BECKET, Massachusetts – For the past year and a half, the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival has faced bigger challenges than the weather. Last summer, for the first time in its 88-year history, the festival had to cancel all performances in its idyllic home here in the Berkshires. Last November, when the pandemic was still raging, one of the festival’s two theaters was destroyed in a fire.
Jacob’s Pillow has recovered and has a full summer season of performances planned, both on-site and online. But the pandemic isn’t over yet, so all on-site shows are outdoors and subject to Covid protocols and weather. On Wednesday, the opening day, the main obstacle was the rain.
The festival hired a meteorologist to call a few hours before the show. The matinee took place on Wednesday, but the evening performance was not. That means I’ve only seen one of the two programs Dorrance Dance – the leading tap company for the past decade and a regular pillow type – has been preparing to kick off the season.
It was a happy reintroduction, especially since the matinee program is a kind of theme park tour of the grounds. (The video of this will be available for free on the festival website from July 15-29.) Spectators will be divided into small groups, marked with colored armbands, and each group will be guided by instructors to a series of stations, on which members of Dorrance Dance perform vignettes on a loop.
In the open-air pub we meet Aaron Marcellus, Claudia Rahardjanoto and Luke Hickey, who after the last call pretend they are squeezing in another jam session. Marcellus is a singer, a soulful and talented one, but at some point he also contributes a bit of tap. Hickey replaces him on the piano and Rahardjanoto, who plays bass, joins him in a tap-and-song duet. This circular trade is characteristic of Dorrance Dance and the playful, welcoming, and improvised spirit that makes the company a smart choice to welcome audiences back in.
The next piece in the Tea Garden shows a different side. In what looks like beekeeping suits, Warren Craft and Rena Kinoshita are tinkering with electronics and antennas and turning the faucet into an esoteric attempt at communication over potentially interstellar distances – or something like that. Is it the latest report on UFOs?
The science fiction theme is picked up later when we meet Michelle Dorrance, Leonardo Sandoval and Byron Tittle in overalls setting up a ladder and satellite dish. Nearby, chairs are arranged around a gravel pit, in which the three dancers with shovels and boots work out a small symphony in rhythm, paying attention to the tonal possibilities of the gravel: crunching, scratching, rattling.
Before that we visited Ephrat Asherie and Matthew West in the woods and performed a sad dance of separation to greyhounds. And we’ve spied on Josette Wiggan’s friend in a secluded and rustic cabin, hanging up the laundry to dry as she moves to Sarah Vaughan’s records in the heat and comes amazingly close to a dance equivalent of Vaughan’s voice. We end up finding the rest of the company (including the stellar trumpeter Keyon Harrold in a guest appearance) around more booths, pounding on washtubs and washboards, and having a great old time.
Where are we? When are we These vignettes have something to replace, something that is far too reminiscent of theme parks in backyards. The well-known scenarios also miss an opportunity, because the pillow has its own rich history of architecture and location. (Could the hut dances allude to the history of the place as a subway station?) The camp setups reinforce the feeling of thinness. As soon as the last party starts and we are set up to participate, we will be led away. The journey is over.
In these circumstances these mistakes are forgivable. Dorrance Dance offers a pleasant tour. Had I seen the other program with two new works for the festival’s open-air stage, the matinee might have seemed like the perfect starter. But the evening show on Thursday was also rainy and I had to go back to Brooklyn.
Fortunately, part of the program I missed – a premiere by Wiggan’s friend to music by Harrold – will be on July 9th and 10th at the Queens Theater in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. These shows are also held outdoors (but with an indoor backup plan, if it rains). I watch the weather.
Dorrance dance
See you Sunday at Jacob’s Pillow, Becket, Mass .; jacobspillow.org.