A Note From Liz

    I would like this celebration to be for those many individuals who contributed to giving new life to Jacob’s Pillow. Bill Yehle was with me from day one. As production manager he attended to the Ted Shawn Theater bringing artists visions to life. He helped me breathe new life into a rundown campus and buildings. We both loved and cherished what was there but were anxious to move forward.

    I felt the Pillow was not unlike Stonehenge and moving one stone would change everything. That is why the Studio/Theater (a.k.a the Duke) and Inside/Out were placed so as not to impinge on the site.

    Bill is responsible for the realization of I/O. I had changed the school curriculum (Norton Owen was director of the school at that time) and we needed more space. I was also determined to build an audience for experimental work. The audiences in the Ted Shawn were not ready for dancers who considered walking, sitting etc dance. I felt that if we showed how dances were made and they could talk to the artists making them…..the Inside of a dance…. Outside in a non-constricted environment where they could watch the trees in the breeze, the birds and clouds if they were uneasy and could leave without a disturbing anyone…we might succeed. Bill, Larry Frieberg & Todd McConchie got the lumber at a great price and proceeded to build… total cost $1,200. When we were fiscally stable we built the Duke. The intention was to have built enough interest in new dance that we could present it and charge for tickets. I/O was free. Cynthia Wassel assisted Bill under Sam Miller’s watchful eye.

    Marta was the first artist I asked to brave the challenge and she did so with gusto. She gave life and meaning to I/O.

    I had a friend. David Sykes, whose marketing and publicity strategy was fundamental to our success in recruiting new students and alerting audiences that things were changing through a powerful new design program. Stephan Driscoll, who documented much of the Pillow’s history through his wonderful eye and photography. 

    I thank the numerous dedicated and talented people I have been fortunate to have in my life.
    My success is yours as well.

    Tributes

    Norton Owen, Jacob’s Pillow

    The ripple effects from Liz Thompson’s bold innovations at Jacob’s Pillow from 1979 to 1990 continue to be felt throughout the dance community more than four decades after she first took charge of this institution. We salute her for these groundbreaking achievements as well as so much more. 

    David White, Producer

    My love for Liz goes back to our first dancing together to Scott Joplin’s Heliotrope Bouquet in the Bronx Botanical Gardens in the very early 70’s. Our relationship grew, and we teamed up in 1977 or so to organize the dance component in the CETA Artists Project: 61 job lines at $10,000 each – a lot of money in those days. And of course her often underestimated years as a strong leader at the Pillow 2.0 and later back in the city at LMCC supporting all manner of artists are historic. The wrenching emotional experience she endured around the 9/11 horror – which she barely escaped from in the first tower attack – changed her life dramatically. Liz was probably the most electric companion (subtle pun intended) I have ever had.

    Timothy Buckley, Choreographer

    There’s a particular kind of faith required to give an artist time and space without asking what they’ll do with it. Liz Thompson provided residencies at Jacob’s Pillow on that faith. Choreographers came for a month. Studio space, housing, the Berkshire spirit. No showcase. No work-in-progress showing unless you wanted one. Liz understood that important creative work can happen upstream where ideas haven’t yet declared themselves. She created conditions for listening to what wants to exist. Her ‘trust the artist’ approach was a form of investment.  I suspect all who experienced that trust from Liz carried it forward, many times over. Thank you, Liz, for sheltering artists in a place where listening was possible.

    Stephen Petronio, Choreographer

    I met Liz Thompson while a dancer in the Trisha Brown Company during the company’s appearance at the Ted Shawn Theater, in 1980. A wide-eyed novice of all things dancing, I was thrilled to be at the Pillow and vividly remember Liz reigning supreme, with wit and grace. She was sassy and funny, and her delight in dance was infectious. I was a novice, but she spoke to me like I was a real person who belonged. She taught me that presenters can be unassuming… and kind.  When Liz found that I was making work she came to see it without ceremony, then offered a a residency and gig at Inside-Out. I met everyone in those weeks and though I had been touring my company through Europe, the US was still out of reach. That is until Liz opened the door for me. I was so grateful and equally surprised when Liz’s next invitation was at the Ted Shawn. Her belief in me bolstered a crucial belief  in myself as a young artist. Her methodical support was instrumental in my adventure in becoming the artist I am today. Here’s to you Liz and the waves of dancers you set a spark to with your love and care.

    Wendy Perron, Dance Writer/Editor, Choreographer

    Liz was an adventurous curator from day one. There was no guarantee that audiences at Jacob’s Pillow were ready for Yoshiko Chuma, Timothy Buckley, Blondell Cummings, Marta Renzi, Stephen Petronio, or me. But she was a risk-taker, and that’s what the Pillow needed at the time. Sometimes her pre-performance talks were about how, when Picasso started to break up his canvases in cubism, it was strange for the public. That’s how she would get people to feel OK about the strange things we were all doing. Little known fact about Liz: She performed in Trisha Brown’s historic Roof Piece, where they danced on rooftops spread across the length of SoHo, back in 1971. I salute Liz in her zeal to challenge audiences, and I appreciate the many conversations we’ve had since then.

    Mark Morris, Choreographer

    Liz Thompson and I go way, way back to our earliest minutes at Jacob’s Pillow. She was a great champion who became a good and steadfast friend. She is formidable, strong, funny, sarcastic, smart, discerning, fearless, and has great taste: all traits I admire. Although we’ve seen each other much less frequently over the decades, we’re always glad to see one another and to start just where we left off. She cares passionately, she opines freely, she has great powers and bravery, and she has done so much for so many and in so many amazing and varied jobs. Liz is a promoter of people and of love. And we gladly hand that right back to her. Thanks for everything, dear Liz.

    Marta Renzi, Choreographer

    Dancer.  Producer.  Choreographer.  Activist.  Mother.  Artistic Director. Provocateur.  Mensch. Executive Director.  Visionary.  Survivor.  Grandmother. Champion.   Changemaker.  Coach.  Steward.  Friend.

    Bebe Miller, Choreographer

    1986, my first trip to the Pillow: I arrived hours late in an old VW Bug (sorry!) but just in time for an afternoon of dance in every direction I could see. 

    Liz, you were an anchoring force of nature and warmth, you felt like business and family at the same time. You saw what we were all trying to do: make dances, somehow, that spoke out and into the world, somehow. And the biggest part: to note the community we were forming day by day, dance by dance,  person to person.  Liz, I am so, so grateful for the time you took, to aim us towards Now.

    Bill Yehle, Production Manager, Jacob’s Pillow 1981-1990

    When Liz called in early June 1981, to ask me to join her (on very short notice) at the Pillow, I was hesitant at first because Jacob’s Pillow was way off the map as far as I was concerned. I was far more interested in the future than the past. And what little I knew of the Pillow looked like the past. But I took a gamble because I knew Liz and couldn’t imagine her simply marking time. 

    I remember standing at the entrance to the Ted Shawn Theatre near the end of her second season, my first, with a gentleman who took exception to her programming choices accusing her of committing sacrilege in the temple of Shawn. I knew that what she was doing was something very different. She was taking down the fences (literally and metaphorically), stirring the pot and throwing the doors wide open. Asking us to face the future and join her in a cauldron of possibilities. By the end of my second year it felt like Liz had invited every choreographer from near and far to come hang out to make and share work in a community setting. Together we – and by we I mean the royal we because it would never have been possible without everyone working together – made it work. The magic was in the mix and the mix was the magic.

    Pamela Tatge, Executive and Artistic Director, Jacob’s Pillow

    It’s impossible to catalogue all that Liz Thompson accomplished during her tenure to transform Jacob’s Pillow and lay the foundation for who we are today. She opened up our campus literally and spiritually, from our great lawn to our outdoor stage, to the original Doris Duke Theatre — all in the service of supporting artists and engaging audiences in the wonder and power of dance.  I’m so grateful to have her as such an active member of the Pillow family. Thank you, Liz, for all you’ve given to so many in our field.  We are all truly blessed.

    Ralph Lemon,  Artist / Choreographer / Writer

    I love Liz Thompson. Liz championed my work when I knew very little about my work, what it was that I was doing, what it was I was trying to do. She provided regular residences and performances at the Pillow for me and my different collaborators for many years (1986-1991), a summer home, where we would spend our days in nature nestled in a studio and at the end of the day sit with her on her porch with a glass of wine and just talk. 

    I never felt the hierarchy of her being the director of the Pillow. Sharing that time and place with her felt like a family affair, the whole place and staff, alongside her devoted and kind charge.  We made a lot of dances at the Pillow. Those many residencies with her extraordinary trust in what we were doing, allowed us to begin to think bigger, be more brave about what we could make, what we would ultimately make there. And without doubt, that seminal time and place helped provide a firm and sturdy base within my work practice today. My memories of her and that time continue to resonate, glow and sparkle. I remain deeply grateful and I’m still in love.

    Victoria Marks, Choreographer / Filmmaker

    Liz, 

    I credit you with giving me a life as an artist. It is as straightforward as that, and this thank you is long overdue.

    I met you while I was working at DTW.  I had probably graduated from being the janitor, to being the bulk mailer and the studio scheduler. You had just been selected to lead Jacob’s Pillow, a seriously challenging job on the one hand, because it had been left to decay, for years. On the other hand, it must have been a thrilling opportunity to pull it out of the doldrums and to envision what it could be. 

    If memory serves, you decided to bring a group of fledgling artists, young people who desperately wanted to dance, to Jacob’s Pillow. I think we were interns.  You fed us, and housed us, and offered us a few dance classes.  We, in turn, folded programs, cleaned up after the shows, swept the sidewalks, and helped with audience parking.  We became a little tribe.  Because you were envisioning the Pillow, so too were we.  I remember I wanted to create a guerrilla dance group that could be found dancing without warning on the streets in Lee or Becket.  You put the kibosh on that: it wasn’t long after the Sandinistas overthrew the U.S. backed Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua.  Maybe you weren’t so worried about guerrilla dancers, as regards national politics, but you were surely thinking about how to rebirth the Pillow, and that was probably not the way to go.   In any case, our group of interns grew together, filled with energy and ideas. It was a very special summer.  

    I believe we returned a second summer.  We made dances, and we improvised when we weren’t directing guest parking or picking up cigarette butts.  We might have complained, but it was perfect.  There was a group of experienced choreographers invited to make work, among them, Ros Newman and Choo San Goh.  I remember having the privilege to work with Ros, a meeting that led to my continued work with her at Art on the Beach in Battery Park, and then, in her company.  

    In the years that followed, it was thrilling to return to Jacob’s Pillow as a choreographer, presenting work-in-progress and finished works on the newly installed Inside Out stage, in Studio 3, in the Ted Shawn, and in the Studio Theater.  I was part of the Jacob’s Pillow community over many consecutive summers, spending time with mentors, meeting peers, learning from all, and joining an extended community of dance artists. 

    Though I have not been back to the Pillow for many years, I credit that time as setting a foundation for my lifelong love (and tussle) with dance. 

    I can’t thank you enough. 

    Vic. Vicki. Victoria

    PS: As if that wasn’t enough, in the midst of those Pillow years, Liz, you sent me an announcement for a Fulbright Arts Fellowship in England. I applied and so began a set of adventures and opportunities that led me to head the Choreography program at London Contemporary Dance School and to make a series of dance films with director Margaret Williams.  I do not doubt that it was these experiences that led to my teaching at UCLA and several significant awards and fellowships for my work.

    Jawole Willa Zolar, Founder Artistic Director, Urban Bush Women

    Liz Thompson is beyond a treasure.  She is a passionate visionary, whose commitment to presenting artists and artist development goes from the soles of her feet, rises to the top of her head and comes out her hair.  Urban Bush Women could not be where we are without the committed support we received from Liz during our early development.  She is honest and sometimes it cuts, but the honesty comes from a deep love of the artist’s growth.  I love you Liz and always in Deep Gratitude for you, to you and always you.

    Elise Bernhardt, Producer Dancing the Streets / FleurEliseFlowers

    Liz was one of my dance professors at Sarah Lawrence.  Actually the only one whose technique class I remember as enjoyable.  When she took over The Pillow, she invited me and fellow SLC student, Vic Marks,  to be scholarship students. Several life changing things happened there because of that invitation:  

    1 – I learned how to rake rocks.  And use a clipboard. And be a producer.  I was tasked with touring the student company, Jacob’s Pillow Dancers, around the Berkshire community (among my many jobs as a scholarship student, then intern.)

    2 – I watched the resurrection of an organization under Liz’s unstoppable energy, though I don’t think I knew what was happening at the time

    3 – I choreographed my first site-specific dance.  The reward Liz gave me for my work getting the JP Dancers around town was to help her produce the JP gala at Wheatleigh Manor.  AND she let me make a dance for the occasion – which Leonard Bernstein saw.  And wrote me a letter about – which helped me get permission to make a dance on the Brooklyn Bridge (which is where my work as an independent producer began…)

    4 – I met Bessie Schonberg.  Bessie’s husband Dmitri who was at The Pillow with her, was easier to approach than Bessie, the icon. (I had hoped to study with her when I went to SLC  but she retired the year after I arrived). Dmitri helped me plant a garden (early inspiration for my current work?)  AND I got to know Bessie who became my dear friend and mentor until she passed.

    Then there was the trip to Russia with Liz and impresario David Eden.  On the eve of Perestroika, we went to Moscow  in search of authentic Russian dance to bring to NYC via Dancing in the Streets and to The Pillow. We didn’t find what we were looking for but It was an unforgettable 5 days.  Later we took a group of 30 “babushkas” from Archangelsk…a whole other tale…

    There’s so many more memories.  Liz inviting me and my friend Grace and our combined 6 children to her house in the Berkshires to enjoy the snow…Liz and her mom.  Liz and her boys.  And grandkids…Liz is/was all about family.  One of the few womenI encountered in the field with children with a high-powered career.  Another inspiration.

    Liz – My life would literally not be what/where it is without you.  You were a tough taskmaster who taught me so much.  And a dear friend. A very fun travel companion.  Wise.  Funny, Fabulous.  Thanks for all of it.

    Sandra Burton, Choreographer

    Dedicated, passionate, visionary, tenacious, bold and kind. These are six words that describe a person whose living embraces challenges, service and change. Liz Thompson is a Brooklyn, New Yorker who continues to seek connections in her relationships with people and institutions by pressing against the borders that limit us. She sees what others do not and can find herself miles ahead making a pathway that people will follow. Being in front is a tough position when the way ahead is uncharted. A navigator who knows how to follow the north star is crucial!

    Liz Thompson’s legacy is present in organizations that are cultural anchors, in artists who were offered that break they needed, in visionary programing and ground breaking experiences for audiences.

    You are a blessing Liz. May your North Star continue be a guiding light as we make our way forward NOW.

    Moe Yousuf, President & CEO of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council

    I never had the chance to meet Liz Thompson personally, but I have come to know her through her writing, through the clarity of her leadership, and most powerfully through the organization she helped make possible. It is not an overstatement to say that LMCC would not be the organization it is today without Liz.

    She led LMCC under extraordinary circumstances, before and after September 11, at a moment when the future of the organization, and of downtown itself, was profoundly uncertain. In that period, Liz did more than preserve an institution. She transformed it. She safeguarded its mission, expanded its sense of responsibility to artists and to the city, and in doing so laid much of the structural and philosophical foundation that still holds LMCC up today. The LMCC we know now is, in many ways, the LMCC Liz helped create, distinct from what came before, shaped by courage, rigor, and an unwavering belief in the necessity of artists.

    Even without having known her, I feel the depth of what she gave, and the spirit in which she gave it. There is a fierceness in that kind of leadership, a bravery that comes from carrying an organization through crisis and choosing not just survival, but growth and purpose. To step into this role now, and to understand that we are part of a lineage, part of a history larger than any one of us, is deeply meaningful to me.

    Liz’s leadership reminds us that institutions are built by people willing to act with conviction in the hardest moments, and that the benefits of that work ripple outward for decades. With love and appreciation, we honor Liz Thompson, and all those who have benefited from her vision, her resolve, and her care.

    David Parsons, Choreographer

    To my Dance Mom, Liz Thompson.
    At age 16, I was in a production of Leonard Bernstein‘s Mass in Kansas City. I was hired by Liz and Clive Thompson. They offered me a scholarship at Alvin Ailey, so I took a train to NYC.

    Years later, while performing with Paul Taylor at the Pillow, which Liz was running, I told her, “10 years with Paul, it’s time to take a leap”. So, I started a company with my Lighting Designer and dear friend, Howell Binkley.

    Liz gave us housing, food, a studio, and a date to perform, as she wished us luck with our work.

    Jump 40 years later….Howell has lit 95 works for Parsons, and 70 Broadway shows. He even got a Tony for a little show called HAMILTON.

    Today, our company has toured to more than 445 cities, 30 countries on 5 continents and produced 32 budding choreographers.

    So…..sitting together with THE Liz Thompson at the Pillow watching Parsons perform to a sold out week….that’s a moment you cannot buy.

    Thanks Dear Liz. Thanks Clive.

    Liz Lerman, Choreographer

    Liz Thompson saw what others didn’t.  She saw it in the dancing, in the human beings who made those dances.  She saw the radical where others missed.  She saw the beautiful where others ignored. I am the lucky recipient of her gift of sight, because in me, a young artist messing around with old people and trying to make sense of the world after my mother’s death, she saw a vision of what art could be like.  She simply looked at me, told me to come, gave me space and said “work”.  And I did.  My gratitude to her is boundless as is her imagination and belief in how powerful dance can actually be.

    Jane Comfort, Choreographer

    I have so many great memories of our times at the Pillow.  One of our first visits was at the invitation of Liz for the 1988 Splash Festival.  We all felt close to Liz from knowing her in New York, and also because she was a friendly fun person to be around.  One of the great things about the Pillow is being with so many other dancers at meals, at shows, at late night parties.  Because Liz knew us all so well, the vibe was very warm there.  One of the pieces we performed in that Splash Festival was our Afro-Brazilian infused work Artificial Horizon.  This was a polyrhythmic text and movement piece to live drumming.  And now almost 40 years later, we’re reviving it at La MaMa.  And it’s so hard!  So many steps!  The drummer who played at the Pillow, Auchee Lee, is returning to play with us again.  Much love to you Liz!  The Berkshires have been lucky to have your presence all these years.

    Ruth G. Nolan (Goldblatt), Producer

    Dear Liz –

    During my many years working with Harvey Lichtenstein at BAM, we heralded your artistic vision and integrity, and your sheer ability to get things done.  Which brings us to today, when we honor and celebrate your innumerable accomplishments as you continue to be an unwavering beacon for us all.

    Yoshiko Chuma, Choreographer

    In 1941, Ted Shawn appeared at what would become Jacob’s Pillow. That was the beginning. Long before 1945, before so much else took shape, the Pillow was already there.

    I was born in 1950.
    I arrived in Manhattan in 1976.

    And I still ask myself: how did Liz Thompson find me, downtown in the East Village, and invite me to Jacob’s Pillow in the summer of 1987? Even now, I would like to know the answer.

    On September 11, 1979, it was announced that dancer, choreographer, and educator Liz Thompson would become the new artistic director of the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts.

    “My challenge,” she said, “is to move forward into the future while preserving the Jacob’s Pillow tradition.”

    She spoke of balance — of honoring what already existed while opening space for what had not yet arrived. Ballet, modern dance, folk dance would remain, but there would also be new programs, new energy, new ways of thinking about what the Pillow could be.

    She imagined a small professional modern dance company in residence throughout the summer. Its director would choreograph during the season. Its dancers would teach, create, and work closely with the festival’s student ensemble, the Jacob’s Pillow Dancers.

    Was I the kind of artist she had in mind?

    To seek out a choreographer like me and bring me into a place with such history — that must have been a kind of gamble.

    She went on. She wanted to invite two or three emerging choreographers each summer and give them time and space to work with the Pillow Dancers in a workshop setting. She spoke as someone who watched deeply, who loved concerts, who knew how much talent existed and how rarely it was given the conditions to unfold.

    The work, she believed, should not live only onstage. It should reach into the surrounding community — into the Berkshires — through lectures, demonstrations, conversations between audiences and performers, glimpses behind the scenes, programs that extended into early autumn. Jacob’s Pillow, in her vision, was not only a festival. It was a resource. A living presence.

    From where I stand, her vision succeeded completely.

    I met Liz Thompson again just this past summer, in 2025, at the Pillow. I could not find the words in that moment, but it was deeply moving. Time folded in on itself. And there she was.

    Liz Thompson’s life in dance is vast. She performed with choreographers such as Gus Solomons Jr. and Trisha Brown. She brought movement into the public imagination through television, choreographing The Electric Company for several years and working on Sesame Street, shaping how bodies, rhythm, and learning could coexist on screen.

    What stays with me is not only what she made possible for dance, but how she saw — how she recognized potential, how she trusted artists, how she understood continuity not as preservation alone, but as renewal.

    That, too, is part of the Pillow’s history.