Behind the scenes stories of how the exhibition 'Connecting Through Time: 50 Seasons with Norton Owen' came together. Scholar in Residence Maura Keefe guides the conversation with exhibit curator Wendy Perron, Pillow Archivist Patsy Gay, and Director of Preservation Norton Owen. Recorded during July 2025 PillowTalk.
[Music begins, composed by J.S. Bach, performed by Jess Meeker]
Norton Owen: Welcome to PillowVoices, a production of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival with content from the Pillow archives. I'm Norton Owen, the Pillow’s Director of Preservation, and it's my honor to introduce this episode based on a 2025 PillowTalk entitled “Connecting Through Time: 50 Seasons with Norton Owen.” While I hasten to add that it wasn't my idea to schedule either this talk or the exhibition that focused on my tenure here, it was deeply meaningful for me to see it all come together and to welcome visitors who have come from near and far to help celebrate. Scholar-in-Residence Maura Keefe guides this conversation with exhibit curator Wendy Perron, Pillow archivist Patsy Gay, and yours truly.
Maura Keefe: The title of today's talk is “Connecting Through Time, 50 Seasons with Norton Owen,” we took the name for this talk from the title of the exhibition inside, which I'm sure some of you have already browsed through. And if not, you will after the talk. Before I introduce my colleagues. Let me say this. I've been pondering the sometimes unconsidered role of curator, not just at Jacob's Pillow, uh, but also beyond, whether for an exhibition in a museum, a gallery or a barn, uh, but also how it might be in conversation with a dance festival and its seasons--indoors, outdoors, on the Pillow grounds, wherever. And I think sometimes, uh, from the outside it just feels like, well, it's magic or, um, it's like the only way something could have been done. But what that doesn't take into account is the deeply researched and highly creative role for a curator for a space here. The space is here all around the campus. It takes uh, conceptualizing, organizing, realizing, and all the labor along the way of, um, finding somebody who can hang a, an impossible set piece inside a barn. All those kinds of things. I say this in advance to acknowledge the perspectives of each of these people whom I'm gonna introduce that help tell the story of Jacob's Pillow, from its earliest days till today.
Thanks. Documentation team, right? We're going right into the archives after this, everybody, uh, and beyond. I'm gonna only give very brief introductions of these people because obviously we're in conversation. You're gonna learn about them, and they will reveal themselves in this conversation. First, let me introduce Wendy Perron, dancer, choreographer, turned writer, editor, scholar, turned back to performer most recently, this spring. Longtime editor of Dance Magazine, Perron is the author of two fabulous books on dance, as well as a writer of a new online series called “Unsung Heroes in Dance History.” Her own history of the Pillow starts with an invitation from Norton Owen, then Director of Education to teach here in 1984. This season, and why she's here today is she's the guest curator of the exhibition we'll be talking about. Welcome Wendy.
[audience applauds and cheers]
Wendy Perron: And there's one of my students, there's one of my students from ‘84.
Maura Keefe: Patsy Gay. My, my bookend here is the archivist at Jacob's Pillow, where she is involved in all aspects of archival work. Previously, she was an archivist and associate producer for David Gordon's Pickup Company. Prior to her current role as archivist, Patsy was an intern in the archives. And then, oh, centerpiece here [audience laughs], Director of Preservation, Norton Owen [audience applauds and cheers]. In that role he has created, developed, expanded the archives, curated numerous exhibitions, imagined how to bring a Pillow experience to the world digitally and supervised public programming such as this. Not today, though. Today he's merely the celebrity talent [audience laughs]. Um. Prior to his current position, Norton was a school, a student in the school at Jacob's Pillow. He worked backstage, he worked in the box office, he worked for the school as an assistant to, uh, director Norman Walker, among many, many other occupations and opportunities. I mention all of your current and previous roles here because it's also Jacob's Pillow Alumni Day. Welcome to all of you former interns, students, staff, and artists who have returned on this beautiful Berkshires afternoon. We're so glad you're here. And the rest of you as well [audience laughs]. Okay. So before we get to the current exhibition, I wanna talk a little about, um, the Pillow and exhibitions. Norton. Can you tell us the story of the first exhibition you did here at the Pillow and with whom?
Norton Owen: Yeah, well the first exhibition I did here was, uh, is actually documented in the special collections room. There are some photos that were taken that I took because it was an exhibit that I put together. Uh, 1977, I was the box office assistant, my lofty title, my, my, um, salary of $50 a week. And, uh, we were presenting The Spirit of Denishawn, the Joyce Trisler Dance Company doing Denishawn works. And I thought from my lofty position as box office assistant, well we need to make the connection for audiences coming. How do they know that there is some connection between these dances they're seeing on the stage and Jacob's Pillow? and I knew that we had some costumes that had been Denishawn costumes and they were in trunks. So I borrowed department store mannequins from England Brothers in Pittsfield, and I put them in the corner of Bacalar Studio and I put the costumes on them. I feel like now is the time when I'm gonna be arrested [audience laughs] for, for, for transgressions against museum practices [audience laughs’. But at any rate, the, the idea was I just wanted. To connect the audiences and the Pillow in some way. I had no idea what I was doing [audience laughs].
Maura Keefe: So I, okay, skipping ahead two decades, um, we've been, now the Pillow's been given the Barn by Marge Champion, and all of a sudden there's a, a new space. It's not just the corner of the Bacalar Studio [Owen: Yeah]. Can you talk a little bit about the conversation you and then Director Sam Miller had?
Norton Owen: Yeah, because by then I had done other things. I'd done, there are also pictures in there of the exhibit that I did at the Berkshire Museum in 1982. Uh, and then also around the time that this building was coming here, I had been asked by the National Museum of Dance to do a centennial exhibition for Ted Shawn’s centennial, which was 1991 at the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga. So I was starting to get some skills. I mean, in, in Saratoga I worked with a designer there, so I learned how much I didn't know about putting together an exhibition at the Berkshire Museum. It was just Chip Schoonmaker and me. But we did it and, um, so once we had this building, this building came to us in the, in the beginning with the idea that it would be a visitor center, even though nobody really knew what would happen in a visitor center 'cause we had never had one before. Uh, but it was built with the idea that we could have exhibitions. And, uh, Sam and I talked about what we might do for that first exhibition, and Wendy beautifully chose some things from the exhibition to include in here. So, uh, it was called “Images on Common Ground,” and it was pairing, uh, historic images by John Lindquist, who was one of our longtime photographers with works by Philip Traeger, who was working here at that time.
Maura Keefe: Wendy, before I ask you about your, your response to that, uh, initial exhibition in Blake's Barn, I, I wanna, um, go back to the moment of invitation, like, I've made up a story. Pam Tatge calls you up and says, Hey, I have this great idea, but that's my version of the story. Can you tell me a little bit about the invitation to curate this exhibition?
Wendy Perron: Well, it was from Kim Chan. Where's Kim? [Chan: Right here]. It was from Kim asking me to do this, and I didn't know Kim. I knew. I sort of knew Pam, and I knew Norton, but it sounded like a great idea. It sounded like something that I really wanted to do. I've been getting more into history, like immersing myself and being almost as addicted to dance history as I was to choreography. And so it was just, it was a great idea and everything fell into place like four times a year. I hadn't done anything at the Pillow in so long, so it was really a homecoming for me, uh, to come back and, and work with Norton. And I had so much admiration for Norton and we'd done, we'd done some dialogues together and things like that.
Maura Keefe: I'm not gonna quote extensively 'cause people have their own, um, uh, opportunity to read things. But I do have to quote this one line. “I wasn't overwhelmed at first.” Let's talk about that. I mean, because I, I say this because, uh, Patsy and I were kind of estimating and maybe we came up with maybe you could have had a hundred thousand images to choose from. So I, I was thinking about your perspective as choreographer in thinking about this because sometimes too many choices make it almost paralyzing to, and that limitations can be really helpful.
Wendy Perron: Well, one of the limitations was every time I said I would drop something, Patsy smiled [audience and Perron laugh]. Um, so, and she was like, that's the idea, Wendy. You gotta drop things. You can't have 200 items in this. So although it was painful to drop things, 'cause I had so many things that I wanted to include, but you know, what would happen is Patsy would send me things digitally.So sometimes two pictures would look the same size on the screen. And it turned out they weren't the same or they were completely different sitting next to each other in this space than what I thought. So there were ways that I cut things then, and I am, I was an editor of a magazine for 10 years, so the editor of that magazine for 10 years. So I learned first of all how to pair image with text. So that's one thing that I used a lot of texts because I love editing. And also I learned how to throw things out even if you, even if you love them.
Maura Keefe: Tell me about the moment. So you said you weren't overwhelmed at first, [Perron: Right?] Which assumes then there was a moment of overwhelm.
Wendy Perron: Yeah, because it was like, oh, this is Norton, this is dance history. I can do this. This is fine. We've got the schedule. But then when I, I think the first thing was maybe you sent me the, the list of the exhibitions that Norton had curated [audience laughs], had come up with and curated and it went on forever.
Norton Owen: Well, was it well over a hundred? [Perron:Yeah, Yeah] over, over the years.
Wendy Perron: Yeah. So I tried to look at everything in on that list and try to, okay. What do I want to ask Patsy that I wanna look at? It that, then it was overwhelming.
Maura Keefe: So I, I think you're, um, for me, glossing over a huge moment of discovery for you as curator, which was putting yourself into the history of Norton's curation and that it, it, that there, there could be another story to tell, which would be, here's Norton and the school, and this is what the school is, here's Norton working backstage, and this is what backstage is. But you chose a lens of Norton's, uh, history as a curator. What, talk, talk a little bit about that moment of realization.
Wendy Perron: Um, well, there, there were many histories. Um, Norton as, yeah, Norton as curator. And because I was also, I had noticed this last summer when you curated the John Lindquist, just what a good eye he had. So it was like, as an eye, but there were lots of other things going on. Like, um, there were a lot of wonderful photographs of just working in the studio, not on stage, not finished pieces, but what, working in the studio that I loved, I wanted the whole section on, working on the studio. I wanted the whole section on artists returning art, like, um, we have Bill T. Jones and we have one thing from a Michelle Dorrance thing and Steven Petronio. I wanted a whole section on that. But there was a time when Patsy said we have to drop some sections. We have to drop some whole sections. So there were multiple lenses, but the number one thing was to reflect Norton, to reflect his achievements. As best I could in, in one exhibit [Keefe: Mm-hmm]. And I think I left some things out [audience laughs].
Norton Owen: Thank goodness. Uh, but yes, you, some things are left out, but I also think you did an incredible job of structuring it so that we do get to see a lot of different aspects and, and I'm very pleased by that. Very pleased by it overall, I must say. Thank you.
Maura Keefe: I’m gonna, I'm gonna ask you about that in a moment, Norton, but I, Patsy, I wanna bring you into this. Before we get to your specific role on this exhibition, I wonder if you could say something about what it's like to work with a choreographer and a choreographic mind on an exhibition that might be different from, working with a librarian perhaps, so that, that maybe I'm, I'm thinking about the role of creativity as kind of an organizing principle and your work with David Gordon, your work with Wendy, and you're also, okay, we, I gotta get her to cut some stuff out. Like you having to be, um, kind of the rule keeper. Could you talk a little bit about that?
Patsy Gay: Yeah, absolutely. So, uh there are many reasons why I love dance archives and working in dance archives and working with people working with dance archives. But I think one of the things that's so magical about our field is that the folks who are our users are such incredible creative individuals. And so the way that they come to collections, the way that they do research is myriad and unnameable. And so, you know, we certainly here, uh, at the Jacobs Pillow Archives get folks who are, you know, writing books or teaching a dance history class or something that they sort of, they know the rails and they know what they want and we just help them get there, right? But I, I love, um, here we get so many, and when I was working directly, uh, with artist, uh, artist’s archives, like with David Gordon or with Eiko and Koma, artists coming into an archives is a fascinating, uh, experience and dialogue that you're able to get into. Um, we had, uh, Brotherhood Dance here just, uh, the other week, and those artists, they were performing, um, on our outdoor stage and they were here in the archives talking about the piece they're working on is Black on Earth and the next piece is gonna be Digging into Water. And so they're like. Well, what do you have on water? Right? It's like, well, we, we don't have that cataloged that way, right? Our, we're doing a librarian search term of like and water, right? So it's about digging in and having this conversation and being like, what does that mean to you? What is it that you're interested in? Are you wanting people who are actually, you know, using water on stage. 'cause we certainly have that. Are you people who are interested in sort of like water usage and water rights? Are you interested in people who've had to sort of create visual interpretations of under the sea? And, you know, we have this amazing sort of, this collaborative discovery process and so having a curator like Wendy who's coming in and bringing in, um these range of different approaches. Certainly there's that approach of the editor, I mean so much with a text and, but also this approach of an artist and that she was, uh, exploring this collection in a creative way and in a way where, you know, this wasn't Brotherhood Dance was here for one day, one day of performance, right? I had one lovely interaction with them. Wendy and I were working together for like half a year, putting this exhibit together. So we got to have this whole evolving, collaborative relationship in me doing my job of facilitating your access to our collections. And so it was truly such a joy and I think is one of the things that, um, you see on the walls of this exhibit, right? You see a creative artist exploring an archive and sharing a story. Um, and I think it's one of the things that makes this exhibit so, uh, incredible. And it was one of the things that made, um, our experience working together so enjoyable for me.
Wendy Perron: Yeah, there, there were so many surprises for me in what, in what Patsy said was possible and wasn't possible and what she put in front of me. But I also wanna say that part of my choreographer self was immediately to think of Blake's Barn as a space. And so I wanted to use, I wanted to see if we could use the upper spaces. I used the beams. I had right away, I wanted to use the beams as a place for the text. I had an idea of having the, um, memorable moments be hanging from the ceilings so people could bat them away [audience laughs]. But that would be, that would be a little too, too hard. But it was, it was my spatial awareness that that started the whole thing of what, what to do in the space.
Maura Keefe: The primary thing that we notice glancing into the Barn here is the images. Um, Norton, maybe you could just say something, uh, about the history of photographers at the Pillow and what, what their role has been.
Norton Owen: Well, it has been essential to, uh, having an archive. You know, it was one of the things that was happenstance in terms of, I mean Ted Shawn certainly in the 1930s knew that he wanted to have things photographed and they, they had a long time, uh, relationship with a studio in Pittsfield called Shapiro Studios that would, that would come out here and photograph them on site, uh, the company of Men Dancers, but in it really, um, very, fortunately, uh, John Lindquist happened upon the Pillow. He didn't know about it until, uh, he was driving past on George Carter Road and saw the sign that said Shawn and his dancers.
And the way he told the story, he said, oh, take me up there [audience laughs], you know, to the people who were driving. And so he fell into this place that totally captivated him. And he stayed for 42 seasons [audience laughs], um, starting in 1938. And he was, um, his, his, um, job was, he was a head cashier at filing's department store in Boston. And, but he loved photography as, uh, as a hobby and he fell in love with the idea of photographing dance here at the pillow and the Men Dancers and all. And so it became a, uh, you know, and Shawn was very keen to these kinds of relationships because there was no money. I mean, this was during the depression that it happened. So Shawn was not about to say, oh, I'm going to hire a staff photographer to come here. No, and I think it, it was really a barter arrangement. Shawn would allow John Lundquist to stay here, and then, uh, in, in return, Lindquist would present Shawn with a certain number of photos at the end of the summer. So it was happening and then. It continued to happen in very much that way. Not only photography, but also film. Um, that, that he had somebody, Carol Lynn, who was involved in the school, but her specialty was also making films. And so, uh, they were black and white, silent films, but they were still films. They were still films of the movement and that was happening. So all of the, I mean, we're very fortunate here because from the very beginning, Ted Shawn knew that documentation was important and that he had to find a way to create that, even if he didn't have money to pay anybody to do that.
Maura Keefe: I, I wanna just ask you to say something about Mike Van Sleen. We have three photos by Mike Van Sleen, uh, in the exhibition. And, I mean, 'cause he's sort of a happenstance story as well.
Norton Owen: Totally. Um, and Mike Van Sleen was working as audio supervisor backstage and, uh, started taking photos here and after a few years, that became the focus rather than doing the tech work, he became somebody who was really excited about the photography and, and he would do, he would stage, uh, shoots with different artists. And so it wasn't just photographing them in performance. In fact, the bulk of, of Mike's work and the beauty of his work was when he would have an idea about how to pose, uh, an artist. So you've got a picture in here of Carol Armitage, the choreographer on a bicycle. And, uh, you know, but it's a wonderful image that Wendy was attracted to, which is great. And you know, we had an opportunity to work together and Mike later moved to France and he had an exhibit in the, um, in the, the dance theater in Lyon, France, and asked me to help him with that, which, oh well, yeah, if I have to go to France [audience laughs], I guess so. And, uh, so, you know, there was a wonderful being able to show imagery from Jacob's Pillow in Lyon during the La Biennale de la danse. So, uh…
Maura Keefe: The reason I, I point to Mike Van Sleen is because he, um, I remember the sort of urgency. There used to be a festival photographer, I should become that and the sort of, um, that Shawn's initial relationship with John Lindquist became something that was inspiring to many generations, which we're gonna talk about in a moment.
Wendy Perron: I feel like Norton's relationship with each photographer was very important to just make all the archives go around. And that's something that I understood again at the magazine when I would be in touch with photographers all the time.
Maura Keefe: So I wanna talk about the selection of images. For all three of you, there's a beautiful image, there's a great piece of choreography. There's also a dancer you just love. And maybe, maybe sometimes all three are happening at the same time, but maybe sometimes it's not. And could you talk a little bit about your affection for somebody but not having a good photo of it, or, this is a beautiful photo, I don't even remember seeing the performance kind of thing. Maybe Wendy, you start?
Wendy Perron: I, I can talk about that because, um, one of the performances here that just will stay forever in my mind is when Joanna Hagood did Invisible Wings, about the Pillow being a stop on the Underground Railroad. And, um, when the audience followed her and Joanna herself was dressed in this way, that was convincing to be an enslaved woman running away. And, um, that moment was so searing to me to see her be that and do that. And, um, when it came time to uh, and then I asked her, I think, for a memorable moment. And was it, oh no, it was the part with, you know, Norton as being someone who sort of helped birth some of these things. And he was the one who gave her the information that where she read this, that it was a stop on the Underground Railroad. And that became a huge, one of the most beautiful site-specific works I've ever seen. And I wanted a picture of Joanna in that moment, and I got a picture of Joanna in that moment. And it's not a very good picture [audience laughs]. And I, I just, I, I, when I look at it, I think, oh, I just should have chosen one of the best pictures from that series. But I was so attached to that moment in my memory that I had to have it. Um, and I'm sorry because you probably would just gloss it right over it. It's not a particularly great picture. So that's one of my confessions [audience laughs].
Maura Keefe: Norton, how about for you in, um, in exhibitions in the past, that sort of question of, I love that dance, I wanna show it up, or I wanna show a work by this artist and not having a representation that stands on its own as a piece of art.
Norton Owen: Well, one thing I'll say about, uh, what we have here this year. Of course I didn't, uh, as I think is clear at this point, I didn't make the choices. Uh, this was something that Wendy was doing, and thank goodness, honestly, because I don't know how I would've made choices. Um. You talk about, you know, having to leave things on the table or walk away from them. There would've been a lot, lot more for me to have to, uh, set aside. But there were definitely things that, uh, that I would say within the scope of the exhibit didn't necessarily rise, uh, to the top because, well, there's the wonderful wall that is called the Griot and, and which shows me with a lot of other people. Um, but some of the people who were most important to me, I don't really have the greatest photos. Uh, for instance, with Jess Meeker. Or with Barton Mumaw. Or with Bessie Schoenberg. And so that's where, what, what was wonderful that we were able to do this year was to, uh, work with our interns, Aubrey and Claire. Uh, and this was something that Patsy supervised them to make uh, exhibits that are in the reading room, which I hope you'll take a chance to look at also. Because on the tops of the bookcases in, there are exhibitions that are not so much like a beautiful photo that is enlarged and put on the wall, but it's a snapshot maybe, or, uh, or a piece of correspondence or something else that's, that's pretty unassuming in a way, but those, and I think it kind of makes up for what you're talking about. How do you, how do you show something even if you don't maybe have a great one single great photo to show it? And so through, through those, um, displays, I think we were able to include more things that were really meaningful. Well, Marge Champion is a good example too. I mean, there is a picture of Marge and I dancing, um, uh, so that I love, but there are, could have been many, many more because all during, well, let's see, I guess it was for about 25 years or so after the Barn was moved here. Um. I always wanted to, above all please Marge, because this is, this building had been on her property in Stockbridge and she moved it. She, well, she didn't personally move it [audience laughs], but she had it moved here, um, and as a memorial for her son Blake, who was killed in a car accident when he was 25. And, uh, so I always felt that, that. I mean, yes, it was important for me to do all of the, what I wanted to do for the public and for dancers, et cetera. But I also, it was really important to me that Marge feel like this was a good use of the Barn that she had given the Pillow. And, and I'm very happy that one of the last things that she said, and we have it on tape from 2014, which was her last year here, and we did an uh, a PillowTalk to celebrate, um. Blake Champion's life. Um, and because I thought, well, gosh, it's been 25 years at that point, uh, since he had died and there're not gonna be people around forever who knew who he was, who would be able to give testimony about that. We did this PillowTalk and one of the things that Marge said was how grateful she was to me because she said, you make the Barn live. And so I have tried to do.
Wendy Perron: Patsy was very helpful in sort of scouring every area for pictures of Jess Meeker and Barton Mumaw 'cause we knew how important they were to you.
Maura Keefe: Barton Mumaw, if you, if you, um, on the weather vein, uh, one, one of the original Men dancers and longtime, uh, presence at the pillow, uh, until his death, I think in 1990 (Owen: 2001), 2001, and Jess Meeker, um, musician for Ted Shawn and Men Dancers, and then returned to the Pillow every year to play in the school at Jacob's Pillow.
Norton Owen: Mm-hmm. Until 1997. And that, you know, those astounding, um, timelines. Well, I'll say that they were. An inspiration for me. Um, I still haven't passed Jess's, um, landmark because he was here from 1933 until 1997. So what’s that? 64 years [Keefe: Keep going]. Yeah. [Keefe: Keep going. You're on the way]. I got another decade or so [audience laughs] Um, and, uh, and, and so that, and that was very important to me. It was very important in terms of, uh, giving me a reason to wanna do this. I mean, I saw and was able to experience from them firsthand what it was like to talk to people who were here in the very beginning, which was magical. But of course I know that's, that's not gonna last forever.
Maura Keefe: You know, I, I love, this sets me up for what I was thinking about because when I walked into the exhibition, the day of the gala, um, I was struck by some of these photographs, feel like my old friends. I was at, either at the performance or they were in an exhibition that I, um, had walked among. And some of them feel like, oh, here's a new chum. I don't know this photograph. And so I, I'm wondering, um, Wendy, about your, your thoughts about that. Like how, how much did you wanna say, aha, we've come home, we, we recognize this picture, versus, well, you maybe have never seen this before?
Wendy Perron: 70-30 [audience laughs].
Maura Keefe:Which way?
Wendy Perron: [Laughs]. Well, 70, the old friends. Um, and 30 or maybe 60-40. There's one of Bosch Carr??? from 1959, I think, in, uh, classical Indian, and then the line just happened to go with, um, you nailed Bettencourt???, a, a young student, a stu, someone who was a student in the musical theater program here. So the, it was connecting through time and connecting through genre and connecting through, and this is something that Norton emphasized to me, not only well-known people, but people who are, Who are less well known or you know, not necessarily just everyone who's, who's famous. So it was nice to throw in a student here and there.
Maura Keefe: You mean when you say that Norton emphasized to you when you had some con intermittent conversations about the exhibition?
Wendy Perron: What, what we did, we did have Norton lives two blocks from me on the Upper West side [audience laughs]. So that was pretty convenient. And I went over and we had some long talks to begin with. So I got a sense of his trajectory and also his principles. One of them being connecting through time. Another one being, mingling, well-known people with less well-known people. And another principle being that it be uplifting and, and it, there was actually, that was another whole, um, section I was gonna do is “Uplift.” Like, oh, take Ted, Shawn and the dancers up here and, you know, um,
Norton Owen: Well, I was very grateful that you didn't decide to do an exposé of [audience and Owen laugh].
Maura Keefe: So, uh, I've been thinking one of the things that I find striking about this, Wendy, um, which I'm tying to your deep commitment to dance writing, is the, um, presence of the voices of other people, of all sorts. There are, there are students, there are staff, there are, um, fellow dance writers whose words are represented as well as the, um, directors of the Pillow. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about the decision to have us slow down and read, right? That, that, that it's a different kind of experience from walking through and looking at pictures and being struck by that beautiful dancer here and that group of dancers there. But here's a wall where, um, where mostly we're seeing, uh, stories from other people.
Wendy Perron: Yeah. And well, I'll tell, the first thing is the beams, the four beams, each one having one of the director's statements on it, because that was when each new director came in. Norton had been here. He was, he was, he, he was the one who held down the fort. And each new director learned from Norton. Um, but I wanted, and I wanted Norman Walker who gave you this, this crack in the wall, this entry. And that's my natural thing again, as an editor, like ask for the voices. And then, and then I worked with everyone very carefully on editing them. Um, because everybody writes too long, everybody needs to be edited. And then Pam wrote a beautiful thing, and I do want people to read every word that Pam wrote. 'Cause that's the way you learn more about people's attitudes toward what Norton has created. Um, and, and then the little, the little, I also, I think I got 19 of the, um, the memorable moments. And that was everything I did was based on an idea that, that Norton had. So Norton had this idea of memorable moments that he had done at the 75th anniversary in 2007, and we took some of those exact memorable moments and then we added to them. So when we added to them, I got to edit what people wrote and really try to get them to remember a moment. Um, and I would say to them, you don't have to say, oh, I'm so thankful to Norton. Um. Say what you actually specifically did with him. So I chose people who actually worked with Norton on one thing or another.
Maura Keefe: So I was also thinking about, in asking people for a memory that what kind of, um, inspiration it then turned to you for curator? I'm thinking about, I Suzanne Carbonneau, um, who was one of the first scholars in residence here, um, in her memory of Norton's exhibition of Paul Taylor's work. And if that had ever sort of been in your mind before you got the, the comment from Suzanne?
Wendy Perron: Well, 'cause I knew she was working on a book on Paul Taylor, so I thought maybe she would know more about those assemblages. I probably could have gotten a written thing from each person who, who donated one and, Denise Hurlin is here. Denise and Nathan Hurlin. They donated two of those [Unidentified voice: Inside]. Oh, they’re, inside. There they are. Yeah. I mean, I probably could have like, gotten them on the phone and please say something, but I, I see. Thought of Suzanne Carbonneau because, because she's writing the book. So let let her talk about that.
Maura Keefe: And Norton, do you wanna just remind people what the assemblages are?
Norton Owen: Well, these are things that Paul Taylor had on his wall. Well everywhere, but, but many of them on his walls at his house on in Mattatuck. I just thought they were hilarious and, and wonderful and, and unique and that they showed some part of, of a uniquely creative person who, okay, if he didn't have dancers in the room to choreograph, then he was gonna do something. And that might be with a dead bug [audience laughs] or a, or there's a dead mouse in there. Um, various other things that he used. And then part of the creativity was, was his titling. You know, there's a, there in the very bottom of the display case in there. Uh, there's just two little shoes, like baby shoes in a box, and you think, well, what are those?
And then you look at the title and it says, These are two shoes, stupid (audience laughs). So, uh, you know, it's, it doesn't work unless you look at the title also of what it is. But, uh, but I, you know, I thought that was a wonderful thing to show his creativity. And we did that once during Paul's lifetime and then we did it again, Uh, the year after he died, when I had free reign Pretty much of a lot of things to, to possibly show.
Patsy Gay: Have there been an exhibit of Paul Taylor's assemblages in a major way before you came in (Owen: No) and it was like, Hey, this could be an exhibit?
Norton Owen: Yeah, that was, it was my idea. And, and Paul was at first a little reticent. He wasn't quite sure. He wanted them to be, uh, displayed because some of them are very personal in a way. And, but he, he finally decided that to go along with it, which was, very nice.
Maura Keefe: I do wanna acknowledge, uh, Deborah Jowitt, who worked, uh, with Paul, uh, in a conversation about the assemblages, the, the summer that they were here, which was a, a wonderful conversation, which you can find in the archives. Uh, I, I wanna shift for a moment to talk about the, um, wall of images that you mentioned, the gray of Jacob's Pillow. And pause to acknowledge there's a beautiful image at the center of it. It's a photo by photographer Christopher Duggan, whose work we see throughout the exhibition and it's, uh, Norton with his husband David, who died this past spring. I certainly can feel our beloved friend here today. Uh, there's also, unusual for this exhibition. Not just a photograph of David, but a photograph by David, uh, in conversation. Uh, it's a picture of Norton in Japan with an inset of a photograph of, uh, Ted, Shawn and Ruth St. Dennis. Um, Wendy, I first wanna ask you about the, the, um, photograph by David before we talk about the wall of images.
Wendy Perron: I thought that would be part of the pairing. Uh, that was one of the ones where the actual image of Ted and Ruth in the Temple of Kamakura in Japan was like this big. But when I saw, I didn't realize that it was much smaller than the picture that David had taken, um, a hundred years later [Owen: Yeah], almost a hundred years later. When you curate something, there are categories that you have to stick with and there are certain things like that picture, the large one and the small one that didn't belong to any category really. And so maybe it was Patsy's idea, like let's put it with the timeline. So it did sort of fit with the timeline.That was the biggest span of time, almost that a hundred years. The timeline was something we, uh, we sort of collaborated on because I didn't wanna get anything wrong, but there were a lot of things that, um, that we didn't pass by Norton. 'cause Norton was supposed to be. Sort of on vacation from this duty. He wasn't on this duty. He was…
Norton Owen: Yeah. Well, thank goodness. I mean, of course when, when the idea of, of doing this exhibition, I had already said that I, I was closing that chapter and wasn't going to do exhibitions, and then the word came back that the first exhibition that would be in Blake's Barn after me closing that chapter was gonna be about me [audience laughs]. So, um, uh, so good, good that somebody else was taking that on because I'm not sure that I would've been able to do that.
Maura Keefe: Let's talk about the conversation between the two of you on this wall of images. That includes David and Norton. I think some of those images are from Norton, your personal collection, and I, that feels like in some ways, Wendy, like that would be the, the place where you had to collaborate the most closely.
Wendy Perron: Well, that was Patsy really. Patsy would say, oh, I have to ask Norton about that [Owen laughs]. And I, I would say, where, where are the, I wanna see more pictures of Jess Meeker. Oh, I have to, you know, so, so that the, there were official archives and then there were sort of personal archives, you know?
Norton Owen: Yeah. And, and there's certainly things, you know, as I'm looking at the wall too, one of the things that, that jumps out to me is the, no, we didn't have a great picture of, of Barton and me together, but there's a wonderful photo that Barton gave me of his last. performance here at the Pillow in 1981, and it said, yes, thank you for demonstrating [audience laughs]. And you can see it out there too. Um, uh, but he inscribed it. At the bottom of it, it says, uh, for Norton, uh, the wearer of many hats and so beautifully worn , uh, which is really nice. So…[audience applauds]
Maura Keefe: Norton, I was thinking about moments of collaboration on this exhibition, but it's not the first time memorably, uh, “Welcoming the World” in 2023. You collaborated with people, but I'm also thinking about Annie Liebovitz for ex- example, because that literally changed the shape of the, the Barn itself.
Norton Owen: Well, it's true. It's funny that you would call that a collaboration because when I mean, yes, it was a collaboration in the sense that we decided we wanted to do an exhibit of Annie Leibovitz's work and then take it away, Annie, you know, because we then gave her all the dimensions and everything like that, and she decided every single one it was, it was mostly paper, uh, prints that were, and this is something she's done in other kinds of venues, but, uh, she selected the paper prints and selected exactly where they were gonna go, and then had them push pinned to these panels that we still use in here. And I can't tell you how many people I had that summer. This was in 2011.People would, who were horrified, who were like, how could you put a push pin through this Annie Leibovitz photo? [audience laughs] It's like, well, I didn't do it [audience laughs]. She did it. Um, but in truth, that wasn't entirely accurate because she was working at, um, the Hermitage in, uh, St. Petersburg during the time the, the exhibit was getting put up. And so she had assistants here who were doing it, and they would every now and then be on the phone with Annie, uh, showing her the picture, like where something is, and she'd go, No. A little bit more to the right. No, no. That needs to be do-down below the other like. So can we say micromanage? [audience laughs]Um, that, and but, but it was, I mean, in, in a way, a collaboration. She wasn't gonna be able to do it without us. We weren't gonna be able to do it without her. And uh, and as you say, we still have, uh, the remnants of it because before that, before 2011, whenever we hung things in this Barn, there were, there were, are, uh, these posts that go along at about this level, which meant that you had to hang everything above them, which is a little higher than one normally would hang things. I don't know why it never occurred to any of us, but, um, but it occurred to Annie Leibovitz that the way to, to deal with that was just to put panels up in front of it so that you would have an entire big surface to use rather than just going above or below.
Maura Keefe: Speaking of going above a beam.
Well, wait, I just wanna say, I think a better example of a collaboration would be with Lois Greenfield, where, where she had these, um, ways of wrapping things in the photos, and then you provided these other, to extend her ideas into, into space.
Maura Keefe: Mm-hmm. Go ahead.
Yeah, they, that was a, that was a really fine exhibition because, um, she was using lots of props and, uh, for instance, there were. Uh, maybe five or six photos that she had used that all had string in them in some way. And so we worked to, we decided, okay, well then all of those ones with the string should be on the same wall. And then we used actual string to connect where it was in the photo. And you would take then string going from that point to where it started in another photo. And so there was this background of like a web of string immersive
Patsy Gay: You created immersive…
Norton Owen: An immersive environment. Yeah.
Patsy Gay: And you can see that in this exhibit. I feel like you see a Wendy's love of Norton's previous curation. You know, we have a section of Lois Greenfield, there's a section of Rose Eichenbaum. There's those fantastic Philip Traeger paired with John Lindquist’s prints. And so, uh, some of, some of these threads of those previous, you know, really deep, collaborative, engaging exhibitions you did peek through in here as Wendy has pulled segments of them into the kind of larger tapestry that she put together in, in this space, which I think is such a beautiful way to be doing that, sort of collaborating with the past, right? That has been so much of a theme, uh, for your work
Maura Keefe: Okay. Hard question. Uh, Patsy, starting with you. Favorite, favorite for today, image or pairing?
Patsy Gay: So I, I really well loved so many of these. And then of course I was also the, um, as the information organization professional, the person who, who was putting it into a spreadsheet and saying, Hey, Wendy, compared with the 10 last exhibits in here, you have 50% more images that you've chosen. We need to cut. So I, I was also doing that, so was a little bit of the, um, uh, uh, wearing the, wearing the hat of, uh cut, cut, narrow, narrow. However, of course, um, as every single thing was something that Wendy was in love with, which was just, just a beautiful way to sort of re-see so many of these images that I work with day to day. Um, I myself really fell so much in love with those, uh, images on common ground photos, the, the Philip Traeger pairings with the John Lindquist particularly, there's something for me about the fact that. Those exact photos are the photos that were on the wall here in 1992, in the first exhibit that Norton, as the new Director of Preservation put on in this building that was new at the time. Right. And something about, I mean, I'm an archivist, obviously I love old things, but something about that materiality, right? That like those are the exact prints and we're seeing them again, hung. Maybe even close to where they were on the walls that first time. Uh, just that, that just gives me such chills and such excitement and, you know, fantastic that we still have them, right? Like those were still in the collection and we were able to pull up like those exact frames and those exact prints and put them back on the wall so people could be coming back to them and re-enjoying them again. Uh, with such a joy.
Maura Keefe: Wendy, you can have a different answer tomorrow, but what's your answer for today? [audience laughs]
Wendy Perron: Well. I'm looking right through there. There's one pairing that I made, and I, it's a, in a section called “Inspired by Norton” because his idea of pairings just really, I loved looking at the hundreds and thousands of digital images with that idea of pairing. But, uh, what I paired together there was, um, Carmen de Lavallade and Alvin Ailey in dedication to.
Um, Orozco to his full name. I should know his full line. Um, José Clemente Orozco, uh, that was done in the fifties by Philip Traeger, no, by, um, John Lindquist. That is next to a picture I discovered last summer in your exhibit. Also, John Lindquist, of Pina Bausch with Jean Cébron. He was one of her teachers at the Jooss school in Germany, and he chose her to come here and be a partner in 1968. Um, so what's, what brings them together is that their, their arms are linked.
Maura Keefe: So, so, uh, the, the connection for you is visual.
Wendy Perron: The connection is visual. It's a way that the arms are linked. And, and the style is completely different even though they're both in the sixties. Um, but I do, I do think about that pairing a lot.
Norton Owen: Okay. I'm going to go rogue and not choose a photo [audience laughs], but an image, which is the, the Hirschfeld, the Al Hirschfeld, uh, drawing of Ted Shawn, um, which is very large up overhead, and you can go in and take a look at it. But, uh, one of the reasons that Wendy, I think chose to do that was because I was very involved in that project. And when, uh, we decided that we wanted to commission Al Hirschfeld to make a drawing to, um, commemorate our, our 70th anniversary, it was at that time, um, we gave him really very few parameters, but the, but the idea was that he should include Ted Shawn in the drawing, that he should include the Pillow rock and that he should include the idea of the outdoors. And then it, then it fell to me to, to give him the imagery that he would use to um, to take away from that. And so I found these photos and took them to him. He was 99 at the time I might add. And uh, to see what he then made of those very pedantic kinds of requirements is just, it was remarkable to see and then also to see, not only did he make this incredible image. But there was a practical side to it too, because it was our 70th anniversary.We had asked him to put seven Ninas in in it and uh, which are in the trees mostly. But some of you know that he always put his daughter Nina's name in the drawings and you would have to find them. So we pick up, this was Ella Baff was the Director of the Pillow at the time, and Ella and I went to his studio. A great honor to, to, picked the drawing up and um, it wasn't until we got it into the cab afterwards that we looked really closely and saw, oh, there are only four Ninas in here, and it had the number four next to his name. So, we called him up [audience laughs] and said, uh, you know, we wanted seven Ninas. And he said, bring it back [audience laughs]. So, uh, so we took the back, took it back to him, and to see a great artist who also has a great sense of practicality, he just put it on his table and, um figured out a place to put more Ninas [audience laughs] and he took some white out and put it over the number four [audience laughs] and then wrote in seven [audience continues to laugh]. Voila, we were done.
Maura Keefe: I'm gonna call this a pause in the process, which is a term from the School of Norton's 50 years, and we look forward to many more [audience exclaims]. Thank you all [audience applauds].
Norton Owen: Yes, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thanks so much.
[Music begins, composed and performed by Jess Meeker]
Norton Owen: That’s it for this episode of PillowVoices. Thank you for joining us today. On behalf of Jacob’s Pillow we look forward to sharing more dance with you through the films, essays, and podcasts at DanceInteractive.jacobspillow.org and of course through live experiences during our Festival and throughout the year. Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts for helping launch this podcast series. Please subscribe to PillowVoices wherever you get your podcasts and visit us soon, either online or onsite.