Jill Hockett's Page

Last night I had the pleasure of seeing Inside Out by Cirkus Cirkor at BAM.

Wow. Incredible.

Trailer here: http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=1269

For me, easily tied with Big Dance Theater's Comme Toujours (Here I Stand) for best dance-theater of Fall 09.

And yes, even though it was indeed a circus piece, complete with clowning, juggling, and death-defying and breathtaking stunts, I believe it was ultimately a piece of dance-th… Continue

Like everyone else (at least it seems), I am completely obsessed with AMC's Mad Men. It has style, compelling characters, and an interesting take on a bygone era that goes far beyond easy nostalgia.

This week's episode, Season 3 Ep 3, My Old Kentucky Home, had an incredible scene that transcended the era: when Trudy and Pete got up to dance.

Of course, they were wearing early 60's outfits, dancing to older music, and danced in a way that was so out of style, they were unironically doing the ch… Continue

One thing that I've always disagreed with all my life is the statement relating to performing arts, "if you can picture yourself doing anything else, you shouldn't be an artist." I've heard this from Broadway style tap classes to my avant-garde college workshops. It seems like such a prevalent idea, I wonder who DOESN'T believe it.

Am I the only person who thinks that's absolute bullshit?

First of all, it's completely impractical. Unless you're a full-time company member of the New York City B… Continue

How do you choose one?

I've directed a play that recently ran at the Tank in May. I'd like to give it a second run in a different theater in a different neighborhood.

I've started to do some basic research and already my eyes are beginning to cross with options, and yet I feel like I'm hitting a lot of walls. The Tank was a great space because everything there is curated, and so there's no rental fees to use the space. Lots of spaces require something in the range of 1,000 to rent the space to… Continue

This morning, Pina Bausch died.

Losing an artistic idol is such a strange feeling. While of course I'd never met her, her work affected me deeply and profoundly, inspired me to create work of my own. I can't help but feel like there's a big gaping hole in the dance universe in her absence.

I saw For the Children of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow at BAM in 2004 blindly on a class field trip. Her use of humor, dance and non-dance that still ultimately felt like dance, nostalgia, music, an… Continue