Jacob's Pillow Announces Festival Week 3 Programming

In the third week of the 2021 Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Ballet Hispánico makes its fifth appearance at Jacob's Pillow with a program encompassing five decades of lush and virtuosic dance from July 14-18 on the Henry J. Leir Stage.

On July 17, the Pillow will also present a site-specific performance-Eastern Woodland Dances-which includes local Indigenous dancers of the Mashpee Wampanoag, Seneca, Cayuga, and Nipmuc nations. Online performances include the digital premiere of Dorrance Dance on July 15 and continued streaming of Paris Opera Ballet through July 15 and Nrityagram Dance Ensemble through July 22.

"We are thrilled to be able to finally celebrate Ballet Hispanico's 50th Anniversary with a program that shows the range of works these magnificent dancers can perform. We also continue our commitment to showcasing the work of Indigenous artists by presenting the rarely seen dances that were danced in our region centuries ago. And digital audiences will be able to see the premiere of Ways to Now, the joyful and whimsical site specific work by Dorrance Dance that takes people to rarely seen (or heard) areas of the Pillow campus," says Jacob's Pillow Executive & Artistic Director Pamela Tatge.

Additional offerings this week include PillowTalk: Curatorial Voices featuring Tatge with the Pillow's new Associate Curators, Melanie George and Ali Rosa-Salas on-site on Sun., July 18, 3:30 p.m. (online premiere July 30 at 4 p.m.), as well as PillowTalk: Grand Union with Wendy Perron, former editor of Dance Magazine, premiering online on Fri., July 16 at 4 p.m.

Ballet Hispánico will present works by internationally renowned choreographers in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the company, including Jacob's Pillow Dance Award winner Annabelle Lopez Ochoa; former director of the National Ballet of Caracas Vicente Nebrada, and a Dance Magazine 2011 "25 to Watch"; and former director of Luna Negra Dance Theater Gustavo Ramírez Sansano.

Ochoa's Tiburones addresses the discriminatory media portrayal of Latinx culture. With music by Pérez Prado, Dizzy Gillespie, and The Funky Lowlives, the work challenges the power held by the media to diminish the voices of Latinx artists and perpetuate harmful stereotypes. Nebrada's Batucada Fantástica is a work comprised of three selected solos that pays homage to Brazilian Carnival. Utilizing everyday motions like waving, walking, and movements from rituals and traditional dances, the work embodies dynamic characterization and emotion. Sansano's lively 18+1 is "a magnificently mambo-driven mixture of the mechanical and the manic" (Columbus Alive).

"Ballet Hispánico is the cultural connector for anyone interested in discovering more about our Latinx human experience," said Artistic Director and CEO Eduardo Vilaro. "The work is drenched in the diasporas, history and essences of who we are in the world today" (Penn State News).

On Sat., July 17 at 12 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., local Indigenous dancers of the Mashpee Wampanoag, Seneca, Cayuga, and Nipmuc nations come together on the Pillow grounds in Eastern Woodland Dances, a performance that highlights the breadth of Indigenous performance traditions within the Eastern Woodland region and its diaspora. Performers include Wampanoag Nation Singers and Dancers, Fresh Water Dancers, and Al & Jake George. This event is curated by local Nipmuc elder Larry Spotted Crow Mann and Annawon Weeden.

In PillowTalk: Curatorial Voices, Pamela Tatge is joined by new Pillow Associate Curators Melanie George and Ali Rosa-Salas in discussing how Festival 2021 came into being and the role of dance in a changing world. The talk is moderated by Pillow Scholar in Residence, Brian Schaefer. In PillowTalk: Grand Union, dancer and writer Wendy Perron discusses her new book chronicling the seminal 1970s performance group of the same name, remembered today as the "accidental anarchists of downtown dance." The digital on-demand performance by Nrityagram Dance Ensemble, revered as having "among the world's greatest dancers," is also available for viewing (The New York Times). Audiences can stream Paris Opera Ballet in Crystal Pite's Body and Soul through July 15.

For fifty years Ballet Hispánico has been the leading voice intersecting artistic excellence and advocacy, and is now the largest Latinx cultural organization in the United States and one of America's Cultural Treasures. Ballet Hispánico brings communities together to celebrate and explore Latino cultures through innovative dance productions, transformative dance training, and enduring community engagement experiences.

National Medal of Arts recipient Tina Ramirez founded Ballet Hispánico in 1970, at the height of the post-war civil rights movements. From its inception Ballet Hispánico focused on providing a haven for Black and Brown Latinx youth and families seeking artistic place and cultural sanctuary. By providing the space for Latinx dance and dancers to flourish, Ballet Hispánico uplifted marginalized emerging and working artists, which combined with the training, authenticity of voice, and power of representation, fueled the organization's roots and trajectory. In 2009, Ballet Hispánico welcomed Eduardo Vilaro as its Artistic Director, ushering in a new era by inserting

fresh energy to the company's founding values and leading Ballet Hispánico into an artistically vibrant future. Today, Ballet Hispánico's New York City headquarters house a School of Dance and state-of-the-art dance studios for its programs and the arts community. From its grassroots origins as a dance school and community-based performing arts troupe, for fifty years Ballet Hispánico has stood as a catalyst for social change.

Ballet Hispánico provides the physical home and cultural heart for Latinx dance in the United States. Ballet Hispánico has developed a robust public presence across its three main programs: its Company, School of Dance, and Community Arts Partnerships.

Through its exemplary artistry, distinguished training program, and deep-rooted community engagement efforts Ballet Hispánico champions and amplifies underrepresented voices in the field. For fifty years Ballet Hispánico has provided a place of honor for the omitted, overlooked, and oppressed. As it looks to the next fifty years and beyond, Ballet Hispánico seeks to empower, and give agency to the Latinx experience and those individuals within it.

The Wampanoag Nation Singers and Dancers are a group of musicians and artisans from the tribal communities of Mashpee on Cape Cod and Aquinnah on Martha's Vineyard. Their performances of Eastern social songs and dances have educated audiences of all ages in museums, schools, and various multi-cultural events.

Alan George (Cayuga) of the Bear Clan is a Wampum holder and Faithkeeper of the Allegheny, Seneca at the Coldspring Longhouse on the Allegheny Reservation. His son, Jake George (Seneca) of the Turtle Clan is a member of Seneca nation, a language teacher and Wampum helper alongside his father. They are both champion smoke dancers who strongly believe in their traditions.

The FreshWater Dancers have come together to revive Nipmuc/k youth and tribal adults. By braiding their traditions such as dances, regalia, and knowledge together while sharing with those in other territories, they hope to bring together the traditions of honoring ancestors and communities.

Ballet Hispánico first appeared at the Pillow in 1984 in the Ted Shawn Theatre, and returned in 1998, 2009, and 2017. They also performed in a co-presentation by Jacob's Pillow and MASS MoCA in 2006. They were slated to appear in the canceled 2020 season, and the Company's 50th anniversary was saluted in an online PillowTalk with Eduardo Vilaro, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, and AnaMaria Correra in July 2020.

Nipmuc elder Larry Spotted Crow Mann and the Wampanoag Nation Singers and Dancers performed at the Pillow in a week-long landmark celebration in 2019 entitled "The Land on Which We Dance." Jacob's Pillow has engaged with Indigenous peoples and culture since its founding in 1933, and continues to seek ways to provide sustained support of Indigenous performance and further explore the history of the land.

Learn more at jacobspillow.org.

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