Saturday, July 28, 2012

Day 5.200: I won a pillow (visit)!

We were back at Jacob's Pillow tonight for the third consecutive Saturday.  The first visit was Exile #2's birthday present and my parents stayed home with the kids.  The second was our mad dash over there with the kids to see the free early-evening performance by the dance summer school.

Tonight we were there, thanks to babysitting services by E & C, to catch the last performance by the summer school (sadly moved inside from the beautiful Inside/Out stage due to the weather) and then to see another performance in the large theatre venue.  The tickets for that I had won by playing "Trivia for Tickets" in the Jacob's Pillow email newsletter.

Here is an edit of the exchange I had with them on email:

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Congratulations! You were the first person to respond to our Trivia for Tickets question with the correct answer, which means you have won tickets to Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company on Saturday, July 28 at 8pm.
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Thank you - that's awesome! My wife and I were at the festival on Saturday to see the school performance and Borrowed Light both of which were excellent - probably our best night-out in twenty years of going to dance performances together.

Here is my wife's emailed response when I forwarded your email to her:

"Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

so I think it's safe to say that she's pleased too! Last week's tickets were her birthday treat - so we'll consider this an extended celebration.

Thanks again!
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We are very happy to be able to extend your wife's birthday celebration!  Have a fabulous time and thank you so much for the enthusiastic reply.  We enjoy hearing when patrons have a wonderful time.
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The work pretty much defies description.  My attempt is that it was 70 stories chosen in a random order, each read in exactly one minute by Bill T Jones, while dancers danced around him and avant-garde electronic music was made live to accompany it all.

This might give you a slightly better idea.



There was a technical problem early on and after the first three minutes, the performance had to be stopped because the clocks that allow the musician, reader and dancers to keep there one minute pieces  to, well, one minute were not working.

Bizarrely, several people left during the two minutes or so that the house lights came on before the performance was restarted.  It does make me wonder what they saw in those few minutes that convinced them not to stay for a performance that they had either bought or been given tickets to go and see.

For my part I thought it was challenging but thoroughly enjoyable and it gave us plenty to talk about on the drive back through the Berkshires.

2 comments:

  1. Wow. I find it hard to believe that people just walked. Maybe it was the combination of having to be indoors and the technical difficulties, but still you are right. If I paid for tickets, I'm going to be there. Maybe they were local folks that got in free. Looks interesting.

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    1. That performance was always going to be inside - it was the free school performance that got moved. Yes - I was very surprised. There was one bit of the pre-warned "adult content" (in the spoken word) in the opening section but it's hard to believe that was enough.

      More likely it was just not their cup of tea - which I can understand - but why buy/get tickets if so? It's not cheap - unless you win them! ;)

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