Get your tickets here: https://www.jacobspillow.org/events/prehistoric-body-theater/

Prehistoric Body Theater

Wednesday and Thursday, June 25-26 at 5:30pm | Henry J. Leir Stage
Pillow Debut

Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, held annually in Becket, Massachusetts, is America's longest-running international dance festival. Founded in 1933 by modern dance pioneer Ted Shawn, it has evolved into a renowned hub for dance, offering performances, workshops, and educational programs that celebrate a diverse array of dance styles and traditions.

In a special kick-off to Festival 2025, Prehistoric Body Theater—an experimental paleo-art dance theater collective from Central Java in Indonesia who create “deep-time animal dance” by fusing paleontology with Indonesian traditional dance—will make its U.S. debut in association with New York’s Asia Society with Ghosts of Hell Creek: Stone Garuda. This mesmerizing work eulogizes the raptors who perished in the Chicxulub asteroid impact 66 million years ago, while celebrating the survival of our earliest primate ancestors in a world born anew.

Praised as “an innovative form of global public outreach for paleontology” (Oxford University Press), the company fuses animal movement with traditional dance and experimental Javanese percussion. Co-created with Indigenous Indonesian performing artists, Prehistoric Body Theater collaborates with international scientists to craft performances informed by cutting-edge paleontology—uniting art, science, and a deep commitment to nature conservation.