Pillow Pride Weekend
Expanded from One Nighter to Weekend
By: Pillow - Apr 22, 2025
Jacob’s Pillow is pleased to announce the return of Pillow Pride Weekend, a three-day itinerary of events centered on LGBTQ+ joy and visibility that will run as an extension of Pride month from Friday, July 11 through Sunday, July 13. While the longstanding dance festival has hosted a one-night-only Pride-themed dance party in recent summers, this will be the organization’s first time hosting a three-day destination Pride celebration since 2019.
Audiences living locally, as well as those traveling from across New England and further afield, are invited to immerse themselves in a colorful and genre-blending weekend of dance, music, cutting-edge art, and community, with a variety of queer-oriented events in indoor and outdoor performance spaces, as well as special exhibits, the annual Pillow Pride Dance Party featuring musical artists The Illustrious Blacks, and a Sunday brunch.
Pillow Pride Weekend festivities coincide with the opening of the new Doris Duke Theatre, built to become one of the most technologically advanced theaters in the world dedicated to dance. Built on the site where Jacob’s Pillow lost a studio theater to fire in 2020, the reimagined theater’s Opening Week Celebration will include state-of-the-art performances and multimedia installations that explore the intersections of dance, technology, and the human body.
“Jacob’s Pillow is thrilled to expand Pillow Pride into a celebratory weekend that will enrich audiences and celebrate the brilliance of LGBTQ+ communities,” said Jacob’s Pillow Artistic and Executive Director Pamela Tatge. “Countless queer artists have left an indelible mark on our festival, and have inspired our visitors and dance lovers for many decades.”
Since its founding in the 1930s, Tatge said, Jacob’s Pillow has served as a safe haven for members of the gay community to exist, make art, and be themselves. “This was first exemplified by our founder Ted Shawn and the cultivation of his Men Dancers,” Tatge said. “As they toured the world, they forged a new performance style for men, and proved that dance could be an honorable profession for men in the United States. We are pleased to continue the Pillow’s legacy of welcoming and elevating the queer community on our campus throughout our summer festival.”
SUGGESTED ITINERARY FOR PRIDE WEEKEND TRAVELERS
Visitors can make the most of their three-day Pillow Pride Weekend with the following suggested itinerary. Many of the listed Pillow Pride performances and events have limited availability and will be offered on multiple dates and times. Jacob’s Pillow encourages book tickets and reservations in advance at jacobspillow.org/festival.
FRIDAY, JULY 11
Exhibit: Dancing The Algorithm
Doris Duke Theatre | 12pm-final curtain
Jacob’s Pillow will present Dancing the Algorithm in the Doris Duke Theatre Gallery on July 11, curated by Emmy Award-nominated queer artist Katherine Helen Fisher. Through interactive artist installations, Dancing the Algorithm illuminates how the dancing body doesn’t just adapt to technology, but shapes it, challenges it, and celebrates the new possibilities it creates.
Performance: Calpulli Mexican Dance Company
Henry J. Leir Stage | 5:30pm
Calpulli Mexican Dance Company by popular demand returns to the outdoor stage, celebrating their cultural legacy with folkloric storytelling, dynamic dance and music, and colorful costumes. Described by The New York Times as “a terrific company of generous dancers [that] give a vibrant tour of Mexican traditions,” Calpulli will present an excerpt from Monarcas—which celebrates the real life contributions and sacrifices by Mexican immigrants to and for the United States—and Viñedos, which honors laborers who became vineyard owners and proud makers of California wine. Tickets are on a Choose What You Pay model.
SATURDAY, JULY 12
Attendees can prepare for the full day ahead by taking advantage of the Pillow’s various food and beverage options, which include the Pillow Pub, Pillow Café (OpenTable reservation required), and Pillow Coffee Bar.
Leisure Walk
Doris Duke Theatre Grounds | all day
Start your day ahead with a snack or coffee to-go from the Pillow Coffee Bar or Pillow Pub and enjoy a leisurely walk through the grounds of the new Indigenous Garden designed by Indigenous artists Misty Cook and Kathi Arnold–enrolled members of the Stockbridge Munsee Band of Mohican, and the outdoor Fire Pit created by Nipmuc tribal member Andre Strongbearheart Gaines, Jr.
Performance: Unwired Dance Theatre
Doris Duke Theatre | 10:30am, 12:15pm, 1:00pm, 1:45pm, 2:30pm
In a series of short performances beginning at 10:30am in the Duke’s main theater, the U.K./France’s Unwired Dance Theatre will make its U.S. debut of Where We Meet, an audio-based dance installation where audiences can experience the inner thoughts of a dancer. In this interactive and immersive dance theater performance, the spectator is in control to reveal the hidden stories behind each character. Where We Meet is a joyful and shared experience exposing how we are more alike than we are different, reimagining what community really means in a modern age. Unwired Dance Theatre is based both in London, England and Bordeaux, France, with collaborators all around the world.
Performances of Where We Meet are ticketed in advance for a limited-size audience, and will run at 10:30am, 12:15pm, 1:00pm, 1:45pm, and 2:30pm. Both seating and standing options will be available at this event.
Performance: Kinetic Light
Forest Studio, Doris Duke Theatre | Afternoon through 7:40pm
After Unwired Dance Theatre, Jacob’s Pillow presents internationally recognized disability arts ensemble Kinetic Light—a company working in the disciplines of art and technology, while teaching at the nexus of access, queerness, disability, dance, and race.
Kinetic Light will present territory—a virtual reality walk-up experience that surrounds the audience in movement, light, vibration, and sound. territory, described as “utopian and dystopian all at once,” was recently showcased at SXSW 2025 and is directed by Kiira Benz and Alice Sheppard with featured performers Jerron Herman, Laurel Lawson, and Alice Sheppard. Scenography is by Michael Maag, sound design/spatial mix by Q Department, sound technology by Mach1, and access design by Lawson and Sheppard.
Performance: Sydnie L. Mosley Dances
Henry J. Leir Stage | 5:30pm
Enjoy a a performance on the iconic Henry J. Leir outdoor stage featuring Sydnie L. Mosley Dances, a dance-theatre collective that explores the real-life experiences of women and the Black community through experiential dance performances that blend modern technique, verbal performance, and the movement traditions of the African diaspora. The company creates works designed to provoke a visceral response and spark dialogue around gender and racial justice.
Performance: Trinity Irish Dance Company
Ted Shawn Theatre | 7:30pm
Following the outdoor performance, the historic Ted Shawn Theatre—the first theater in the United States built exclusively for presenting dance—will open its doors to present the Pillow debut of the female centric Trinity Irish Dance Company as they present a genre-defying program with live music and a hybrid of Irish step and American tap regarded as “everything you expect, but like nothing you’d imagine.” Among the works presented will be Push, an explosion of hard-driving percussive power that exemplifies the company’s consistent message of female empowerment. This will mark the first time Jacob’s Pillow has presented a full program of Irish dance on the Ted Shawn Theatre stage.
Pillow Pride Dance Party
Doris Duke Theatre | 9pm
The night ends in high gear at this year's annual Pillow Pride Dance Party, sponsored by Berkshire Pride. Experience the new Doris Duke Theatre transformed into an immersive club experience with beats provided by self-proclaimed Afro-Electro-Disco-Space-Punk Monstah Black and their DJ/Music duo The Illustrious Blacks. This party will feature dancing, drinks, and projected visuals sourced from the Pillow’s rich, queer archival history.
Monstah Black—of The Illustrious Blacks—arrived with a mission: take a deep dive into the Jacob’s Pillow Archives with a focus on the unapologetically queer Black and brown bodies in dance. Monstah also unearthed allies and inspirations who have paved the way to bold self-expression throughout the Pillow’s history. That archival footage will inspire text, as well as physical and lyrical motifs, throughout this two-hour dance party, as The Illustrious Blacks guide the dance floor with radical human joy.
SUNDAY, JULY 13
Pride Brunch & Pillow Pride History Tour
Pillow Café | 10am, Tour 11-11:45am
Jacob’s Pillow closes out Pillow Pride Weekend on Sunday, July 13, by reviving audiences from a night of revelry with a communal, ”morning-after” Pride Brunch (OpenTable reservations required) followed by the opportunity to discover little-known stories, such as the origin of the name “Jacob’s Pillow,” on a Pillow Pride History Tour led by Director of Preservation, Norton Owen.
Owen celebrates his 50th year at Jacob’s Pillow this summer and is the most qualified Pillow member to “spill the tea” on the many queer artists who have graced the ground over the years. Following the Tour, Jacob’s Pillow encourages audiences to visit the free exhibition on Owen’s Pillow career in Blake’s Barn, entitled Connecting Through Time: 50 Seasons with Norton Owen, curated by former Dance Magazine editor-in-chief, Wendy Perron.