Jacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive | Making Videos for New Themes & Essays
New to Jacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive: Themes & Essays with more Dance Video!
Jacob’s Pillow has been working tirelessly for the last several years on building and expanding Jacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive, a collection of videos from the rich archives that dig back to performances from years and years ago.
My professional relationship with Jacob’s Pillow began as a video intern serving in their mission to preserve dance history. Documenting dance talks and performances at the Pillow is still a huge part of what I do every summer.
I am thrilled to be a part of the creative online space that is Jacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive, because now more people can see dance at the Pillow from their own homes! And future generations will have access to so much of this rich history online!
It was so hard for me to keep this project a secret as we were working on it, and I’m so excited to share it with you!
Under the guidance of the amazing Norton Owen (Director of Preservation at the Pillow), my team and I helped illustrate a series of essays on different themes with thoughtfully curated videos from the Pillow and video introductions by the writers!
“Plenty of people have written about important artists like Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, but fewer people are writing about artists who are making work right now and I wanted to do my part to insert them into dance history.”
– Maura Keefe
This project is so dear to me – it’s filled with much love and packed with value. Having the ability to document dance is the most important part of my work for the dance world at large. I’m so proud to be a part of the effort to preserve and share dance for new generations!!
Thank you thank you, Norton, for this wonderful project and your expert steering of all things Jacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive. Thank you, Jacob’s Pillow, for countless summers doing a job that I adore. Thank you, Ben Richards & Amber Schmiesing, for your hard work pulling together the video clips that are sprinkled throughout the essays within.
Nel Shelby is Owner & Filmmaker for Nel Shelby Productions, her New York City-based company dedicated to dance videography and editing. Nel shares her mission to preserve and promote the art of dance with her husband, Christopher Duggan, a dance and wedding photographer. They collaborate on projects with dance companies of worldwide renown, up-and-coming choreographers, dance educators, dance schools and more. Nel is Video Producer at Jacob’s Pillow and Vail Dance Festival and is also the proud Director and Producer of PS DANCE! — a New York Emmy-nominated documentary about dance education in NYC’s public schools.