Dallas Black Dance Theatre to Make Jacob's Pillow Debut On The Henry J. Leir Stage.

Dallas Black Dance Theatre, the oldest and largest continuously operating professional dance company in Dallas, makes its Jacob's Pillow debut in the sixth week of Festival 2021 on the Henry J. Leir Stage.

From Aug. 4-8, the company will perform a Pillow-commissioned world premiere entitled LIKE WATER by sought-after choreographer Darrell Grand Moultrie, celebrated for his work with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, and Dance Theatre of Harlem. Dallas Black Dance Theatre will also perform Face what's facing you! by Claude Alexander III and Night Run by Christopher L. Huggins.

Additionally that week, MacArthur Fellow Okwui Okpokwasili and collaborator Peter Born make their Pillow debut with the presentation of the world premiere of Swallow the Moon, an installation on the Pillow grounds that tells the story of a young girl with hair so powerful it allows her to receive and send messages through time.

Dallas Black Dance Theatre will also participate in an on-site PillowTalk moderated by Pillow Scholar Melanie George on Sun., Aug. 8 at 3:30 p.m., and the company will teach a Sunday Workshop that same day at 10 a.m. Online events this week include the digital premiere of Brian Brooks / Moving Company on Thurs., Aug. 5 at 7:30 p.m., and the digital premiere of PillowTalk: Build Me a Theater Fri., Aug. 6 at 4 p.m.

This week also marks the second installment of the Jacob's Pillow On the Road series. On the Road showcases free Pillow Pop-Ups around Berkshire County over two weekends. Performances will happen on a uniquely designed portable stage and feature local performers as well as Kulu Mele African Dance & Drum Ensemble on Aug. 7-8, a group dedicated to preserving the traditional dance and music of West Africa and the African diaspora.

"It is high time that audiences discover the artistry of Dallas Black Dance Theatre, a premiere American company about to celebrate its 45th Anniversary, and to host the Pillow debut of Okwui Okpokwasili, a transformational artist I have admired for a long time, who is creating what promises to be an astonishing work that will be sited by the edge of our pond right at dusk."

Dallas Black Dance Theatre brings an invigorating program to Jacob's Pillow audiences this summer. Darrell Grand Moultrie said of his new work LIKE WATER: "This work is created in celebration of our resilience. We've been through a lot, but we still take flight. We celebrate the ground we stand on and each second we're here. Like water, we can't survive without love, compassion, and human connection" (Broadway World). LIKE WATER is the inaugural creation made possible by the Joan B. Hunter New Work Commission at Jacob's Pillow.

Claude Alexander III's Face what's facing you! explores what it means to confront life's many challenges and asks the open questions: What are your issues? What do they affect? Where does it hurt? How do you get through them? Explosive, physically-demanding choreography conjures feelings of cathartic healing and perseverance. Night Run by Christopher L. Huggins explores the transformation of social interactions as night falls and time seems to become an illusion. "The invitation to perform at the legendary Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival is an extraordinary honor," said Dallas Black Dance Theatre Artistic Director Melissa M. Young. "This opportunity will seal our place in the roots of American modern dance history, as well as amplify the work we do as a Black dance company in America in front of a global audience" (Broadway World).

Okwui Okpokwasili and collaborator Peter Born's Swallow the Moon envisions an embodied space that transmits a song from a young girl's future self to her present. This piece, created specifically for the Jacob's Pillow grounds, comes from a new work that explores Black hair not only as a cultural signifier, but as threads that are parts of a root system marking a lineage in space and time. The work's spiraling narrative revolves around a young girl who discovers that her hair is not something to tame and discipline, but rather a source of information; something to tend and be attentive to. As a result of chemical straightening, she loses all of her hair only for it to grow back bringing unique gifts and burdens. Visions of a past that reach back to a precolonial West African village are in flux with visits from a future hybrid form that may be her own transformed body. Her new hair growth possesses the complexity of root systems in old growth forests, and she becomes inundated with a flood of history, loss, and dreams. At Jacob's Pillow, the work explores a gesture and song from the young girl's future self that reaches the present and acknowledges the suffering that comes from bearing the burdens of history, but also insists that resilience will yield an expansive self that is deeply rooted in the earth while reaching up towards the celestial plane.

Learn more and purchase tickets at jacobspillow.org.

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