Works & Process Presents Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival at Guggenheim New York
Company:
Works & Process
Works & Process presents a first look at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, set for Monday, April 27, 2026 at 7PM at the Peter B. Lewis Theater, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10128. Tickets start at $25 and can be purchased at https://www.tix.com/ticket-sales/guggenheim/3515/event/1451932.
Located in Becket, Massachusetts, Jacob’s Pillow is a treasured 220-acre National Historic Landmark, a recipient of the prestigious National Medal of Arts, and home to America’s longest-running and largest international dance festival. See excerpts of works incubated by the Pillow that will culminate in Festival 2026 presentations this summer. Highlights of new works bringing together technology and dance by choreographers Brinae Ali and Brian Brooks will be performed, and Jacob’s Pillow Executive & Artistic Director Pamela Tatge will moderate a discussion with the artists.
To continue the conversation, Works & Process will host a reception in the rotunda of the museum.
Brinae Ali will return to Jacob’s Pillow this summer with Baby Laurence Legacy Project, developed during a Pillow Lab residency in 2024. The show explores and celebrates the artistic genius of “Baby” Laurence Donald Jackson, a Baltimore innovator whose impact on tap dance and jazz music is legendary. This evening-length production traces Laurence’s life from Baltimore to Harlem and Washington, D.C. to share his largely forgotten story with audiences, featuring songs by Laurence including “Baby at Birdland” and “An Afternoon of Percussion” reimagined with new arrangements and choreography—interspersed with technology that brings Laurence himself into the production. With music played live by the Baltimore Music Collective, Ali reveals how Laurence embodied the bebop aesthetic, reflecting a defiance of the white gaze and a self-referencing Black consciousness akin to the music of Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach, and Charlie Parker. This work is the recipient of Jacob’s Pillow’s 2026 Joan B. Hunter New Work Commission.
Brian Brooks Moving Company will return to Jacob’s Pillow this summer to present the world premiere of Elsewhere, featuring eight dancers tracked with motion capture and depth cameras. The dancers’ movement produces live video and generative graphics that spill across screens, shaped and guided by custom software. The dance is a meeting place for human bodies and digital systems, generating a shifting choreography that echoes and reframes itself in real time. The program will also include the ensemble work Closing Distance (2020), set to Caroline Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize-winning score “Partita for Eight Voices,” an innovative a cappella composition created for the vocal group Roomful of Teeth.
In a new work by Brooks, principal dancers with Miami City Ballet, Macarena Giménez and Chase Swatosh, will appear as guest artists with the company, performing Can we be Quiet? (2026), recently commissioned in a collaborative project with New World Symphony and featuring an original score by Kevin Puts.
About Pamela Tatge
Pamela Tatge is the Executive & Artistic Director of Jacob’s Pillow, a year-round mecca for dance creation, presentation, education, and preservation located in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. At Jacob’s Pillow, Tatge is responsible for setting the artistic vision and strategic goals for all aspects of the organization, including Festival programming, education, preservation, audience engagement, residency programming and artist support, long-term planning, collaborative programming, fundraising, and marketing.
Tatge began work at the Pillow in 2016 and in 2017 spearheaded the creation of Vision ’22. This blueprint enabled Jacob’s Pillow to become a year-round center for dance research and development, and included creating the iconic Pillow Lab program, an incubator of new work; enhancing the Pillow’s civic leadership and community engagement; and renewing campus facilities. Following the pandemic and the destruction of the Doris Duke Theatre due to a tragic fire, Tatge led operations for the design, construction and 2025 opening of the new Doris Duke Theatre, one of the most technologically advanced theaters in the world dedicated to dance. This year, Tatge will celebrate ten years of leadership at Jacob’s Pillow.
Tatge was named one of “The Most Influential People in Dance Today” by Dance Magazine in 2017 and is the recipient of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters’ 2010 William Dawson Award for Programmatic Excellence and Sustained Achievement in Programming. In 2022, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the José Limón Dance Foundation and has served extensively as a panelist for grants and awards including as a member of the jury for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Music. She is also the recipient of the NAACP Berkshires Dunham Freedom Fund Award 2024. Prior to her work at Wesleyan, Tatge spent a decade as the Director of Development at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, CT.
Leadership support for this Works & Process program is provided by Hank and Gerry Alpert.
Works & Process Lead Donors
Lead funding provided by Adam and Abigail Flatto, Christian Humann Foundation, Leon Levy Foundation, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Stephen Kroll Reidy, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Caroline M. Sharp, The Evelyn Sharp Foundation, The SHS Foundation, and Eugene and Jean Stark.
Additional support provided by Jody and John Arnhold, Jeff and Susan Campbell, Cate Caruso, Stuart H. Coleman and Meryl Rosofsky, Paul Cronson, Duke Dang and Charles E. Rosen, Lucy and Philip Dobrin, Elizabeth Sharp Edens and Wes Edens, The Fanwood Foundation, Bart Friedman and Wendy Stein, Agnes Gund, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Barbara Ritchin, Denise and Andrew Saul, and Randall Sharp.
Works & Process is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
About Works & Process
Championing performing artists and their creative process at each step from studio to stage, Works & Process produces fully funded residencies and presents events that go behind the scenes, blending artist discussion and performance highlights. Works & Process events transcend the proscenium, encouraging audiences to spectate and participate beyond the stage, and culminate in receptions in the Guggenheim rotunda to continue the conversation.
Works & Process produces over 25 creative residencies annually. Expanding from our bubble residency program created during the COVID-19 pandemic, Works & Process now has a network of over a dozen partners in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont. In over 100 Works & Process residencies, supporting over 1,000 artists, incubated works have been recognized with awards and grants, and have toured nationally—and internationally with the U.S. State Department. These out-of-town residencies provide 24/7 studio access, on-site housing, access to health insurance enrollment, industry-leading artist fees, and a transportation stipend to facilitate uninterrupted creative process.
Beyond the Guggenheim, we also partner with organizations across New York, including 92NY and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Jerome Robbins Dance Division. During the summer, we curate and present free outdoor dance programs with Manhattan West and City Parks Foundation’s SummerStage.
Works and Process, Inc. is a registered 501(c)(3) organization. Tax ID: 13-3592291
Stay connected: @worksandprocess
