Continuing his brave and powerful work as one of America's most potent contemporary choreographers, Bill T. Jones will be in residence at Dartmouth for two days when the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company performs its piece "Still/Here" on campus.
The group conveys strong messages about AIDS, sexuality, race and community to the audience with dances of striking diversity.
Jones' inspiring company will perform tomorrow and Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. in the Moore Theater. He will deliver a lecture today titled "Managing Memory: Managing Mortality," about the origin and conception of "Still/Here."
Jones, a 20-year veteran of dance and the director of the company, leads his audience on an exploration of what it is like to accept the potential for imminent death and how incredible it is to survive.
Since its emergence on the international dance scene in 1982, the 10-member Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company has created a new theatrical and social issues-oriented dance form.
According to a Hopkins Center press release, "Still/Here" was born of a conversation Jones had with a friend who had undergone a double masectomy.
"The two of them unintentionally began a deep discussion about the process of accepting both their illness and the potential for imminent death, and how incredible it felt to survive. They discovered that despite different lifestyles, sex, age, race, and sexual orientation, in profoundly essential ways they were very much alike."
The composition was shaped by the movement-oriented workshops that Jones conducted in 11 cities among people with life-threatening illnesses, the death of his artistic partner and companion Arnie Zane in 1988, and his own HIV-positive status.
As a full-length multimedia work, "Still/Here" has been hailed as one of the most important works of 20th century dance, combining video art, original composition and the mercurial energy of its dancers in a contemplation of survival.
"Still/Here" unfolds in a series of emotionally-contrasting acts. "Still," the meditative portion of the work, contains songs composed by Kenneth Frazelle, sung by Odetta and played by The Lark Quartet.
This is followed by an explosive score composed and performed by rock guitarist Vernon Reid in "Here."
The workshop's participants, to whom Jones dedicated "Still/Here," form the program's essence. Their spirit is evident in the choreography, their gestures and their expressed emotions.
Their emotion moves through the dancers' bodies, on the mobile and suspended screen projections and fills the air through the musicians' dialogue.
While infused with creativity, potency and sense of community about serious issues, "Still/Here" is not a lament on death. Instead, Jones uses illness as a metaphor for the difficulties with which all people must cope as part of the human experience.
He wrote, "My intention ... has been to create a work, not as a rumination on death and decline, but on the resourcefulness and courage necessary to perform the act of living."
