Jacob's Pillow

Jenny was a dance major. I was not a dance major. However, in my complete ineptness, I found an art form that I love. There is something about the narrative... the storytelling that really communicates well with me. I am not talking about the dance that you see on tv.... god help me... So you say you can dance style. That is dance, but it isn't what I generally like... too dramatic and soap opraish. What really gets me going is deep, communicative, suggestive dance. The kind that can pull me in and speak in a new way. Like seeing something in a completely new light. Sometimes, dance can go there.

The Nymans, close friends of ours, wanted to go out with us for a quick mini-vacation. Two days tops. So, my mind headed out: East... Boston, Cape, Beach, north end?  North: White mountains, um... royalston?  South: Conneticut, Rhode Island, The Coast, Mystic, Il Forno? West: Amherst, North Hampton, Springfield, Greylock, Vermont? I was stumped. The things that I really wanted to do were too far away. We could have gone to Manchester Vermont, or Conway New Hampshire... but the ride trumped the destination. Jenny finally remembered Jacob's Pillow. 

We have never gone. Its a nationally famous dance concert right in Massachusetts. So we went. The trip was great. We stayed in a nice, if not old and slightly ramshackle, Bed and Breakfast and had a great time. We spent one day at Jacob's pillow. There were two concerts, the first was by Mystic Ballet. and was free to the public. It may have had something to do with the setting (it was on an outside stage with the mountains as a backdrop) but I must say, I think I liked it better than the concert we paid for. That one was a hip hop kind of deal with some actually real choreography lending an amount of real depth to their athletics. Still, I felt like there was something missing a bit. I think that might have been the depth of the message communicated by the dancers. It fell just a tiny bit flat. The trip didn't though. We spent the next day eating out, and traveling home, with a quick detour to the Yankee Candle Factory. Our kids completely love it there. The Nymans are courteous, fun and easygoing. The whole trip was a lot of fun.