Never Stand Still | Movie review

Nestled in the woodsy nirvana of the Berkshires, the Jacob’s Pillow Dance center has been a creative safe space for more than 80 years; all adventurous choreographers worth their salt have made pilgrimages to Ted Shawn’s converted barn. Ron Honsa’s PBS-appropriate doc pays lip service to the utopian space’s history, and features (too-)brief snippets of performances and of modern-dance legends—Merce Cunningham, Mark Morris, Suzanne Farrell—praising the landmark. But too often, Honsa simply lets his talking heads ramble without focus or foundation, and his preference for touchy-feely platitudes over letting the Pillow-based pieces speak for themselves does everybody—the interviewees, the dancers, the fans, you—a disservice.