A Fire Pit Gathering preserves Nipmuc Tradition at Jacob's Pillow
Andre StrongBearHeart Gaines Jr. leads a community gathering in the Indigenous Garden, part of the dance festival's permanent commitment to Eastern Woodlands culture.
August 1, 11am–12:30pm | Becket, MA | Tickets required
Jacob's Pillow hosts a Fire Pit Gathering at its Indigenous Garden on August 1, led by Andre StrongBearHeart Gaines Jr., Tribal Historic Preservation Officer of the Nipmuc Nation, joined by members of multiple Eastern Woodlands tribes. The gathering invites visitors to engage with Nipmuc land practices and living traditions, offering a firsthand look at how Indigenous communities sustain their relationship with the land through generations of ecological knowledge.
The event is a piece of a broader, years-long commitment Jacob's Pillow has made to Indigenous artists and communities on its 225-acre campus. Gaines Jr. is creative director of No Loose Braids, a Nipmuc-led organization working to braid Eastern Woodlands tribal communities together through traditional practice, cultural revitalization, and knowledge sharing.
In 2022, the Pillow commissioned him to build a traditional Nipmuc homesite on the grounds—cedar poles, a hearth, fishnet and cookfire stations, deer-hide processing tools—using materials harvested from Douglas State Forest. The structure has since been permanently relocated to Jacob's Garden, where it remains publicly accessible.
When the Pillow rebuilt its Doris Duke Theatre after a 2020 fire, the design team worked with four commissioned Indigenous artists—Gaines Jr., Brenda Mallory (Cherokee Nation), and Misty Cook and Kathi Arnold (Stockbridge-Munsee and Nipmuc)—to build a permanent fire pit, medicine garden, and gallery installations directly into the new building, connecting the theater's outdoor spaces to the adjacent forest.
The August 1 gathering turns that fire pit into a communal gathering site, the function it was designed for from the start. It's one of several public programs this season built around the Pillow's Indigenous partnerships, alongside Brenda Mallory's multi-year visual art installation in the Doris Duke lobby and the permanent plant-healing space Cook and Arnold maintain in the Duke Garden.
Indigenous Garden, Jacob's Pillow, 358 George Carter Rd., Becket, MA. Tickets at jacobspillow.org.
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After a decade of writing for RI (along with many other publications and organizations) Jamie took over as editor in 2025. He has a masters in journalism from NYU, a wonderful wife, two kids and a Carolina dog named Zelda.
