Presented by Jacob’s Pillow as part of the Pittsfield 10×10 Upstreet Arts Festival
Free and family-friendly | Open to the public | No dance experience necessary
Limited space! Advance registration recommended
February 1, 2024 (BECKET, Mass) – As part of this year’s 10×10 Upstreet Arts Festival in Pittsfield, Jacob’s Pillow is excited to announce that Los Angeles-based activist dance theater company CONTRA-TIEMPO will host a community dance party and workshop (“Sabor Session”) on the evening of Tuesday, February 20, followed by a performance of ¡azúcar! on Friday, February 23. These events will be held at the Common Room at Zion Lutheran Church on First Street in Pittsfield.
Walk-ups are welcome; however, advance registration is recommended, as space is limited. Visit jacobspillow.org/10×10 to reserve free tickets to either or both events, and to see the most up-to-date event details (including any week-of updates concerning inclement weather).
This programming is presented by Jacob’s Pillow—America’s preeminent international dance center, based in Becket—in partnership with NAACP Berkshire County Branch. This event is part of the 10×10 Upstreet Arts Festival, a city-wide event featuring dozens of events, in partnership with Mill Town Foundation. Go to LovePittsfield.com for more information.
CONTRA-TIEMPO is a bold, multilingual Los Angeles-based company that creates communities where all people are awakened to a sense of themselves as artists and social change agents who move through the world with compassion, confidence, and joy. The company dances and educates using a physical, visual, and sonic vocabulary that combines Salsa, Afro-Cuban, hip hop, and contemporary dance with theater, compelling text, and original music.
“More than a hip isolating dance ensemble… CONTRA-TIEMPO pushes boundaries”
—The Washington Post
“In heart, mind, and soul, this is the real thing!”
—Los Angeles Times
CONTRA-TIEMPO most recently appeared onstage at Jacob’s Pillow as part of the 2021 summer festival, wowing audiences of all ages with their passionate and high-energy approach to dance and storytelling. Families and participants of all ages are invited to come dance, watch, and learn.
Sabor Session and Dance Workshop
Tuesday, February 20 at 6:30pm
The Common Room at Zion Lutheran Church, 74 First Street, Pittsfield
Get moving and grooving with a “Sabor Session” (from the Spanish word for “flavor”) where CONTRA-TIEMPO will guide participants in Afro-Latin social dance forms that are rooted in radical joy. In the artists’ words: “Together we embody joy as a form of resistance and a tool to build community.” No prior dance knowledge is necessary. Bring comfortable shoes and an open heart.
Performance of ¡azúcar!
Friday, February 23 at 6:30pm
The Common Room at Zion Lutheran Church, 74 First Street, Pittsfield
This excerpt from the full-length work ¡azúcar! brings to life the vibrations of Cuban musician Celia Cruz, as artists explore ancestral wisdoms about a plant that once aided in our healing, sweetening medicinal concoctions, now extracted, refined, and used as weaponized poison. The development of ¡azúcar! is driven by unearthing the history embedded in the artists’ bodies to courageously name, confront, and intentionally obliterate the often unspoken undercurrent of anti-Blackness in Latinidad. This courageous work is rooted in our Afro-Latine movement languages, the sacred feminine, personal narratives of food, labor, community, sabor, and explorations of ‘familying’ and healing as practices. Join artists for a Q&A following the performance.
This performance culminates CONTRA-TIEMPO’s two-week residency in the Pillow Lab, a year-round program that supports U.S.-based and international dance artists during crucial development, research, and technical stages of choreography-driven projects. To learn more about this residency program, visit jacobspillow.org/pillowlab.
WHAT TO EXPECT:
Arrival: The venue for both the Feb. 20 Sabor Session and the Feb. 23 Performance is the Common Room at Zion Lutheran Church, located at 74 First Street in Pittsfield (next to The Common). Doors open a half hour prior to each event. Guests will be checked-in at the door; walk-ups are welcome, pending capacity. Pre-registration is strongly encouraged.
Parking: Parking is available in the public parking lot on First Street between Eagle Street and Fenn Street, across from the Zion Lutheran Church. Metered street parking is also available.
Attire: If attending the Sabor Session on Feb. 20, please wear comfortable clothing and shoes.
Accessibility: Jacob’s Pillow is committed to creating accessible spaces and experiences. Please contact community@jacobspillow.org with accessibility questions or accommodation requests. The Common Room at Zion Lutheran Church is wheelchair accessible.
Seating: Please note that seating is limited and general admission. Please arrive early to secure your seats. Standing room and floor seating is also available. Accessible seating can be reserved at community@jacobspillow.org.
Liability and Media Release: By participating, you agree to Jacob’s Pillow’s liability and media release. These documents are available online at jacobspillow.org/10×10. If possible, please review this information in advance. These documents will also be available in print upon entry.
ABOUT CONTRA-TIEMPO ACTIVIST DANCE THEATER AND FOUNDING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR ANA MARIA ALVAREZ
Artistic Director Ana Maria Alvarez is a prolific choreographer, skilled dancer, masterful teaching artist, and movement activist. A 2020 Doris Duke Artist, an inaugural Dance/USA Artist Fellow, and a two-time grantee of NEFA National Dance Project, Alvarez has achieved multiple accolades for her dynamic works. In 2005, Alvarez founded CONTRA-TIEMPO, a Los Angeles-based activist theater dance company that draws upon salsa, Afro-Cuban, hip hop, and contemporary dance to awaken audiences and create communities. In the Fall of 2022, Alvarez joined the University of California San Diego (UCSD) Theatre and Dance Department as a tenured dance faculty. Through her research and work with CONTRA-TIEMPO and in collaboration with her colleagues and students, Alvarez is imagining and designing a new future for embodied performance and practice at UCSD. The company has been celebrated by the Los Angeles Times as a company that “represents the kind of socially aware contemporary work that only a few dance artists such as Bill T. Jones reliably provide.” Alvarez and CONTRA-TIEMPO were invited for multiple tours in Central and South America as cultural ambassadors through the U.S. State Department and have toured their work for almost 2 decades. contra-tiempo.org | @contra_tiempo
ABOUT THE 10X10 UPSTREET ARTS FESTIVAL
Jacob’s Pillow has partnered with the 10×10 Festival for eight years, supporting their mission to provide accessible, family-friendly cultural programming to Pittsfield in February. The 13th annual 10×10 Upstreet Arts Festival encourages everyone to get outside and enjoy all there is to love about Pittsfield. Presented by the City of Pittsfield and Barrington Stage Company and sponsored by the Mill Town Foundation, the
festival features a live array of music, art, theater, dance, play, ice sculpting, outdoor fun, fireworks and
more from January through February 2024, in the heart of the Berkshires.
ABOUT JACOB’S PILLOW
Jacob’s Pillow is a National Historic Landmark, recipient of the National Medal of Arts, and home to America’s longest-running international dance festival, which will celebrate its 92nd season in 2024. Jacob’s Pillow acknowledges that it rests on the ancestral homelands of the Muh-he-con-ne-ok or Mohican people. We pay honor and respect to their ancestors and elders past and present as we commit to building a more inclusive and equitable space for all. In addition, we acknowledge the Nipmuc, the Wampanoag and other tribal nations who also made their homes in what is now known as Massachusetts.
Each Festival includes national and international dance companies and free and ticketed performances, talks, tours, classes, exhibits, events, and community programs. The School at Jacob’s Pillow, a prestigious professional dance training center, advances the careers of the upcoming generation of performers and choreographers; during the Festival, 100 international dancers evolve as artists in ballet, choreography, contemporary, musical theatre, tap, and other genres, and year round, artist faculty and accomplished alumni nurture younger dancers in a series of Jacob’s Pillow 360 workshops and intensives offered in partnership with leading dance institutions worldwide. The Pillow also provides professional advancement opportunities across disciplines of arts administration, design, video, and production through seasonal internships and a year-round Administrative Fellows program. Through its community engagement programs, the Pillow serves as a partner and active citizen in its local community. The Pillow’s extensive Archives, open year-round to the public and highlighted online at danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org, chronicle more than a century of dance in photographs, programs, books, costumes, audiotapes, and videos.
Notable artists who have created or premiered dances at the Pillow include choreographers Antony Tudor, Agnes de Mille, Alvin Ailey, Donald McKayle, Kevin McKenzie, Twyla Tharp, Ralph Lemon, Susan Marshall, Trisha Brown, Ronald K. Brown, Wally Cardona, Andrea Miller, and Trey McIntyre; performed by artists such as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Carmen de Lavallade, Mark Morris, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Edward Villella, Rasta Thomas, and hundreds of others. On March 2, 2011, President Barack Obama honored Jacob’s Pillow with a National Medal of Arts, the highest arts award given by the United States Government, making the Pillow the first dance presenting organization to receive this prestigious award. The Pillow’s Executive and Artistic Director since 2016 is Pamela Tatge. For more information, visit www.jacobspillow.org.
Jacob’s Pillow is grateful to its global community of supporters and Members for their ongoing support for our mission. Major institutional support for Jacob’s Pillow is provided by the Alphadyne Foundation, Arbella Insurance Foundation, Arison Arts Foundation, Arnhold Foundation, Barr Foundation, Doris Duke Foundation, Ford Foundation, William Randolph Hearst Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, Mellon Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Mill Town Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, and Jacob’s Pillow Business Partners (as of October 26, 2023).