Morning Classes

Morning Classes

A variety of in-person dance and movement classes open to participants of all experience levels, including beginners, ages 16+ (sorry, no exceptions). $12 per class; $50 for 5 class card. Pay via online pre-registration or cash/card at the door. 

Schedule of 2024 Morning Classes

Classes will be held from June 25 through August 23 on Tuesdays through Fridays from 9-10am.

Tuesdays – Ballet
Community ballet class consists of a gentle barre followed by essential center exercises. Dancers explore efficiency, musicality, quality, gesture, and the delicacy of expression.

Wednesdays – Contemporary
This contemporary class will invite a constant switching of states; lightning fast to slow and sustained, getting in and out of the floor, spirals to staccato, internal to external. While the class will be highly physical, we will also work on tuning our sensitivity, perception, and proprioceptive skills. Participants will be encouraged to find their personal physical capacity. This class is for everyone who loves to express themselves through physicality.

Thursdays – West African Dance & Spiritual Well-Being
In an affirming and community-centered atmosphere, this class will use dance as an artistic tool to promote health, healing, and well-being. Together we will explore traditional and contemporary West African and African diaspora dance forms while focusing on cultivating body awareness and strength.

Fridays – Hip Hop/Street Styles

Hip Hop
June 28, July 5, July 19, August 2, August 9, August 16, August 23
In this fun, energetic class, we will focus on the foundations and basics of Hip Hop dance. This community dance class will explore rhythm and musicality through variations of different steps and combinations.

Afrobeat/House Fusion
July 12, July 26
Whether you’re a beginner taking your first steps onto the dance floor or a seasoned pro looking to refine your moves, this class is perfect for anyone who loves to move to vibrant music. Our passionate instructor will guide you through the fundamental footwork, grooves, and foundational movements and dive into the fusion of African dance styles with modern influences. You’ll learn to embody house dance’s soulful and freestyle nature and express yourself through the energetic and expressive movements that define Afrobeat. Come ready to sweat, laugh, connect and groove to the irresistible rhythms.

About the Artists:

Ian Spencer Bell (Ballet) is a dancer, a choreographer, a poet, and a teacher. He has performed solo at the 92nd Street Y, Boston Center for the Arts, Jacob’s Pillow, Poetry Foundation, and Queens Museum. For more than a decade throughout the United States, he led education and training programs for American Ballet Theatre. Bell studied at North Carolina School of the Arts, School of American Ballet, and Pacific Northwest Ballet School. He was educated at Sarah Lawrence College and New York University.

Miranda Fern Katz (Contemporary) is an international choreographer and performing artist from the Berkshires. Currently working under the direction of Pedro Ramos in the Portuguese dance-theater company, Ordem do O, Katz shares her time between Massachusetts, New York City, and Europe. She has had the pleasure of dancing in the works of Sharon Fridman, Olga Rabetskaya, Rebecca Pappas, and many others. She has shown her work in various venues throughout New York City, Massachusetts, and beyond. Katz is the co-founder of the performance project, When Paths Cross, with acrobat and actor Ricardo Paz. Together, they blend the worlds of circus, dance, and theater to create highly physical performances that speak about issues of humanity, through a surrealistic lens.

Truth Hunter (West African Dance & Spiritual Well-Being) was born and raised in Oakland, California. She studied West African dance under the tutelage of Marilyn and Sekou Sylla of Bamidele Dancers and Drummers at Mount Holyoke College. In 2007, Truth Hunter created a multimedia African Dance concert to fundraise for asylum seekers impacted by genocide in Darfur. It was through this experience, that she realized that the performing arts can be used as a tool for activism and a powerful way to bring healing into the world. In August 2017, Truth Hunter became the Director of Race and Ethnicity programs at Connecticut College where she collaborated with the Dance Department to design an interdisciplinary course that used West African dance to tell stories of resistance of African diaspora people during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. In spring of 2018, Truth Hunter traveled to Senegal to train with Bakalama Dance Company and performed a solo at the renowned dance school, École des Sables. Currently, Truth Hunter is a doctoral student at the University of Connecticut. Her research examines the ways that West African dance deepens embodied teaching and learning. Additionally, Truth teaches African dance healing workshops that promote the union of the mind, body, and spirit.

Tara Murphy (West African Dance & Spiritual Well-Being), originally from Washington, D.C., grew up studying ballet and theater. She earned her B.A. in theater and religious studies at Yale University, where she also began studying African dance. At this time Tara began exploring her heritage through African studies at Yale, and was awarded a fellowship to study traditional dance and drumming at the University of Legon in Ghana, West Africa. For the past 25 years, she has studied with many African and Afro-Caribbean artists in Washington, D.C., New York City and Boston. Her primary mentors have been Issa Coulibaly and Joh Camara of Mali; Mohamed Kalifa Kamara of Guinea; Fatou N’Diaye and Astou Sagna of Senegal; and Jean Appolon of Haiti. In addition to African dance, Tara has also practiced yoga and meditation since she was a child. Tara recognizes the practice of African dance and drumming as a tremendous force for healing, meditation, empowerment and community. It is her greatest honor to share the inspiration of these ancient traditions.

Noel Staples-Freeman (West African Dance & Spiritual Well-Being), born and raised in Dorchester, Massachusetts, now resides in Pittsfield, MA. A graduate of Emerson College with a B.S. in Children’s Theatre/Performing Arts and Dance, she has dedicated over five decades to teaching and performing arts, both locally and internationally. Her early dance education began at age 11 at The Billie Pope School of Dance in Roxbury, followed by studies at The Boston Conservatory of Music, The Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts, The Art of Black Dance and Music, and the Koumpo West African Dance Company. Noel’s illustrious career includes notable performances such as Nelson Mandela’s visit to Boston in 1990, participation in Dance Africa at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and appearances at Jacob’s Pillow. She received the Commonwealth Award of Massachusetts in 1995 with the Art of Black Dance and Music, directed by DeAma Battle, and performed in Senegal for the President at the Sorano Theatre with the Koumpo West African Dance Company, directed by Ibrahima Camara. Her contributions to Aashka Dance School in Hyde Park, MA, earned her another Commonwealth Award in 2016 and a Certificate of Recognition from the City of Boston in 2023. As the Founder and Director of Uprising Dance Theatre since 1983, Noel leads an intergenerational group celebrating the African Diaspora’s traditional and contemporary dance, music, and theater. Uprising Dance Theatre offers community classes, lecture demonstrations, and Kwanzaa celebrations throughout New England. Recently, Noel has expanded her community involvement, joining the Common Good Co-operative Urban Farm and participating as a panelist at Harvard Medical School in 2022. In 2023, she graduated from Tufts University School of Medicine’s COHERE program, integrating dance with holistic healthcare practices. She has recently offered African Rooted Dance classes in Berkshire County at Community Access to the Arts (CATA), Berkshire Pulse, and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

Shakia “The Key” Barron (Hip Hop) is a choreographer, performer, and dance educator whose work is rooted in the African Diaspora, focusing on Funk Styles, Hip-Hop, House, and other African diasporic dance forms. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Dance at Mount Holyoke College. As a dance educator, Barron spent four years teaching at the Bates Dance Festival and taught community classes at Jacob’s Pillow. Barron is a DEL faculty member who has facilitated multiple professional development workshops around the integration of Hip Hop dance and history in the curriculum. Her work titled “Our House” was selected to be performed for Community Day at Jacob’s Pillow in 2019. Barron was also the 2019 Arthur Levitt Jr. ’52 Artist-in-Residence at Williams College. Prior to joining Mount Holyoke College Dance Department as a full-time tenure track faculty, she served as an adjunct at UMASS Amherst, Smith, Amherst, and Connecticut colleges. Barron has choreographed and directed more than 50 Hip Hop, Funk, Modern, and African dance works that have been performed at Trenton Educational Dance Institute, Rider University, the Princeton School of Ballet, Bates Dance Festival, and Jacob’s Pillow.

Jesmyda Viyano (Afrobeat/House Fusion) is a dancer affiliated with Kia The Key & Company, having obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry from Amherst College. At Amherst College, she participated in Dance and Step and the African Caribbean Student Union (ACSU) dance. Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Jessie is an accomplished performer, choreographer, and educator in Massachusetts. Her repertoire includes performances in works by Shakia Barron, such as Win in Doubt, 360°, and Genesis at the Five College venues, along with presentations of Our House and 360° at Jacob’s Pillow. Portraying a high level of energy on and off the stage, she is committed to fostering meaningful connections through dance within herself and with the people and communities she engages. Her enthusiasm for amplifying others and her open-minded approach to learning are evident in her interactions.

Angelica Polk (Hip Hop/Street Styles) is a performer, choreographer, and dance educator from Western Massachusetts. She is the rehearsal director and performer for Kia The Key & Company. She holds a Bachelor’s in Dance and Arts in the Community and a Master’s in Mental Health Counseling from Cambridge College. Angelica continues to artistically challenge and enrich the lives of many dance communities such as Jacob’s Pillow and various educational settings and communities. She is the founder and director of an all inclusive majorette dance line, The Community Ambassadors of Spirit and Performance Team (C.A.O.S). C.A.O.S. is a unified collective of studio and community dancers willing to learn majorette style and perform their own creations of choreographed stands to reaffirm our power and strengths together for both our enjoyment and for seasonal parades. Angelica was honored to have been a featured dancer and on the cover of the New England Regional ACDA Dance Conference in 2016 at Springfield College. She also had a life changing opportunity and studied dance history at the Umbra Institute in Perugia, Italy and visited Rome and Venice. Angelica is skilled in many dance forms and techniques such as Horton, VopJazz, Contemporary, West African, House, and Hip Hop.

2024 Waitlist Policy
If a class is unavailable, we encourage you to continue checking our website for released tickets and call the Community Engagement department at 413.243.9919 x163. If you purchase a ticket and cannot attend, please contact the Box Office as soon as possible to allow for spots to be released. We thank you in advance for being courteous to those around you and keeping our campus safe.

Can’t make it? If you are unable to attend or reschedule your tickets for any reason, please consider donating the value of your ticket order and call the Community Engagement department at 413.243.9919 x163 in advance of the event. Your donation supports the mission of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and our future programming. You’re also providing access to other audience members, including members of the community, students, interns, and artists.

Jacob’s Pillow is committed to creating accessible spaces and experiences. Please contact community@jacobspillow.org with accessibility questions or accommodation requests.