Latasha Barnes Presents THE JAZZ CONTINUUM On The Henry J. Leir Stage 

Internationally recognized Black American Social Dance Tradition-Bearer, LaTasha Barnes, presents The Jazz Continuum.

This new work centers Jazz music and dance as the foundation of globally-celebrated dance forms like House, Hip-Hop, Waacking, Jazz, and Lindy Hop that are not commonly recognized as threads of the same fabric. From August 11-15 on the Henry J. Leir Stage, Barnes and her cast of masterful dancers and musicians will perform this revolutionary work that aims to reconnect Black American dance forms through the music and inherent motivations that sired them. Also this week, Cirque Barcode & Acting for Climate Montréal, the only International Artists to visit the Pillow in Festival 2021, present their collaborative work Branché, an outdoor acrobatic circus performance in and around the trees.

The Tap Program at The School of Jacob's Pillow will perform on the Henry J. Leir Stage on Sat., Aug. 14 at 2 p.m. This event will be simultaneously live streamed online. LaTasha Barnes will lead a Sunday Workshop exploring vernacular Jazz dance traditions on Sun., Aug. 15 at 10 a.m. She will also participate in a PillowTalk on the History of Jazz Dance that same day at 3:30 p.m. moderated by Pillow Scholar Melanie George, Jazz dance artist, scholar, dramaturg and founder of Jazz Is... Dance Project, a project that is dedicated to the dissemination of Jazz dance education, choreography, performance, and scholarship.

Online offerings include the digital premiere of Life Encounters: Archie Burnett on Thurs., Aug. 12 at 7:30 p.m., which will be available until Thurs., Aug. 26, and the digital premiere of PillowTalk: Celebrating Warren Davis on Fri., Aug. 13 at 4 p.m.

"LaTasha is an artist well known to Pillow audiences from her dancing with Michelle Dorrance, Caleb Teicher and Gaby Cook. In a project shepherded by our Associate Curator, Melanie George, we now have the opportunity to welcome her back with the culmination of her research into Jazz dance, specifically Black Jazz dance and have it take over the Henry J. Leir Stage," said Jacob's Pillow Executive & Artistic Director, Pamela Tatge. "Her stellar company of dancers and musicians will show how forms we're familiar with, like House and Lindy Hop, however generationally separated they may seem, are all rooted in Jazz music and dance."

In Barnes' The Jazz Continuum, dance forms like House and Lindy Hop, separated by generational distance and cultural chasms, find each other in their roots: Jazz music and dance. Barnes' movement in The Jazz Continuum is a through-line for multiple eras of Black American social dance, and "to watch her dance, especially to Jazz music, is to watch historical distance collapse" (The New York Times). This phenomena is not limited to Barnes alone, as the collective of masterful artists and musicians in The Jazz Continuum share with audiences their own personal histories and explorations. The Jazz Continuum provides revolutionary contextualization to multiple genres of Black American dance by putting several generations of dancers- including Reyna Núñez, who made her professional debut in Lin Manuel Miranda's In The Heights film, Frankie Manning Ambassador Tyedric Hill, and former Associate Artistic Director of the Hip Hop Dance Conservatory Ray F. Davis, among others- each deeply well-versed in a different style, in conversation with live Jazz music to reveal their similar roots and interconnected truths.

Cirque Barcode & Acting for Climate Montréal bring performance into the trees, paths, open fields, and other areas on the Jacob's Pillow campus with their work Branché. These two groups reimagine the way their art is practiced, purposefully performing in and around nature and allowing the environment to influence and change their performance in real time. This radical engagement with nature encourages audiences to redefine their relationship with the environment, showing how humans can quite literally learn to coexist peacefully and creatively with the earth's natural architecture. As the only international company performing on the Pillow's campus this year, the artists are dedicated to crafting a unique experience using the natural landscape as their apparatus. Cirque Barcode is committed to sustainability in their touring practices. They travel purely by land, and separate branches of their company exist in Canada, Europe, and the United States to avoid air travel.

LaTasha "Tasha" Barnes is an internationally recognized and awarded dancer, choreographer, educator, performer, cultural ambassador, and tradition-bearer of Black American social dance from Richmond, Va. Currently based between New York and Arizona, Barnes is celebrated globally for her musicality, athleticism, and joyful presence throughout the cultural traditions she bears: House, Hip-Hop, Waacking, Vernacular Jazz, and Lindy Hop. Her expansive artistic, competitive, and performative skills have made her a frequent collaborator with Dorrance Dance, Singapore-based Timbre Arts Group, and Ephrat Asherie Dance. Her leadership and business skills have placed her in positions of service as Chair of the Board of Trustees for Ladies of Hip-Hop Festival, who will be performing throughout the Berkshires in the Jacob's Pillow On the Road series, Vice President of Marketing & Outreach for the International Lindy Hop Championship, Board Member of the Black Lindy Hoppers Fund, the Frankie Manning Foundation, and a contributing member to the NEFER Global Movement Collective.

Expanding the scope of impact for the communities she serves, Barnes completed her self-designed Master's in Ethnochoreology, Black Studies, and Performance Studies through New York University Gallatin School in 2019. Her thesis and continuing research are working to bridge the gap between communities of practice and academic cultural dance research, performance, preservation, and pedagogy. In concert with these efforts, she is honored to be a part of the Brain Trust, developing the ground-breaking stage production Swing Out, which brings the passion and power of Lindy Hop and its community to the concert stage. She is also honored to be a developing force of several intergenerational and intercommunal cultural arts exchanges and performances like The Jazz Continuum that will be presented by Guggenheim Works & Process and Jacob's Pillow in 2021. Additionally in support of this dialogue, Barnes is a contributing author to the forthcoming text Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanist Aesthetics and Equity in the Twenty-First Century - Univ. FL Press (2021). Ensuring future artists and dance scholars maintain authentic cultural context as they move through the world bearing forth Black dance traditions, Barnes is excited to join the faculty of Arizona State University School of Music, Dance and Theater as an Assistant Professor of Dance beginning in Fall 2021.

Available to watch online Aug. 26-Sept. 9; Online premiere Aug. 26 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are on sale now; online at jacobspillow.org, via phone 413.243.0745, and at the Jacob's Pillow Box Office at 358 George Carter Road, Becket, MA 01223.

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