me to survive this year.”
—Brian Brooks

This event is produced in collaboration with