It's been ten years since I was last at Jacob's Pillow. After my friend Richard gave me a book about the Festival and its famous home as a Christmas gift, I got nostalgic and felt a strong desire to go back to that magical place in the Berkshires where we spent so many pleasant times in the years that I lived in Hartford.
We looked at the schedule and chose this weekend, partially because it was convenient and also because it featured a troupe we'd never seen, Ballet du Grand Theatre de Geneve. We could have chosen an old friend like Paul Taylor or Hubbard Street but I just felt the urge to see something I'd never seen before. That has always been one of the most appealing aspects of the Festival: the variety of genres on offer. Once we even went to a night of tap dancing; I was sure I would hate it but we really had fun because it was something we'd never experienced before.
Our journey began with the two-hour Metro North trip to New Haven. At the New Haven station I was very happy to run into one of my favorite regular Tower customers, the set designer Ming Cho Lee who teaches at Yale. He told me how much he misses Tower. It was great seeing him again.
Then we met up with my old & dear friend Richard who drove us to his condo in Southington where we comfortably endured the heatwave and enjoyed seeing Richard's very elderly but endearing mom. {Wei and I outside the condo, and flowers from the gardens.}
On Friday evening we met a bunch of Connecticut friends for supper at Beijing Garden in Farmington: Jan, Nancy, Ginny, Wei & Richard.
On Saturday morning we left early and headed north on the once-so-familiar route to the historic site of the oldest dance festival in the USA at Becket, Mass. You can read about the history of this remarkable festival here.
The humidity had broken somewhat and it was a stunningly beautiful day in the Berkshires with comfortable temperatures and a slight breeze. We picked up lunches en route and I was feeling increasingly excited as we passed thru the small towns like Winsted and Otis on the winding, climbing road. Spotting the sign for the left turn to the Festival gave me the feeling that I was about to encounter a long-lost friend and indeed that was what the whole experience seemed like. Jacob's Pillow has changed very little since I was last there a decade ago; it still looks and feels much as it did in the photos in the 'Pillow Prelude' story below.
We had lunch in the Garden, visited the gift shop, wandered down to the Inside/Out stage, watched a film clip of Wendy Whelan & Peter Boal in HERMAN SCHMERMAN at Blake's Barn, and inhaled the atmosphere of the beloved grounds and buildings. Then the familiar ringing of the bell and we went into the rather stuffy and nicely intimate theatre and settled in.
I wish I could say that the programme on offer was as fascinating as being at the Pillow in itself, but booking for Ballet du Grand Theatre du Geneve was a gamble which did not pay off. In fact I was reminded of the old Woody Allen joke:
"The food here is terrible! "
"Yes, and such small portions..."
The performance started after 2:00 was was over before 3:30 with one intermission. The Company has many wonderful and attractive dancers but I could not really find much of interest in either Saburo Teshigawara's PARA-DICE or Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's LOIN. The first piece was innocuous; there were some nice moves but nothing memorable. The hand gestures employed by the dancers, as well as some of the steps, reminded me a bit of Jorma Elo's SLICE TO SHARP but was devoid of that work's energy and daring. However, by the end of LOIN we were considering PARA-DICE to be a masterpiece.
LOIN had wonderful music by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber; the dancers were clad in a rather gypsyish assortment of clothing with a couple of girls in Asian style short silk tunics. Nothing much in the way of steps; the dancers were paired off and seemed to engage in conversations, forehead to forehead. Then, much to my chagrin, they began to actually talk...first one, and then the entire Company in unison, told us a story about cockroaches in the dressing room during their tour of China. If I wanted to hear people talking I could have gone to a play. The piece ambled on again in silence but then another story was begun. Again cockroaches seemed to be a theme. Then one of the girls began singing some sort of Arabic chant, quite soulful and nice in itself, but not really adding anything to the 'dance'. A girl told a story in Chinese; the dancers seemed to share inside jokes. It seemed to me that the dancers spent too much time on the floor, something that only works in a piece like David Parsons' quirky SLEEP STUDY. By now the audience seemed restless and the afternoon seemed to be frittering away in an atmosphere of unbearable pretense. Finally the dancers formed a human pyramid and the tallest man clambered to the top and stood astride the backs of his colleagues as the lights blacked out.
One of the big disappointments was that the girls were not on pointe in either piece; that alone would have made the two works at least slightly more interesting. Richard dozed off during LOIN and Wei thought that if the dancers were not going to "do" anything they should have taken off most of their clothes so at least we'd have something to look at. The audience did give the dancers a warm reception, many people standing to applaud.
We stumbled out into the sunlight feeling both annoyed that the programme was so short and relieved that it was over. We walked around the grounds again, taking more pictures and wishing we'd chosen a different weekend for our excursion. Of course we have had disappointments there before, trying something on a guess and hoping for the best. But this visit, which I had so long anticipated, involved more time, money and effort than a casual day trip. As we drove away I wondered when, if ever, I might return to Jacob's Pillow. I have a feeling that, despite this experience, I will be drawn back simply because the place itself is so inspiring.
I found this gorgeous John Lindquist photo of Ruth St. Denis in the gift shop. She was Ted Shawn's wife and together they founded the famed modern dance company, Denishawn. By the time Shawn started working at the Pillow, their marriage was pretty much over. But the spirit of Ruth St. Denis remains linked to the Festival.
This is the actual 'pillow' for which the site was named, a reference
to the bibical story of Jacob's dream. It stands at
the shady end of the garden and marks the spot where Ted Shawn and his
longtime partner Barton Mumaw are memorialized. It is the central
shrine of the Festival grounds but I imagine many people visiting
Jacob's Pillow do not realize that it is there, nor its significance.
Shawn was the founding creative spirit of the Festival and his
pioneering corps of Men Dancers had a lot to do with making dance a
legitimate occupation for men in this country. On this spot more than
any other place on the grounds you feel connected to the past and also,
strangely enough, most vitally aware of how alive the Festival is.
More photos from our day at the Pillow: