Inside the Pillow Lab: Deborah Goffe/Scapegoat Garden

Inside the Pillow Lab is an intimate new film series that captures works in process and behind-the-scenes moments of what it’s like for artists to live, work, and rehearse together again in COVID-compliant residencies on the Pillow’s retreat-like campus. Deborah Goffe is a dance maker, performer, educator, and curator whose commitments to locality, scalable intimacy, interdisciplinary, and the handmade compels her to cultivate environments and experiences through choreographic, design, and social processes. Through Scapegoat Garden (a Connecticut-based creative engine) and other platforms, Goffe strives to forge relationships between artists and communities by helping people see, create and contribute to more expansive visions of ourselves, each other, and the places we call home. During this Pillow Lab Residency, Goffe developed "Liturgy|Order|Bridge", a work inspired by communal embodiment in the Black church and the absurdity of Fellini’s ecclesiastical fashion show. These serve as points of reference to correlate religious ritual with theatrical devices that can make the membrane between performance and audience more porous. Centering dance as the organizing principle in a ritualized public ceremony, the work asks: What might it mean to engage dance practice as faith practice, performance as communal ceremony, performance space as consecrated site, and the fellowship of shared witness, place, and inheritance? "Liturgy|Order|Bridge" activates our intersecting identities, senses of place, and commitments to support one another. Goffe will be joined in this endeavor by her core collaborators Lauren Horn, Arien Wilkerson (dance artists), and Abena Koomson-Davis (musician). INSIDE THE PILLOW LAB Deborah Goffe/Scapegoat Garden RESIDENCY DATES: January 12-22 & October 21-22, 2022 APPEARING IN FILM: Director and Core Performer Deborah Goffe Core Performers/Collaborators Abena Koomson-Davis Lauren Horn Arien Wilkerson Threshold Chorus Guest Performers Chantal Edwards Dina Lasso Kelly Silliman Lailye Weidman Jacob's Pillow Associate Curator & Director of Artist Initiatives Melanie George HYMN: "The Day is New" by Abena Koomson-Davis FILMING: Erica Spizz NEL SHELBY PRODUCTIONS Nel Shelby, Producer Caroline Haidet, Editor Benjamin Richards, Graphic Animation Sonia Bartolomeo, Project Manager "Liturgy | Order | Bridge" is being developed with support from Creative Capital. The project is also supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts' New Work New England program, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Rescue Plan, Seedlings Foundation, the Fund for the Arts at NEFA and individual donors. LEAD SUPPORT OF THE 2022-2023 PILLOW LAB IS PROVIDED BY: The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation © Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival 2022