More Pics from the Pillow

The staff of Jacob's Pillow put a lot of focus on documenting everything that happens there. They constantly have photographers roaming about, taking pictures of everything, which they then store in their archives. Here are some selected snapshots from our Cultural Traditions program, off the official Jacob's Pillow CD. Here is a picture of us in class, during a warm up.


We had the most fantastic drummers the first week. Here are Jonathan, Nico, Pedro, Ramin, and Naydir playing and singing for Marily's Afro-Dominican class.


Roxane D'Orleans Juste from the Jose Limon Company peeks in at our class. She is truly wonderful and gorgeous.


The Cultural Program students were like characters out of the movie "Fame" -- any excuse to break out into song and dance, they readily welcomed. Here are Kendra, Josh, Stephanie, David and Justin belting it out in the studio.


Here we are onstage, at the end of the first performance, with Richard at the mike.


Mara and Andrea are working it!


Our official class photo on the Pillow rock:


and that is all I have the patience to upload this evening!

Last Day at the Pillow

Sunday was the final day of the Cultural Traditions program. I stuck around longer than many of the students so I could take Emanuel Gat's master class. It was truly amazing. That man is brilliant. If I were a professional dancer, I would find a way to study with him in Tel Aviv. He could fix everything that is wrong with my technique and allow me to realize my full potential. In a very very short period of time, he made me totally re-think the way that I move, not just when I'm dancing, but at all other times -- when I'm walking, getting out of bed, reaching for something on a shelf somewhere, running to catch a train...it's really hard for me to explain how the exposure has influenced me, but suffice it to say that it's been very significant. I just wish I had more time with him. Well, I guess that's what Jacob's Pillow is all about -- creating experiences for dancers that they wouldn't have had otherwise.

I didn't realize how difficult it would be to say goodbye. Some students were actually crying as people packed themselves into vans and cars to head back to where they came from. I was happy at the prospect of leaving the teenager-filled dorm/cabin and getting back to my beautiful Manhattan apartment, but I knew I would be having difficulty this week sliding back into normal day-to-day existence, and I would miss everyone terribly.

Here are some more pictures of my new friends. I hope to be spending more time with them soon.


Winston, me, Steffanie, Kelly, Robin, Mara and Sita outside the dining hall


After we enjoyed libations in Winston's room, Steffanie decided the time had come to do something about Josh's hair. That's Josh in the middle, bent over into the shower, applying shampoo. Winston, Kelly, Mara, Justin and Steffanie are ensuring he's doing it properly.


Our musicians: Johnathan (drummer), Naydir (singer), and Nico (drummer)

I have some great pics of the program directors that I'll post tomorrow.

After one of our last classes, I suggested to the group that we should have our own website, with a wiki to allow participants to collectively own the site's content. My hope in making this suggestion was that someone with web-development experience would step forward and offer to take this on, but it didn't pan out that way. Many subsequently expressed lots of interest in the prospective website, but it looks like I'm going to be the one to get it done. I have zero experience in web development, but I have some friends that can give me advice on the matter. It'll be a good experience for me, I hope.

More Day 13 at the Pillow: Suzanne Farrell and I Are Best Friends Now

Well, not really, but I did manage to scrape up the nerve to approach her at the cast party last night, introduce myself, chat, and take a picture. She is extremely gracious and warm and classy. I just love her so much. I will cherish this pic forever.

I'm sad to say that her company wasn't doing very well in their performances at the Pillow. Several of her dancers seemed to be totally off technically. The one night I ushered, I enjoyed two pieces of the four presented. "Tzigane" was the best (featuring the truly exquisite Natalia Magnicaballi, the most talented dancer in the troupe), "Divertimento No. 15" was pretty bad. Maybe this was why Ms. Farrell had her face in her hands the other evening when she sat down next to me at the bar. She probably was not having a good day.

Day 13 at the Pillow: Time to Perform Again

Today we rehearsed all day for our performance on the Inside/Out stage. I'm exhausted and ready to go home tomorrow, but I know we have a long night ahead of us. After all the shows comes the cast party, and then the after parties, which are sure to last long since this is our final night here. Most people are taking off in the morning, but my plan is to stay for Emanuel Gat's master class at 10:30, if I am at all coherent when I wake up tomorrow morning.

We got our photo CDs an hour ago. I am in practically none of the pictures, so I find the entire thing uninteresting. I will choose some pretty ones of my friends here to post later when I have more time. For now, here's one of me, performing on the Inside/Out stage last Saturday. I'm in the middle, in the blue skirt. I love that skirt.

Day 11 at the Pillow: Salsa de Rueda, set to Stravinsky

This evening I ushered at the Doris Duke Theater. Emanuel Gat Dance was presenting two pieces: "Winter Voyage" and "The Rite of Spring". Emanuel Gat founded the company in Tel Aviv a little over 2 years ago. Having absolutely no familiarity with any dance projects out of the Holy Land, I didn't really know what to expect, and, to be quite frank, was not anticipating their arrival much at all. I've been too preoccupied with Suzanne Farrell's visit here to give Emanuel Gat much notice, despite the fact that he and his dancers have been consistently observing our classes in the Sommers studio ever since they arrived.

I came out of the theater completely buzzed. If you EVER have the chance to see Emanuel Gat Dance, RUN, don't walk, to your local box office. They are AMAZING. Visit their website: www.gatgat.com. Much dance has been choreographed to "Rite of Spring", but Mr. Gat is the first to set a salsa de rueda to it. At the post-show talk the following evening, he explained how he came up with the idea: he was walking in the park with Stravinsky blaring on his earphones, and he passed a group of people dancing salsa. So he saw this vision of salsa set to this music before he created the piece. That's pretty neat.

Suzanne Farrell herself sat down at the table next to mine at the Pillow Pub, the campus bar, as I was typing up this post. Being so engrossed in my blog, I didn't notice when she sat down, but when I turned to see her sitting about 15 inches to the right of me, I froze on the spot, and choked on my mouthful of Stella Artois and Terra chips. I snapped my head back to stare directly ahead, and tried to think of something to say, but, in my starstruck state, was struck completely mute. I had promised myself and my mother that I would talk to her and take a picture with her while I was here, but this was not to be the evening for me to attempt a conversation with Ms Farrell. I stiffly packed up my laptop, and slid out of my spot, eyes downward, incapable of looking directly at her. She either didn't notice me, or thought I was a complete freak. I'm sure people act strange around her all the time though.

Days 9 & 10 at the Pillow: Cepeda and Farrell Arrive

We began our new classes yesterday. Rosa Maria is giving a pretty good class, but the percussion does not compare to Jonathan’s, Ramin’s and Nicolas’ masterful bata drumming from last week. Roberto’s bomba and plena class in the afternoon has been extremely frustrating. He has a warm spirit, but he is a truly awful teacher. For our first class, he taught us one step, and then had us improvise for the rest of the class. Instead of preparing a lesson plan, I think he prepared for class by consuming a six pack. It’s so bad I’m considering ditching the rest of his classes and his portion of this Saturday’s performance, but I’m still on the fence about it. Abandoning the bomba program would be a pretty radical thing to do, but I have to consider it in order to maintain my sanity.

This week’s performing dance companies, the Suzanne Farrell Ballet and Emanuel Gat Dance (from Israel) arrived yesterday. Some of them popped into the Sommers studio to watch our class. Rosa Maria claims Suzanne Farrell came in and watched practically the entire class, but I don’t believe her, because I would have noticed if Ms. Farrell were there. I would have tripped and fallen, because I LOVE Suzanne Farrell. I think Rosa Maria mistook some other older skinny white woman for her. This evening I ushered for the Wednesday night ballet performance at the Ted Shawn Theater. Ms. Farrell put on all Balanchine works. “Tzigane” was wonderful, the rest were OK. She’s got a few exquisite ballerinas in her troupe, but there were definitely a few weak links in some of the pieces.

Days 7 & 8 at the Pillow: ASzURe’s Master Class

Our performance went very smoothly last night, and the audience loved us. We breathed a collective sigh of relief, showered and ate, and then went to the cast party at the Bakalar studio. The staff throw a cast party every Saturday for all the dance companies on campus performing that week. In true “Latin time” fashion, the Cultural Traditions group was the last to arrive – when we walked in, dancers from the Jose Limon Company and Aszure Barton’s troupe were already there. There was lots of talking and mingling, and within a half an hour the Cultural Traditions students seemed to take over the room. The lights dimmed, the music went way up, and the dancing began in earnest.

The festivities endured far into the night, moving on to the Sommers Studio when the staff decided to shut down the party in the Bakalar. The Sommers Studio is where we have all of our lectures and classes specific to our program, and we effectively own that studio for the full two weeks we are here, 24 hours a day, to use as we see fit. So most evenings we end up there when we aren’t ready to go back to our cabins and turn in for the night.

The late night made the next morning’s class a grueling endeavor. Each Sunday, the school offers a master class open to all of the students and interns on campus, taught by the artistic director of one of the visiting companies. Aszure Barton’s class began at 10:30am in the Doris Duke theater. I went in with high hopes – ASzURe & Artists had been putting on a fantastic show all week, and everyone was talking about how cool and brilliant she and her dancers are. Forty-five minutes later, however, I was cursing my decision to have gotten out of bed. The class was packed, and it was impossible to see what the teacher was doing. Ms. Barton’s choreography is pretty complex, and my brain and body simply were not following. So much for me making an impression outside of my own program. I slipped out at the earliest opportunity.

We said our goodbyes to Richard, Marily, and the drummers (Jonathan, Ramin, and Nicolas), as a new shift comes in for the second week of the program. Rosa Maria Perez will be teaching the morning Afro-Cuban classes, and Roberto Cepeda will be teaching us bomba (from Puerto Rico) in the afternoons. Our new drummers will be Rubio and Apache.

We had nothing to do on Monday, save a short workshop on singing in the morning, and so we were all shuffling about during the day, bored and restless and missing the crew from last week. Naydir, the apuon (the singer, and only teacher that is here for the entire program), said we were suffering from separation anxiety. Most of us drove into town and converged on the meager restaurants and shops of Lee, the closest town.

I’m trying to keep an open mind, but the general feeling among the students seems to be one of disappointment that we could not continue our work from last week with the same teachers and drummers. I miss Richard terribly, but I’m sure I’ll learn a lot from Rosa Maria and Mr. Cepeda. And even better, the Suzanne Farrell Ballet will be here performing. I cannot believe I am actually going to have the opportunity to meet the Elusive Muse.

Days 5 & 6 at the Pillow: Oh Shit, We Have to Get Ready to Perform

I think the title says it all right there. Here we’ve been in class all week, and now we must whip up a professional-level presentation to be performed on the Inside/Out stage on campus, a beautiful outdoor stage with a gorgeous mountain vista. In the allotted period of 45 minutes, we must represent what we’ve been doing for the past 6 days. It might sound simple enough, but it gets complicated when you have two Caribbean artists at the helm who are used to working with full professional ensembles. Today’s classes were frenzied sessions, trying to figure out what we could put together considering the fact that the teachers hadn’t worked anything out (neither dance nor drum-wise). Everyone is exhausted and at the limit of their patience – teachers, dancers, and drummers alike. You could have cut the air that hung over our dinner with a knife. I am sure of failure, but I told Richard over dessert, “We’ll smile a lot, and everyone will have a good time.”

This morning they combined Richard’s and Marily’s classes into one, so as to give us a mental-health break that was longer than an hour, and then rehearse, beginning at 2pm for our Inside/Out presentation, which was to take place at 6:30. I thought I could handle this day fine, but it was quite the roller-coaster.

To begin with, I was already in a difficult place because I had only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before. I had tucked myself in at 11pm, but every hour more people came back to the cabin, laughing and (seemingly) screaming. I got so frustrated, that when a gaggle of the young dancers burst into the cabin at 2am, I flew out of my bed, ripped open my door, leaped into the hallway, and howled,

“Shuuuuut…..UP. SHUT UP. SHUT……UP! SHUT UP!!!!!!!”

I was gesticulating wildly with my hands in the most menacing of manners, suggesting that I would violently strangle the next person who dared utter a sound. No one moved. I stomped back into my bedroom.

The next morning, one of those stupid noisy bitches came up to me and apologized. I still hate her, but you gotta have respect for her effort.

So anyway, due to the dance-induced and sleep-deprived exhaustion, I had a short fuse and was emotionally fragile. Richard’s class was great – it was the last he would teach here at the Pillow, being the end of his segment of the course. He heads to New Orleans for a workshop next week, and then to some others in a variety of places over the coming weeks, so I won’t see him for awhile. At the end of the class, his students lined up to say goodbye.

He hugged me warmly, and said, “Bless you.”

“What?” I stammered. I’m just not used to people saying such a thing when hugging goodbye, especially if it’s someone that is neither a family member nor a very close friend.

He smiled. “Bless you.”

“Oh!” I said, and turned and got out of the way of the next person. At that point, out of the blue, the tears started welling up, inexplicably, and I walked very quickly in what I hoped was the most inconspicuous of manners, out the door, and into the forest. When I was what I deemed to be a safe distance away from the studio, in a small clearing in the trees, I sat down and wept. I wasn’t sure why I was crying, but I cried hard, for a long time. I finally dried my eyes and pulled myself together, and went back to the studio to collect my things. I managed to get in and out of the studio with no one noticing.

I ran back to the cabin, showered, and decided to go into town and get away from everyone and get some lunch. I went to this pub in Lee called Morgan House, came back, got into my costume, and headed toward the outdoor stage for rehearsal. The Inside/Out stage is a beautiful facility overlooking the mountains. The audience sits on logs on the grass – there’s room for up to two hundred, when you include those that bring their own picnic blankets, beach chairs and such. My head was pounding and my eyes were red and swollen from crying, so I put on a pair of big plastic sunglasses. Here's a picture I took at that moment of Marily and a fellow student, Sita, who were sitting nearby while we were waiting to get on the stage to rehearse, and another of the guys rehearsing Oggun.


After watching the guys rehearse, I sat down next to Marily, who was observing the rehearsal with a professional, detached air. I began to make some small talk with her as best as I could in my broken Spanish, asking her how she felt about our prospects for the upcoming performance. I took my glasses off to help with the communication. She began to talk about her impressions of the dancers in the class, when suddenly, she went silent, her gaze wandered, and her breath quickened. A frightened look came over her face, and she began to grip her arms.

I don’t remember what she said, exactly, because the moment was just so strange. She seemed very confused and overwhelmed. She told me she was experiencing a twisting pain in her arms, and she could barely breathe. She slumped on the bench and was shivering, and looked down. She seemed to forget I was there, and I wanted to help her but felt I could not. Richard walked by, and I gazed at him imploringly, as if to say, “Help!”

He knelt by Marily, asked her if she had heart problems or diabetes, and asked her about her symptoms. She seemed totally shaken. Richard was concerned but not as frightened as I. I put my sunglasses back on, and touched her arm. It seemed she had forgotten I was there, and I wanted her to know I was there and I wanted to help. They both looked at me, and conversed a bit, said some things I didn’t understand. Richard suggested maybe Marily was feeling some sympathetic pain. I agreed I had some stiffness in my shoulders, and we all nodded, hoping that was the answer, but Marily looked down again and seemed lost in her thoughts. At this point I felt strange, like I should go away. I felt guilty somehow. I wasn’t sure what was going on.

I wanted to get in to my car and drive back to NY and forget this whole thing, but I was committed to perform. If things went totally awry, I was ready to make some excuse to pack up my stuff and leave.

Day 4 at the Pillow: Obbatala and Oya

In order to make up for my orisha-ignorance blunder yesterday, I danced my ASS off for Oya today. Dancing full out for Oya is tough, because it requires a lot of torso and shoulder movement, as well as constant arm-waving and a very fierce expression. Try imagining imitating a dancing tornado, and you might get an idea of what it’s like. The drummers really like the Oya rhythms and project that in the music, so I was trying my best to match the energy they were creating. I’m not quite sure if I made up for last night’s boobidity, but I did my best.

I ushered for this evening’s performance at the Ted Shawn theater. It was Jose Limon Dance Company, and they were fantastic. I need to make a point of seeking out these dancers while they are here on campus (through this Saturday), but I’m so very shy and I didn’t manage to check my introverted nature at the door here at the Pillow.

Day 3: Nighttime at the Pillow

After finishing my last post and giving the Education Director her desk back, I got in my car, drove 20 minutes to the closest town, and had a really nice meal at Chez Nous, a classy, low key eatery. I ordered a salad and the duck confit. And they had Conundrum, one of my favorite white wines, available in a half bottle. I sat there with my meal and my copy of the latest “New Yorker”, and two hours later, I was feeling a bit more sane.

It’s something I really had to do, although I probably should have stuck around for the Jose Limon company performance in the Ted Shawn theater. But I just had to get away. I’ve only been here two days and I’m feeling a bit trapped. So getting in a car, driving into town, and having a nice meal went a long way toward erasing my increasing sense of unease at the prospect of being here for two whole weeks.

I haven’t been saying much about the dancing I’ve been doing, and that’s just wrong. Unlike Richard’s Saturday class at Ailey, this week we are doing full-out afro-cuban, and each day we cover two orishas. Today we danced for Babalu Aiye and Yemaya. Yesterday was Eleggua and Oggun. Richard is our morning (9-noon) class. In the afternoons, from 2 to 5, we have traditional dances from the Dominican Republic. Our teacher’s name is Marily, a 50-something spitfire who complains about how we have such a hard time mastering the steps she is trying, in a rather disorganized fashion, to teach us. “NO ES COMPLICADO!” she insists, and we all look at each other with that, “Is she for real?” expression. She doesn’t speak English very well, but manages to communicate what she needs. She carries a whistle which she trills shrilly for our Carnaval-like processions with the drummers. She’s an amazing dancer and is throwing an overwhelming amount of information at us about different dances from different regions in the DR. Too bad I didn’t bring a recorder, because I’m certainly too lazy to write any of it down.

I stopped by the Campus Center (a “student hang out” cabin that is open all night, with sofas, a TV, and candy and soda machines), after coming back from my sojourn into town, to sit down and write this, and there were already a few fellow students there, talking about everything and nothing, and we made jokes and laughed out loud. Within 20 minutes, a sizable group had assembled. The drummers stopped by, and one of them, Nico (a talented guy with enormous hair who always wears dark sunglasses to hide what he calls his “raccoon eyes”) informed me that tomorrow we’d be dancing for Obbatala and Oya. I then proceeded to make a huge mistake, sputtering, “Didn’t we do Obbatala today?”

“No, that was Babalu Aiye”.

“Aren’t they the same?”

“Uh, no. Babalu Aiye is Babalu Aiye, not Obbatala.”

I had obviously offended Nico, but my snafu is understandable if you knew how the dances were taught to me. Some of the steps for these two orishas are quite similar, and as I have very little context for the orishas other than the dance steps I am taught, it’s not surprising that I got confused. But to a drummer, who lives and breathes the different rhythms and lyrics, such a mistake could only be committed by the Most Gigantic Boob in the World. So the drummers probably hate me now. Great, wonderful, terrific.