Historic Ted Shawn Theatre at Jacob’s Pillow; photo Christopher Duggan.

All was festive as Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival began its slate of dance presentations for Summer 2012 in Becket, MA. On the opening day, the Pua Ali ‘Ilima’s dancers greeted visitors with an open air performance on the Henry J. Leir Inside/Out stage. In the Ted Shawn Theatre, Brazil’s Mimulus Dance Company presented the U.S. premiere of Por Um Fio (By A Thread). In the Doris Duke Studio Theatre an equally original – but totally different – kind of dance was on display as Circa from Australia made their debut. The company is a hybrid of daring acrobatics and circus techniques combined with traditional dance movement, They drove the audience wild.

Performance and Ticket Information

CIRCA
Doris Duke Theatre
Wednesday, June 20 through Saturday, June 23 at 8:15pm
Saturday, June 23 and Sunday, June 24 at 2:15pm

· Tickets $22-38. $10 Youth Tickets, sponsored by ALEX®, available for the Friday 8:15pm and Saturday 2:15pm performances. Tickets are now on sale online at jacobspillow.org, via phone at 413.243.0745, or in person at the Jacob’s Pillow Box Office.

· Festival Box Office hours: Monday and Tuesday, 10am-6pm, Wednesday through Saturday 10am-8pm, and Sunday 12pm-5pm.

Jacob’s Pillow is located at 358 George Carter Road in Becket, MA, 01223 (10 minutes east on Route 20 from Mass Pike Exit 2). The Jacob’s Pillow grounds and theaters are handicapped accessible.

In the Ted Shawn Theatre 20-24

Mimulus Dance Company
Ted Shawn Theatre
Wednesday, June 20 through Saturday, June 23, 8pm
Saturday, June 23 and Sunday, June 24, 2pm
BRAZIL- U.S. PREMIERE

Mimulus blends Brazilian social dance with contemporary choreography and imaginative visual design, under the artistic direction of Jomar Mesquita. The company made its U.S. debut at Jacob’s Pillow in 2007, prompting Jennifer Dunning of The New York Times to write “Mesquita and his Mimulus dance company ought to be bottled and sold as elixir.” Mimulus opens the 80th Anniversary Festival with the U.S. premiere of Por Um Fio (By a Thread). Por Um Fio is an energetic multimedia tribute to Arthur Bispo do Rosário, an outsider artist who became well known in the contemporary visual art world after his death in 1989. Bispo do Rosário spent much of his life in a Brazilian asylum devoid of social contact, where he created art by embroidering and transforming found objects such as garments, sheets, sashes, and other materials. Mesquita uses the artist’s work and life as inspiration to play with light and shadow, control and disorder, madness and memory while dancers interact with an ingenious graffiti-adorned set of fabric, lights, wire, and thread. The dancers’ exchanges with one another are spectacular, as Mesquita and his company display their mastery of inventive partnering, spins, and lifts. Tickets $39-64, available at jacobspillow.org and via phone 413.243.0745.