field notes
SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES
In 2024, My’ Kal Stromile, left, became the first Black American male choreographer to premiere a work( Word for Word) at the Paris Opera Ballet’ s Opening Gala.( Agathe Poupeney)
THIS FALL’ S WORLD PREMIERE OF FRESH VOICES IN DANCE AT JACOB’ S PILLOW
My’ Kal Stromile was 14 the first time he stood in a studio at Jacob’ s Pillow. It was 2017, the last year Anna-Marie Holmes ran its classical ballet program. Before he became a dancer, he remembers being a kid who wanted to be a teacher. He would come home from school and set up a classroom in his bedroom, including a whiteboard and copies of the teacher’ s edition of a Houghton-Mifflin textbook given to him by his brother-in-law at the time.
Stromile’ s desire to teach later became a yearning to choreograph dances, even while he was a dancer.“ You couldn’ t get me to shut up about wanting to be a choreographer,” he says.“ I just had this desire, this need to do it.”
This fall, Stromile returns to the Pillow with his own work, a new piece titled
Answers Will Vary. It will be part of the Fresh Voices in Dance program coming to the Pillow from October 16 to 18.
Fresh Voices in Dance stems from a fellowship created by Youth America Grand Prix( YAGP) to promote new choreographers, says Larissa Saveliev, the founder and artistic director of the organization. A gift from Greg Hymowitz funded the Marcella Hymowitz Creative Fellowship for Choreography, and this fall’ s showcase marks the fellowship’ s first public performance.
YAGP conducted a global search and selected six inaugural fellows, including Stromile, Ashley Davis, William Dugan, Monoela Gonçalves, Gabriel Lorena, and Abdiel Figueroa Reyes. Each has created a new work that will premiere at the Pillow, danced by students and dancers from
American Ballet Theatre( ABT) Studio Company, Houston Ballet II, Alberta Ballet School, and the Ailey / Fordham BFA Program, with two more companies still to be named.
The idea behind the fellowship, according to Saveliev, is to give young choreographers a platform on stages they might not be able to access or afford themselves, by funding experimentation, creation, and production costs.“ When you have a new creation, you never know what’ s going to come out of it,” she says.“ It’ s more about the process so they can have a little bit more freedom to try things.”
This is a natural extension for an organization that has spent nearly three decades discovering young dance talent. YAGP, founded in 1999, is the largest ballet scholarship organization
38 // BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE Fall 2026