Jacob's Pillow Welcomes Associate Artistic Director

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BECKET, Mass. — Jacob's Pillow announced that Kim Chan will join the organization's curatorial and leadership team as Associate Artistic Director, an enhanced full-time staff position that begins January 22. 
 
In this role, Chan will oversee several administrative departments at the organization, with a program portfolio encompassing archives and preservation, audience engagement, community engagement, in-person performances, artist residencies, and The School at Jacob's Pillow.
 
Chan will also serve on the curatorial team at Jacob's Pillow, identifying artists to perform at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival (which will celebrate its 92nd season in summer 2024) and to participate in the Pillow Lab year-round residency program. With Chan, the curatorial team is composed of Jacob's Pillow Executive and Artistic Director Pamela Tatge (since 2016), Associate Curator Melanie George (since 2020), and International Advisor Cathy Levy (since 2022), and is supported by Producing Director Holly Jones.
 
Additionally, the Associate Artistic Director position will be responsible for integrating Jacob's Pillow's programming areas operationally and strategically with an eye to achieving the organization's Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) goals. Over the next five years, Chan and Tatge will also collaborate on facilitating a deeper digital integration of Jacob's Pillow's programming areas.
 
"We are greatly looking forward to welcoming Kim into our growing year-round staff, and I am excited to work closely together as we set the strategic direction of programming at the Pillow," said Tatge. "The Pillow's Associate Artistic Director will be a strong partner to colleagues in the field, bringing progressive ideas back to the team, and challenging the organization to innovate and remain relevant in a changing world. Kim's strengths, wide-ranging expertise, and her overall compassion and intelligence make her an excellent fit for this role."
 
Chan said she is "thrilled and honored" to contribute to Jacob's Pillow's legacy in partnership with the Pillow staff and curatorial team. "Dance is a lifelong passion," she said, "and Jacob's Pillow has fed that passion throughout my career. I am also excited to participate in the leadership that the dance field brings to today's cultural sector, and how the Pillow can further its mission by establishing and nurturing coalitions with artists and peers to shape our collective futures with equity, strength, and creativity."

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A Thousand Flock to Designer Showcase Fundraiser at Cassilis Farm

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

NEW MARLBOROUGH, Mass. — More than a thousand visitors toured the decked-out halls of Cassilis Farm last month in support of the affordable housing development.

Construct Inc. held its first Designer Showcase exhibition in the Gilded Age estate throughout June, showcasing over a dozen creatives' work through temporary room transformations themed to "Nature in the Berkshires."  The event supported the nonprofit's effort to convert the property into 11 affordable housing units.

"Part of our real interest in doing this is it really gives folks a chance to have a different picture of what affordable housing can be," Construct's Executive Director Jane Ralph said.

"The stereotypes we all have in our minds are not what it ever really is and this is clearly something very different so it's a great opportunity to restore a house that means so much to so many in this community, and many of those folks have come, for another purpose that's really somewhat in line with some of the things it's been used for in the past."

"It can be done, and done well," Project Manager Nichole Dupont commented.  She was repeatedly told that this was the highlight of the Berkshire summer and said that involved so many people from so many different sectors.

"The designers were exceptional to work with. They fully embraced the theme "Nature in the Berkshires" and brought their creative vision and so much hard work to the showhouse. As the rooms began to take shape in early April, I was floored by the detail, research, and vendor engagement that each brought to the table. The same can be said for the landscape artists and the local artists who displayed their work in the gallery space," she reported.  

"Everyone's feedback throughout the process was invaluable, and they shared resources and elbow grease to put it together beautifully."

More than 100 volunteers helped the showcase come to fruition, and "the whole while, through the cold weather, the seemingly endless pivots, they never lost sight of what the showhouse was about and that Cassilis Farm would eventually be home to Berkshire workers and families."

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