Video
LaTasha Barnes’ The Jazz Continuum trailer
LaTasha Barnes, The Jazz Continuum
- This virtual showcase includes footage accompanied by a conversation between Choreographer LaTasha Barnes & Melanie George, Associate Curator, Jacob’s Pillow
2023/2024 Tour Dates
Please check back soon for newly announced tour dates!
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Press
The Jazz Continuum: “Envisioned and directed by the out-of-this-world dancer LaTasha Barnes.”
– Siobhan Burke, The New York Times
full article
“There’s just no stopping this ‘Continuum.’”
– Jeffrey Gantz, The Boston Globe
full article (PDF)
“Joyfully embodying the legacy of Black vernacular dance in America”
– Lauren Wingenroth, Dance Magazine
“A generous, joyful elixir of an experience.“
– Janine Parker, The Boston Globe
More press
For more press click here
Multi-Bessie Award-winner LaTasha Barnes’ The Jazz Continuum features a powerhouse collective of 18 dance and music explorers, including a DJ/Turntablist. With Music Direction by Grammy-Award-winning Christopher McBride, an offering to the continuum (a performance) showcases mind-bending musicality, spectacular athleticism, and boundless joy. Each of the performers confidently share between expansive personal expressions and the riveting choreography that reaches back nearly 100 years to make visible the connections between the past and today’s Black dance expressions including Jazz, Lindy Hop, Hip-Hop, House, and other social dance forms. According to The New York Times, “Each dancer brings something special to the mix of holding and honoring so many sources at once.” The spirit of LaTasha Barnes’ The Jazz Continuum passes from each artists, like an electrical pulse, emanating into the audience, unapologetically inviting them into its joy-filled and transformative space – an experience unlike an other.
Link to Jacob’s Pillow PILLOW NOTES doc
Link to Jacob’s Pillow PILLOW TALK recording
Link to Jacob’s Pillow POST-SHOW TALK recording
Bios
Awarded a 2021 Bessie for Outstanding Performer, LaTasha Barnes is an internationally recognized dancer, choreographer, educator, and Tradition-bearer of Black American Social Dance from Richmond, VA. She is globally celebrated for her musicality, athleticism, and joyful presence throughout the cultural traditions she bears: House, Hip-Hop, Waacking, Vernacular Jazz, and Lindy Hop, among them. Barnes’ expansive artistic, competitive and performative skills have made her a frequent collaborator to Dorrance Dance, Singapore based Timbre Arts Group, Ephrat Asherie Dance, and many more. The NY Times said of her most recent collaboration with Caleb Teicher in Swing Out: “Barnes is especially extraordinary for the way the past and the present can pass through her…”
Barnes leadership and business skills have placed her in positions of service as Chair of the Board of Trustees for Ladies of Hip-Hop FestivalⓇ, Vice President of Marketing & Outreach for the International Lindy Hop ChampionshipⓇ, Co-director HellaBlackLindyHop, Board Member of the Black Lindy Hoppers Fund, the Frankie Manning Foundation and a contributing member to the NEFER Global Movement Collective.
Full Bio HERE
Downloads & Links
