By Steve Sucato

Constant evolution has been a hallmark of Pittsburgh’s The Pillow Project. Since its founding in 2004 by artistic director/choreographer Pearlann Porter, the project-based contemporary dance company has gone from early productions resembling long-form music videos to those steeped in video projection and unique lighting design. Throughout those years of change, one thing has remained constant: that of Porter and the creativity flowing from her into each of the company’s leading-edge dance works and a signature movement style dubbed postmodern jazz improvisational dance.

The company’s beginnings and name came from the journaling notebooks Porter filled with ideas for dance works while lying awake in bed—her “pillow projects,” commented a friend. Two decades on, the company is now celebrating its milestone 20th anniversary with The Long Dream, an original feature-length production in three acts performed this weekend, September 6 & 7, at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center. 

The anniversary also marks the public acknowledgment of Porter’s personal evolution to now living life as openly transgender.  

Says Porter of the change, “So much of my philosophy of how I work in dance and art is it’s honest or it’s not. You are your authentic self, and you don’t make apologies for what you are not or how else you would like to be. For a long time, I have felt this dissonance and uncomfortableness between how I treated my work artistically and how I presented myself as an artist and a person.

Porter says that changes in the world and in attitudes in recent years have allowed her to address that uncomfortableness in her personal life and get past her excuses for not doing so sooner. 

“I have medically and surgically transitioned a good amount of myself to live a life differently than I have before and be more of my authentic self. I am still me but feel more me than ever.” 

Porter, who will now go by the name Jaka Pearl Porter, also says she is not too concerned about pronouns when addressing her and that these changes will not affect how she approaches creating dance work. 

In a sense, The Long Dream encapsulates The Pillow Project and Porter’s evolution by presenting the first work she created with her latest. In between, Porter will improvise a 20-minute solo outlining that journey between the two with longtime music collaborator PJ Roduta. 

Choreographed when Porter was a 20-year-old student at Point Park University, The Long Dream’s opening act danced to music by Hector Berlioz and Johannes Brahms, fittingly involves ten dancers, pillows, and sleeping, says Porter, and is very much 1990s modern dance.   

“I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting to show this cute, naive, whimsical romp and then transition to showing where I am now, which feels related,” says Porter. “It can definitely see the throughline between this piece and my latest. I almost feel like my career has come full circle in a way.” 

The second act, developed in league with Co-Artistic Director John Lambert, will feature Porter improvising in her postmodern jazz movement to Roduta’s upright bass playing and telling the story of The Pillow Project. 

The production’s closing act, set to music by composer Jean Sibelius, was developed during a residency at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts last summer. 

“It is this huge cacophony of movement and symphonic sound,” says Porter.

A cast of sixteen made up of Point Park alumni and some current student dancers will represent an orchestra of people onstage. 

“The idea is of a conductor and learning how to relent to the orchestra and when to be swallowed by it, when to fall in love, and when to let your heart be broken and be put back together again,” says Porter. “It is the story of me. An autobiography in an abstract way of me learning how to fall in love with a moment and let that moment pass.”

Porter calls the piece the best thing she has ever done by a wide margin—the caliber of work she has always wanted to do. 

The 22nd full-length production Porter has created for The Pillow Project, for fans of the company and fans of dance in general, The Long Dream is one you won’t want to sleep on. 

The Pillow Project performs The Long Dream at 8 p.m., Friday, September 6, and Saturday, September 7, 2024, at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, 980 Liberty Ave, Pittsburgh, PA. Tickets are $20/General admission and $15/student. Info/tickets at www.pillowproject.org/tickets