Cutting-Edge and Timeless: Jacob’s Pillow Reveals Dance Festival Schedule

Tiler Peck in "The Barre Project." Photo courtesy of Tiler Peck.

Jacob’s Pillow has been putting on its summer dance festival in Becket since 1933, and the 94th season, running June 24 through August 30, honors the past while carrying the art form forward. Ten weeks, three stages, companies from six countries, and a lineup featuring a company on its final global tour, a centennial, and a long-awaited return. If Timothee Chalamet is still concerned about the future of dance, send him the Pillow’s festival schedule and let’s see if it blows his little mustache off. 

The Gala: Tiler Peck Honored and Performing

Festivities officially kick off on Saturday, June 20, with the annual Season Opening Gala, with guest of honor Tiler Peck, principal dancer at New York City Ballet (NYCB) since 2009, considered one of the finest American ballerinas of her generation. Peck will receive the 2026 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award, a $25,000 prize given annually to an artist of exceptional vision.

What makes Peck an interesting choice is how far she’s pushed beyond the stage. She’s choreographed works for NYCB and other companies, launched a daily pandemic-era ballet class that attracted a deeply devoted following, earned an Olivier Award nomination for her 2022 showcase “Turn It Out with Tiler and Friends,” and is set to star in Susan Stroman’s musical “Little Dancer” in London. Stroman, a five-time Tony winner who has known Peck since she was 10, will present the award.

The Gala performance includes Peck and fellow NYCB principal Roman Mejia in Balanchine’s “Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux,” and a world premiere by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa performed by the School at Jacob’s Pillow Contemporary Ballet Performance Ensemble. The full program will be livestreamed free.

A Sendoff for the Akram Khan Company

One of the most significant bookings of the summer is Akram Khan Company, performing July 8-12 in the Ted Shawn Theatre. “Thikra: Night of Remembering” is the company’s final touring production. After 25 years, Khan and producer Farooq Chaudhry have announced this global tour is its last. It’s the company’s first appearance at the Pillow since 2003.

“Thikra” which means “remembrance” in Arabic, premiered at the AlUla Arts Festival in Saudi Arabia in January 2025. It brings together an all-female international cast of 10 dancers working across traditional Bharatanatyam and contemporary dance, not to contrast the two traditions but to find a new movement language where both are transformed. The piece centers on an annual gathering, a tribe of women who summon the memory of their ancestors through ceremony, exploring what the company calls “the echoes of a colonized past.”

That “Thikra” is Kahn’s company’s final touring work gives it a particular gravity. It is a piece about what survives across generations and what is carried forward through the body.

Martha Graham at 100

Martha Graham Dance Company performs August 12–16 in the Ted Shawn Theatre, marking 100 years since Graham founded the company in 1926. It is the oldest continuously operating dance company in the United States, and seeing it perform at the Pillow, where Graham was herself a formative presence, carries real weight.

Running alongside the performances is a major multimedia exhibition, “Martha Graham: Call to Action,” open in Blake’s Barn from June 23 through the season’s end. Curated by Oliver Tobin, a former company dancer, it traces Graham’s early work from her through the founding of her company, culminating in a focus on “Chronicle” (1936), made in direct response to the rise of fascism in Europe. Archival photographs, films, costumes, and texts come from the company’s own archive. Artistic Director Janet Eilber speaks with Tobin at a PillowTalk on August 15.

San Francisco Ballet Returns

San Francisco Ballet arrives August 5–9 for performances in both the Ted Shawn Theatre and on the outdoor Henry J. Leir Stage. It’s the company’s first visit to the Pillow in 70 years. Under Artistic Director Tamara Rojo, San Francisco Ballet has been doing attention-grabbing work: commissioning new pieces and staging Possokhov’s world premiere “Eugene Onegin” with a new score by Ilya Demutsky. Rojo spent a decade leading English National Ballet, a tenure that included commissioning Akram Khan’s reimagined “Giselle” and earning the company an Olivier Award for Best Achievement in Dance.

Opening Week: Shamel Pitts and the RED Series

The ticketed season opens June 24–28 in the Doris Duke Theatre with Shamel Pitts | TRIBE performing “Touch of RED.” Pitts, a 2024 MacArthur Fellow, former Batsheva Company member, and this year’s recipient of the Jacob’s Pillow Men Dancers Award, works in the Afrofuturist tradition with his Brooklyn-based collective TRIBE.  

The piece is a duet between Pitts and South African dancer Tushrik Fredericks, staged inside a boxing ring designed by Mimi Lien (MacArthur Fellow, two-time Tony winner). The audience sits on all four sides. The movement draws on boxing footwork, Lindy Hop, Gaga, and nightclub culture. The bout is 10 rounds, examining how Black men are perceived and how they perceive themselves.

And Much Much More

Urban Bush Women brings “SCAT!... The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar” to the Ted Shawn Theatre July 1–5. Founded by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, the company moves between dance, theater, and music with cutting cultural context. Zollar speaks at a PillowTalk on July 4.

The week of July 15 showcases A.I.M by Kyle Abraham’s “White Space” in the Ted Shawn Theatre while Faye Driscoll presents “Weathering” in the Doris Duke. Both choreographers are at the top of their form and appear together for a PillowTalk on July 18.

Circa Contemporary Circus (Australia) and Gauthier Dance (Germany) follow in late July and early August. The Doris Duke season also features Ephrat Asherie Dance, Brinae Ali performing “Baby Laurence Legacy Project,” and Huang Yi from Taiwan. Ballet Hispánico New York and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago close out the Ted Shawn season in August, with Hubbard Street director Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell in conversation with choreographer Dianne McIntyre at a PillowTalk on August 29.

The outdoor Henry J. Leir Stage runs a wide range of one- and multi-night performances all season, including flamenco, Hawaiian dance, and regional artists on Community Day (August 14, free). Pillow Pride Weekend (July 11–12) opens on the Leir Stage with BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, followed by the annual Pride Dance Party in the Doris Duke.

Technology and Movement

On July 9, FUTURE FIGURES: Dance and Emerging Technologies convenes choreographers working at the intersection of dance and new technology, facilitated by Sydney Skybetter of Brown University’s Brown Arts Institute. The keynote streams are free.

July 8–12, the VR piece “Collective Body” — originally commissioned by Lincoln Center — runs in Sommers Studio. It guides participants through staged encounters: alone, then with the unfamiliar, then in collective movement. Limited headsets per session, $25, runs on the hour.

For the full schedule and tickets visit jacobspillow.org/festival.