7.3.08
Jacob's Pillow Gala makes the New York Sun
Mysterious Zelig shows up in front-page photo
7.1.08
MONTREAL DIARY
Live from the Montreal International Jazz Festival
7.1.08
WTF's NICHOLAS MARTIN TO HEADLINE FREE FORUM
[PRESS RELEASE] New WTF leader at Triplex, Sunday, July 13, 11 a.m., for REST OF THE STORY
6.27.08
[DANCE REVIEW] Mark Morris at Tanglewood
review by SETH ROGOVOY, Berkshire Living Magazine
6.24.08
Passenger air travel on brink of collapse
System headed for full-metal breakdown by end of year
6.24.08
Gas prices may usher in era of New Urbanism
Suburbs collapsing from internal contradiction of life built around cars, highways, and cheap gas
6.24.08
Ian McEwan joins Martin Amis in speaking out against Islamism
Rare writers willing to take a politically incorrect stand
6.24.08
BTF's Kate Maguire speaks at forum on Sunday, June 29
REST OF THE STORY event at Triplex Cinema
9.13.07
YOGA to be focus of forum on September 23
Berkshire Living's REST OF THE STORY event at the Triplex
6.19.08
New Mamet One-Act to Debut at Mahaiwe
[PRESS RELEASE] Benefit Performance for Berkshire Playwrights Lab June 25
6.19.08
[FILM REVIEW] ROMAN DE GARE
Review by Seth Rogovoy, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
6.16.08
[MUSIC REVIEW] Jen Chapin at Club Helsinki
Review by Seth Rogovoy, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
6.18.08
[DANCE REVIEW] Garth Fagan collaborates with Wynton Marsalis at Jacob's Pillow
Review by Seth Rogovoy, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
6.17.08
Cafe Latino to celebrate opening of gallery, downtown arts festival
[PRESS RELEASE] Restaurant at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass., to display Latino artwork
6.17.08
Cafe Latino to celebrate opening of gallery, downtown arts festival
[PRESS RELEASE] Restaurant at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass., to display Latino artwork
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[DANCE REVIEW] Jacob's Pillow's 75th Anniversary Season
8.9.07
Taking Stock of a Festival
By ROBERT GRESKOVIC
August 8, 2007; Page D10
Becket, Mass.
The rolling Berskhire hills that surround the 75-year-old dance complex known as Jacob's Pillow with numerous peaks and valleys aren't the only ups and downs connected with the area. The Pillow's long-running festival has a bumpy history all its own. Initially set up as a farm in 1790, and eventually a stop on the 19th-century "underground railroad" that helped escaped slaves reach Canada, Jacob's Pillow got its dance connection when it was bought by dancer, teacher and choreographer Ted Shawn in 1931. The then-40-year-old had just separated from his famous wife and longtime artistic partner, Ruth St. Denis, the interpretive dancer eventually known as the "mother of modern dance." Together the couple had led Denishawn to world fame as a showcase for concert dancing in many varieties. Now, minus St. Denis, Shawn turned the farm into a place for dance.
Through the end of the 1930s, the works presented within this rustic locale were Shawn's own, specifically created to promote stage dancing as a serious and legitimate pursuit for American men. In 1933, his all-male troupe -- Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers -- inaugurated a series of public performances, initially arranged as "Tea Lecture Demonstrations." As the decade came to a close, complications connected with World War II led to the disbanding of Shawn's select troupe.
Temporary leasing of the facilities came in 1940 and led to the establishment of a Berkshire Hills Dance Festival, now seen as artistically if not financially successful. Ballet tenants followed, linked in part to the then-fledgling Ballet Theatre (later known as American Ballet Theatre), with an International Dance Festival offering a variety of dance disciplines. At the instigation of local enthusiasts, Shawn was coaxed back into a directorship, which led directly to the now annual Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, which concludes this year on Aug. 26.
Between the 1941 relaunch of the Pillow's very own activities (including a school as well as theatrical presentations) and this year's diamond jubilee, further struggles ensued. Some were dramatic, occurring just as the Pillow began building its enlarged and less-rough-hewn theater building and wartime conditions hit with gas rationing and a dearth of male personnel. Others were as inevitable as leadership-succession woes, particularly in the wake of Shawn's death in 1972.
Following what Norton Owen, today's director of preservation, calls "Crisis and Renewal (1995-1997)" in "A Certain Place," his overview of the Pillow's past, the leadership passed to today's executive director, Ella Baff. The nearly two-dozen activities slated for this anniversary season began in June with "Nina Ananiashvili and the State Ballet of Georgia," inaugurating the troupe's first U.S. performances.
Though Shawn himself is connected in the minds of many dance watchers with modern dance, the Pillow's festival offerings have regularly included ballet presentations. Like all such efforts within the somewhat limited confines of the Pillow's Ted Shawn Theater, this Georgian performance remained chamber-sized, showing the ensemble in a carefully chosen repertory. With the world-famous, Bolshoi Ballet-connected Ms. Ananiashvili at its head, the group could have become a background showcase for her stellar presence. The Pillow program, however, proceeded artfully, with two varied works showcasing the group's unfamiliar dancers before the troupe's big-name director appeared in a festive, concluding suite from "Don Quixote" arranged to spotlight Ms. Ananiashvili.
George Balanchine's "Mozartiana," his 1982 reverie on Tchaikovsky's take on Mozart's music, opened the bill with elegance and warmth, if not necessarily the lightness and ease associated with Balanchinean dancing at its truest. Buoying this alternately playful and ethereal Balanchine work -- as well as the sunny tone of Trey McIntyre's celebratory "Second Before the Ground" -- was the notable and impressive presence of the Georgian male dancers. These handsome and elegant men made up in personable self-confidence what they might lack in finesse.
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