Inside the Pillow Lab: Michael Sakamoto
7:38
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. "Garden of the Wilis" is planned as a devised work blending legacies in ballet and butoh and reflecting aesthetic and cultural shifts in the performing arts as embodied in the personal narratives of the lead performers: former ABT/Broadway/film performer George de la Peña and dance theater/media artist Michael Sakamoto. Michael Sakamoto is an artist, scholar, educator, and curator in dance, theater, photography, and media. His creative works have been presented globally in 15 countries, including at Dance Center of Columbia College-Chicago, Vancouver International Dance Festival, REDCAT, Tokyo International Butoh Festival, TACTFest Osaka, Gøteborg Art Sounds, and other venues. Recent touring works include: Flash, a butoh/hip-hop collaboration with Rennie Harris and Soil, a dance theater trio featuring Thai, Vietnamese, and Cambodian performers. Sakamoto’s scholarship appears regularly in journals and anthologies in numerous disciplines. His book monograph, "An Empty Room: Imagining Butoh and the Social Body in Crisis," is a critical autoethnography of Sakamoto’s three-decade journey through butoh history, practice, and theory, was released in 2022 by Wesleyan University Press. Michael currently serves as Performing Arts Curator and Director of Asian and Asian American Arts and Culture at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Fine Arts Center. Website: http://www.michaelsakamoto.org. INSIDE THE PILLOW LAB Michael Sakamoto RESIDENCY DATES: October 24–30, 2022 APPEARING IN FILM: Michael Sakamoto George de la Peña Hyeyung Yoon Asher Hartman COMPOSER/MUSICIAN: Hyeyung Yoon CO-DIRECTOR/DRAMATURG: Asher Hartman FILMING: Erica Spizz NEL SHELBY PRODUCTIONS Nel Shelby, Producer Taylor Hutchinson, Editor Benjamin Richards, Graphic Animation Sonia Bartolomeo, Project Manager LEAD SUPPORT OF THE 2022-2023 PILLOW LAB IS PROVIDED BY: The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Related Videos
In Inside the Pillow Lab
-
Play video Inside the Pillow Lab: Gesel Mason
Inside the Pillow Lab: Gesel Mason
Gesel Mason is artistic director for Gesel Mason Performance Projects and associate professor of dance and choreography at the University of Texas at Austin.
5:59
-
Play video Inside the Pillow Lab: Mythili Prakash
Inside the Pillow Lab: Mythili Prakash
"She’s Auspicious" examines notions of femininity and purity through the paradox of the Hindu Goddess Devi, who is worshiped as powerful and auspicious, in contrast to the woman who is objectified and marginalized in society.
6:31
-
Play video Inside the Pillow Lab: Ananya Dance Theatre
Inside the Pillow Lab: Ananya Dance Theatre
Ananya Dance Theatre is a company of cultural activists and BIPOC women, womxn, and femme artists who believe in the transformative power of dance.
6:19
-
Play video Inside the Pillow Lab: Irene Rodríguez
Inside the Pillow Lab: Irene Rodríguez
Step inside Irene Rodríguez Pillow Lab residency leading up to the Jacob’s Pillow Gala, developing a new work that has been commissioned by Jacob’s Pillow and the Vivienne Jones Endowment Fund at Jacob’s Pillow.
7:01
-
Play video Inside the Pillow Lab: Faye Driscoll
Inside the Pillow Lab: Faye Driscoll
Go inside the development of Faye Driscoll’s newest work, "Weathering," a multi-sensory flesh sculpture made of bodies, sounds, scents, liquids, and objects.
5:04
-
Play video Inside the Pillow Lab: Sonya Tayeh & Jenn Freeman
Inside the Pillow Lab: Sonya Tayeh & Jenn Freeman
"Is It Thursday Yet?" is a stimulating hybrid of theatricality and clinical analysis, a solo dance work with live musical accompaniment exploring autistic choreographer and dancer Jenn Freeman’s neurodivergent brain in motion.
8:06