The newly-named Jaka Pearl Pørter (and wordsmith, motorcycle enthusiast and life/art partner John Lambert) will celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Pillow Project this weekend at August Wilson Center. It’s hard to believe that I’ve covered her for all of those years (and more?) because I began with her student days at Point Park University. I followed Jaka to Attack Theatre’s studios (then in Friendship) and a late night performance with dozens of Point Park dance students (she was an adjunct teacher). Up until then, most local dancers sought careers outside of Pittsburgh. That was the start of a burgeoning dance community instigated by this inquisitive artist.
Pearl joked that she named her company The Pillow Project because she got her best ideas in bed at night. Years later I retaliated that I finally ran out of words beginning with “P.”
Over those 20 years, we went to the Hunt Armory for some White Stripes and experienced the rusty but so important history of the Carrie Furnaces, the first local performing company to take advantage of the hulking, rusting work of art. The company would hit the streets from Shadyside to site-specific outdoor performances with chalk on Strawberry Way Downtown.
Jazz morphed into her own brand of improv. She explored territory as diverse as physics and Paris (although connected with yet another “P.” But she stayed…read on for an excerpt from an interview I conducted at the 10-year mark.
WHY PITTSBURGH? After that first show at Attack Theatre, Pearlann was talking with Evelyn Palleja-Vissicchio (of the gone, but much-lamented LABCO Dance) who said to her, “What is it you’re doing? What do you want to do?” No one had ever asked Pearlann that question before. She answered, “I think my goal is [that] I want to get in on a city where there isn’t a lot happening. I want to be, like, the first one in there. Somewhere that doesn’t have a scene, so that I can make my own scene. Where I can do something that is specific to the kind of work that I want. I don’t want to fit into something that’s already going on — I want to start something. Evelyn looked at her and remarked, “Hon, it’s here.” Pearlann had been feeling a little unsatisfied with Pittsburgh because “it wasn’t enough.” The connection was immediate. “I’ll just stay here.” Down the pike years later, she had the opportunity to move to Paris and work there. She felt like a couple of people would have followed her. The reasoning? “Why not?” She knew that she could have gained the same momentum there as she had in Pittsburgh because “the enthusiasm is pretty contagious.” But when faced with the decision, Pearlann concluded that “I loved Pittsburgh too much. Paris never felt as good as Pittsburgh did. It’s prettier, but Pittsburgh is where I made my home and Pittsburgh is where the jazz lived. Home is not something you find; it’s something you make. And…it’s here.” Pearl 2014.
For more of the two interviews, click on https://pittsburghcrosscurrents.wordpress.com/2014/11/09/on-stage-pearlann-part-i/ OR https://pittsburghcrosscurrents.wordpress.com/2014/11/16/on-stage-pearlann-part-ii/.
Since then, she has never stopped exploring her art. And a whole new generation of dancers have branched off from the comfort of the Pillow, some of whom will pay it back at the performances this weekend. Although she already has deigned to “Reach For the Stars” (yes, she has embraced the science and worlds beyond earth), it will be great to join her in her latest adventure, this one so appropriately called The Long Dream.
For more information, click on https://www.pillowproject.org/upcoming.
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