Doug Elkins began his career as a B-boy, and later spent the summer of 1982 in residence at Jacob’s Pillow as a scholarship student. He has since received many significant commissions and awards including two Bessies (New York Dance and Performance Awards), the Brandeis University Creative Arts Medal, and a 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship. He is perhaps best known for Fräulein Maria, an unbridled reimagining of The Sound of Music presented in two wildly successful Pillow engagements. In the work seen here, partly developed in a Creative Development Residency at the Pillow, Elkins draws on the traditions of American clowning from silent film to New Vaudeville, as well as on memories of his grandfather as a tummler.
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