Prima Ballerina Ananiashvilli Kicks Off Jacob's Pillow Festival Thru June 26

Jacob's Pillow Dance, National Historic Landmark and home of America's longest-running international dance festival, kicks off Festival 2010 with the prima ballerina Nina Ananiashvili.  The Festival runs Wednesday, June 23 through Saturday, June 26 at 8pm; Saturday, June 26 and Sunday, June 27 at 2pm.  Tickets range from $10-63. $10 Friday evening and Saturday/Sunday matinee youth tickets available.  Tickets on sale now online jacobspillow.org, via phone at 413.243.0745 or in person at Jacob's Pillow. Jacob's Pillow is located at 358 George Carter Road in Becket, MA, 01223 (10 minutes east on Route 20 from Mass Pike Exit 2).  

Nina Ananiashvili, called "definition of grace" by Masha Savitz of The Epoch Times and "classical ballet's undeniable superstar" by Clive Barnes of The New York Post. Her company, the State Ballet of Georgia, performs in the Ted Shawn Theatre June 23-27. Ananiashvili, former principal of the Bolshoi Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, directs and dances with her homeland's national company, which showcases classical and contemporary technique in this engagement. The program features Falling Angels by acclaimed Czech choreographer Ji?í Kylián, and Alexei Ratmansky's Bizet Variations and George Balanchine's Duo Concertant, both performed to live music by The Norfolk Chamber Music Festival/Yale School of Music. The evening begins with four rarely seen pas de deux by Sir Frederick Ashton. Ananiashvili will also perform at the Jacob's Pillow Season Opening Gala on June 19 in one of ballet's most iconic roles, The Dying Swan by Mikhail Fokine, with live accompaniment by cello master Yehuda Hanani.

Ella Baff, Executive Director of Jacob's Pillow, remarks, "Nina Ananiashvili is a dancer of the highest rank, having been a star of the Bolshoi Ballet and then American Ballet Theatre. She was asked by the President of Georgia to take on new and great role as the Artistic Director of the Republic's most important company. Her final performance with American Ballet Theatre last year was met with flowers raining from the audience, piling knee-deep during her many curtain calls. Ms. Ananiashvili is an important artist, her company shines, and they perform works by the best ballet choreographers."

Anna Kisselgoff of The New York Times comments "Nina Ananiashvili has never failed to light up the stage...The star presence she brings to the stage invariably fills every scene with drama." One of the first Soviet ballerinas to be widely praised by the Western dance world and considered one of the greatest dancers of the past century, she has also performed with New York City Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, and the two British Royal Ballet companies. Her appointment as the State Ballet of Georgia's artistic director in 2004 was seen as an indication of a promising future for the company, and she retired from American Ballet Theatre in 2009.

While at Jacob's Pillow, Nina Ananiashvili will serve as guest artist faculty for The School at Jacob's Pillow's 2010 Ballet Program. These pre-professional dancers hail from around the world and will also take part in a Master Class led by Dance Theatre of Harlem Artistic Director Virginia Johnson. As part of their first week of training in the Ballet Program (Program Director, Anna-Marie Homes), they perform a world premiere choreographed by Karole Armitage at the Season Opening Gala on June 19.

The State Ballet of Georgia tracks its beginnings back to the 1850s, to a small ballet company from St. Petersburg, Russia, headed by the choreographer Manokhin. In 1935, dancer and choreographer Vakhtang Chabukiani, composer Andrey Balanchivadze (George Balanchine's brother), and designer Simon Virsaladze established the State Ballet of Georgia as the resident company of the Tiblisi Opera and Ballet Theatre. The company fell into disarray during the 1992 Soviet civil war and in 2004, the president of Georgia (which became an independent state in 1991) extended a request to Ananiashvili to return to her home country and become artistic director of its national ballet company. As news of her appointment spread, former State Ballet of Georgia dancers who had gone abroad to perform with other ensembles returned to rejoin the company. Ananiashvili has added more than 20 new ballets to the repertoire, restaged classics such as Swan Lake and Don Quixote, works by fellow Georgia native Balanchine, and contemporary ballets by Trey McIntyre and Kylián. Alastair Macaulay has praised the company's dancers for their "clean, unshowy style with none of the flamboyance or exaggerations that have characterized many Kirov and Bolshoi dancers, and plenty of technical strength" (The New York Times).

After being met with praise at home and abroad, Ananiashvili and the State Ballet of Georgia were first seen at the Pillow in 2007, when they presented Balanchine's ethereal Mozartiana, McIntyre's Second Before the Ground, and excerpts from Don Quixote. This year's program exhibits similar diversity with work ranging from neoclassical to contemporary.

The evening begins with a series of pas de deux by Sir Frederick Ashton, whom Macaulay has identified as one of "the world's foremost choreographers of classical ballet." Ashton, noted for his lyrical, soft style, was a prominent neoclassical choreographer and director of England's Royal Ballet before his death in 1988. After his death, his choreography faded from the repertories of most companies, but was painstakingly recovered from documents created using a complex system of dance notation. Due to the difficulty of restaging ballets from a written form, his work is rarely performed. The four works on the program include excerpts from Sylvia, "a warmly comic compendium of ballet genres" (Apollinaire Scherr, Financial Times); Voices of Spring, which "effortlessly combines lyricism with attack, and is laced with a playful musical wit" (Sanjoy Roy, The Guardian); Thaïs, and La Chatte Metamorphosée en Femme, one of Ashton's last creations before his death.

Featuring eight female members of the company, starkly clad in black leotards and soft ballet slippers, Ji?í Kylián's Falling Angels is an intensely physical contemporary ballet exploring femininity in which the dancers seem to struggle with maintaining their abstract purity while also accommodating their burgeoning humanity. One of Kylián's six "black and white ballets", it is set to the urgent rhythm of Steve Reich's "Drumming" and praised for its "contorted movements and sheer intensity" (John Rockwell, The New York Times). Kylián was formerly the artistic director of Nederlands Dans Theatre and continues his relationship with the company as a choreographer. His works are in the repertories of more than 80 companies and schools worldwide.

George Balanchine's Duo Concertant, performed to an eponymous Igor Stravinsky score, rounds out the program with onstage live music for piano and violin. The music was a favorite of Balanchine's, who first heard it in the 1930s but did not choreograph to it until he was preparing for the 1972 Stravinsky Festival. The presence of the musicians on stage is integral to the conception of the ballet as the two dancers alternatively listen and dance to the accompaniment, performed by musicians from The Norfolk Chamber Music Festival/Yale School of Music.

Also on the program is Alexei Ratmansky's Bizet Variations, set to Bizet's dramatic "Chromatic Variations" for piano, performed live at the Pillow. Bizet Variations is a pas de six, echoing Balanchine's La Valse in the women's tulle skirts and gloves and atmospherically evocative of a dark ballroom. Deborah Jowitt of The Village Voice praises the work for its depictions of "community," saying of Ratmansky: "He turns classical steps into dialogues and assertions, and unison passages emerge as celebrations of unanimity rather than as power displays." Ratmansky is currently serving as Artist in Residence for American Ballet Theatre and has created ballets for the Kirov Ballet, New York City Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet, and the State Ballet of Georgia, among others.

Performance and Ticket Information
Wednesday, June 23 through Saturday, June 26 at 8pm
Saturday, June 26 and Sunday, June 27 at 2pm

Free Pre-Show Talks with Jacob's Pillow Scholars-in-Residence are offered in Blake's Barn 30 minutes before every performance.
Tickets range from $10-63. $10 Friday evening and Saturday/Sunday matinee youth tickets available (sponsored by ALEX®; must be accompanied by an adult).

Tickets on sale now online jacobspillow.org, via phone at 413.243.0745 or in person at Jacob's Pillow.
Box Office hours: Monday through Friday, 10am-5pm.
Pillow Members receive exclusive benefits. To become a Member call 413.243.9919 x125
Jacob's Pillow is located at 358 George Carter Road in Becket, MA, 01223 (10 minutes east on Route 20 from Mass Pike Exit 2). The Jacob's Pillow campus and theaters are handicapped-accessible.

Free Events at the Pillow June 23 - 27
Free "Inside/Out" Performance - Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre
NEW TIME Wednesday, June 23, 6:15pm
Inside/Out Performance Space
Czech choreographer Dušan Týnek's contemporary dances are "striking for their architectural rigor and fervid movement invention" (The New York Times). Middlegame is inspired by the game of chess and themes of power and submission.

Free "PillowTalk" Discussion - Virginia Johnson ReturnsNEW DAY Thursday, June 24, 5pm
Blake's Barn
Precisely 40 years after her Jacob's Pillow debut in the Dance Theatre of Harlem's first professional engagement, former DTH ballet star Virginia Johnson returns in an exciting new role as Artistic Director. As founder Arthur Mitchell's designated successor, Johnson reflects on her past triumphs with DTH and outlines its future in this hour-long talk.

Free "Inside/Out" Performance - ViewpointeNEW TIME Thursday, June 24, 6:15pm
Inside/Out Performance Space
Artistic Director Helen Heineman, former soloist with acclaimed contemporary company Nederlands Dans Theatre and principal with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, and her contemporary ballet company perform Collage, full of graceful balletic movement, and Bluegrass, a sprightly work set to music by American banjo artist Béla Fleck.

Free "Inside/Out" Performance - Dancewave CompanyNEW TIME Friday, June 25, 6:15pm
Inside/Out Performance Space
This company of young student dancers performs works from internationally renowned American choreographers, including the funky Flashback/Flash Forward by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Artistic Director of Urban Bush Women, among other energetic works.

Free "PillowTalk" Discussion - Virtual Pillow
Saturday, June 26, 4pm
Blake's Barn
With selected PillowTalks and other unique content now available online, Jacob's Pillow is reaching out in fresh ways to ever-wider audiences. This informative session explores the concepts behind the current efforts, demonstrates some of the newest initiatives, and previews what's next on the horizon.

Free "Inside/Out" Showing - The School at Jacob's Pillow - Ballet
NEW TIME Saturday, June 26, 6:15pm
Inside/Out Performance Space
International ballet luminary Anna-Marie Holmes and Ballet West Artistic Director Adam Sklute showcase the Ballet Program dancers of The School at Jacob's Pillow in classical ballet variations, and a new work created for the Festival Season Opening Gala choreographed by acclaimed choreographer Karole Armitage.

The 2010 Gallery Exhibits
All exhibits are free and open to the public June 23-August 29.

Lois Greenfield: Imagined Moments
Blake's Barn
Open Tues-Sun, noon-after the show
With a recognizable style that is frequently emulated, Lois Greenfield has been at the forefront of dance photography for more than three decades. She collaborates with dancers to create photographic moments that are improvised and often risky, capturing bodies in mid-air. This new exhibition, the most extensive of the 2010 offerings, features Greenfield's unique body of photography, and is exclusive to the Pillow. Featured dance artists include legendary Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater artist Carmen de Lavallade, Martha Graham dancer and LAFA & Artists co-founder Fang-Yi Sheu, choreographer Shen Wei, American Butoh artist Maureen Fleming, Invisible Wings creator Joanna Haigood, and Festival 2010 artist Bill T. Jones.

Arnie Zane on Bill T. Jones
Ted Shawn Theatre Lobby
Open 30 minutes prior to Ted Shawn Theatre performances
The early career of choreographer Bill T. Jones was shaped by his relationship with dancer, choreographer, and company co-founder Arnie Zane (1948-1988). Zane was also a provocative photographer, whose works were exhibited in prominent venues in the 1970s and collected in a posthumous catalog and retrospective exhibit which debuted in 1999. Some of Zane's early photos of Jones are on display in this exhibit, correlating specifically with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company's performances of Serenade/The Proposition, July 21-25 in the Ted Shawn Theatre.

Pilates at the Pillow
Doris Duke Theatre Lobby
Open 30 minutes prior to Doris Duke Theatre performances
Joseph Pilates is widely recognized as originating one of the world's most popular forms of exercise, but his connection with dance and the Berkshires is not well known. He taught at the Pillow in the 1940s and 50s, and for many years owned a house nearby in Becket. Debuting this season is an exhibit of rare evidence of his pioneering work at the Pillow, including correspondence, class schedules, and photographs of Pilates himself demonstrating his signature technique.

Another Dance to Jules Feiffer
Blake's Barn
Open Tues-Sun, noon-after the showThe ground-breaking exhibition of dance imagery by the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and writer Jules Feiffer, which debuted last summer, receives an encore in this collection of original watercolors and drawings. Feiffer's memorable solo dancer in a black leotard returns along with new art works.

John Van Lund
Bakalar Studio
Open Tues-Sun, whenever classes are not in sessionAs Festival photographer at the Pillow beginning in the late 1940s, John Van Lund (1916-2009) captured generations of important dancers on film. As a memorial tribute to his many years of faithful service and the donation of his complete collection of negatives and prints to the Jacob's Pillow Archives, highlights of his vast output are on view in Bakalar Studio, where founder Ted Shawn's Men Dancers performed for the first Pillow audiences.

The Archives are open to the public and allow impromptu visitors to view videos, browse through books, access the Pillow's computer catalog, or peruse permanent collections of Pillow programs and photographs. Pillow Interactive, a popular touch-screen kiosk, provides instant interlinked access to rare film clips ranging from the present day back to the 1930s.

Patrons are invited to explore the historic grounds to discover all the reasons why the Pillow was named a National Historic Landmark, with Guided Tours leaving from the Welcome Center every Friday and Saturday at 5:30pm. Self-guided tour maps are always available as well.

Visitors can also relax in the historic Tea Garden, where Ted Shawn's Men Dancers welcomed the first Pillow audiences in the 1930s, as they peek into the Bakalar Studio to watch rehearsals; picnic on the grounds, or stroll through several ecological zones on the Wetlands Trail, created as part of the Pillow's responsible stewardship of its 163 acres of rural environment.

Morning Jumpstart Classes offered in Pilates, Ballet, Modern, and more, Mondays through Thursdays at 8am. All experience levels, 16 and older, fees apply. Ruth St. Denis Studio. Call the Education Hotline at 413.243.9919 x5.  Weekly Master Classes are led by Festival artists on Sundays from 10-11:30am for intermediate and advanced dancers, $15 fee applies. Pre-registration is required. Call the Education Hotline at 413.243.9919 x5. The School at Jacob's Pillow featuring world renowned faculty is open to walk-in public observation Tuesdays through Saturdays, 9am-5pm, at no charge. Groups of four or more should confirm space availability by calling 413.243.9919.

The Pillow Café offers fine dining with wine service under the tent on The Great Lawn. Wednesdays through Saturdays, dinner is served 5-7pm. Reservations are required, call 413.243.2455.
The Pillow Pub offers casual family fare, takeout for picnics, and full bar service. Wednesdays through Fridays 5pm-midnight, Saturdays noon-midnight, and Sundays noon-5pm.
The Coffee Bar and Ice Cream Bar are open pre-performance and during intermissions.
Sample menus for each dining venue are available at www.jacobspillow.org. Pillow Patrons are also invited to bring picnics and relax at one of many picnic areas on the Pillow grounds.
$10 Youth Tickets sponosored by ALEX® Support for Jacob's Pillow Dance comes, in part, from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

As of March 2010, major support for Jacob's Pillow has been provided by: Asian Cultural Council; The Barrington Foundation, Inc.; The Cricket Foundation; the Cultural Services of the French Embassy; The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation; Frances Alexander Family Fund; The Howard Gilman Foundation; The Harkness Foundation for Dance; The Geoffrey C. Hughes Foundation, Inc.; The Leir Charitable Foundations, In Memory of Henry J. Leir; The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Mertz Gilmore Foundation; Evelyn Stefansson Nef Foundation; National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts; Leading for the Future Initiative, a program of the Nonprofit Finance Fund, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation; Bessie Pappas Charitable Foundation, Inc.; The Prospect Hill Foundation; Royal Danish Ballet; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Matching Gifts Program; The Roxe Foundation; The Shubert Foundation, Inc.; Trust for Mutual Understanding; The Walbridge Fund, Ltd.; Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency; MassDevelopment; Mass Humanities; National Endowment for the Arts; National Endowment for the Arts as part of American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius; American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; Save America's Treasures; CEC ArtsLink and the Open World Leadership Center; ALEX®; The Legacy Banks Foundation; Pilgrim Inn; Quality Inn; Rodeway Inn; Super 8 Motel Lee; Jacob's Pillow Business Alliance; and Jacob's Pillow Members.

Major endowment support is provided by The Barrington Foundation, Inc.; The William Randolph Hearst Foundation; The Leir Charitable Foundations, In Memory of Henry J. Leir; The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Onota Foundation; The Prospect Hill Foundation; Talented Students in the Arts Initiative, a collaboration of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and Surdna Foundation; and Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

To post a comment, you must register and login.