“ROWDIES IN LOVE,” Queer Bharatanatyam at Jacob’s Pillow

May 1–3 | Becket, MA | Doris Duke Theatre

Jacob’s Pillow has historically been a summer affair, providing 94 years of world-class dance packed into a ten-week festival in the Berkshire hills. That’s changing. The Pillow is expanding its spring programming in the new Doris Duke Theatre, and this spring weekend belongs to choreographer Hari Krishnan and his company inDANCE, who bring the evening-length work "ROWDIES IN LOVE" to the Duke for four performances May 1 through 3.

Krishnan, a professor of dance at Wesleyan and a Bessie and Dora Award–nominated choreographer, has been described by the Toronto Star as “a maverick gadfly who scoffs at tradition, turns things upside down and shakes out all the cobwebs.” He works at the intersection of Bharatanatyam (an Indian classical form) and contemporary dance filtered through a queer, global lens. "ROWDIES IN LOVE" is a piece for eight male dancers, set to an original score by composer Niraj Chag, and it’s built to interrogate the clichés of hyper-masculinity and then, in Krishnan’s own telling, burn them down.

The piece was developed in part during a 2024 Pillow Lab residency, and Krishnan has pointed to Ted Shawn, Pillow founder and pioneering figure of American men’s concert dance, as a personal touchstone. The work extends Shawn’s legacy forward by filling it with what Krishnan calls “out-proud-loud queer affirmation and thoughtful representations of diversity today.” In his own words, the dancers are “a cohort of individuals who are unhinged, a ruckus, loud and refusing to fit into a box; at the same time there is compassion, empathy, and the celebration of love.”

Performances run Friday and Saturday at 7:30pm, with 2pm matinees on Saturday and Sunday, in the Doris Duke Theatre Tickets start at $61.50 including fees, with a pre-show talk 20 minutes before each performance and refreshments available at the Doris Duke Theatre Bar.

Jacob’s Pillow, Doris Duke Theatre, 358 George Carter Road, Becket, MA. Tickets at jacobspillow.org.