Photos: Paul B. Goode
Story/Time
Bill T. Jones returns to the stage in a critically acclaimed work of
storytelling and dance.
Play and Play: An Evening of
Movement and Music
“Take something and do something to it, and then do something
else to it.” – Jasper Johns
Body Against Body Program
Seminal duets from the 1970s and 80s.
2015–2016 Season
The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company was born out of an 11-year collaboration between
Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane (1948–1988). During this time, they redefined the duet form and
foreshadowed issues of identity, form and social commentary that would change the face of
American dance. The Company has performed worldwide in over 200 cities in 40 countries on
every major continent and is recognized as one of the most innovative and powerful forces in
the dance-theater world.
Story/Time
“Modern yet wry, gorgeously danced and at times discordant...a dance-theater roller coaster with surprises
around every corner.” – San Francisco Chronicle
Director and choreographer Bill T. Jones – whose major honors include a MacArthur “Genius” Award, the
Kennedy Center Honors and two Tony Awards for Best Choreography – returns to the stage at the center of a
new work for his renowned company. Inspired by legendary artist and composer John Cage’s Indeterminacy,
a performance of ninety one-minute stories interrupted by a chance musical score, Jones creates a collage of
dance, music, and seventy of his own short stories, arranged anew for each performance by chance procedure.
Original music composed by Ted Coffey will accompanies the diverse company of dancers.
Co-commissioned by Peak Performances at Montclair State (NJ) and the Walker Art Center.
Play and Play: An Evening of Movement and Music
“Rarely has one seen a dance company throw itself onto the stage with such kinetic exaltation.”
– The New York Times
The Company’s classical music-focused program includes D-Man in the Waters (1989), Bill T. Jones’s joyful tour
de force and a genuine modern dance classic, set to Mendelssohn’s Octet in E Flat Major Opus 20, this renowned
work showcases the virtuosic company in a celebration of life and the resiliency of the human spirit. Other works
include pieces to Mozart, Schubert and Ravel. Requires local string musicians.
Reconstruction support for D-Man in the Waters provided by the American Dance Festival.
Body Against Body Program
“Bill T. Jones unadorned is a revelation.” – The Boston Globe
The Body Against Body Program is an intimate and focused collection of duet works drawn from the Company’s
30 year history. Bill T. Jones returns to his roots in the avant-garde with a program that revives and reconsiders
the challenging, groundbreaking works that launched Jones and the late Arnie Zane, his partner and collaborator
of 17 years. Still some of the most significant examples of the post modern aesthetic, these pieces redefined the
duet form and changed the face of American dance. Both conceptually and physically rigorous, the works take on
new life through the diverse dancers of Jones’s company, providing a rare look at the origins of a widely acclaimed
choreographer.
Body Against Body was commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston.
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane
Dance Company
Kyle Maude
Director of Producing and Touring
219 W 19th Street
New York, NY 10011
t: 212.691.6500 ex 262
f: 212.633.1974
[email protected]
newyorklivearts.org /#/BTJAZDC
North American Representation
Opus 3 Artists
470 Park Avenue South
9th Floor North
New York, NY 10016
t: 212.584.7500
[email protected]
opus3artists.com
European Representation
Gillian Newson
Dance Arts UK/MSM Ltd
t: +44 207 622 8549
m: + 44 776 816 6381
[email protected]
skype: gilliannnewson
Photos: Paul B. Goode (left), Gene Pittman (right)
Story/Time (2012)
“Modern yet wry, gorgeously danced and
at times discordant...a dance-theater roller
coaster with surprises around every corner.”
– San Francisco Chronicle
Director and choreographer Bill T. Jones takes to
the stage in a critically acclaimed new work of
storytelling and dance.
Story/Time (2012)
“These memories…are poignant, hilarious and sometimes terrifying.”
–The Star-Ledger
“All his endeavors…go back to the questions about love, history and
identity.” – The New York Times
Director and choreographer Bill T. Jones – whose major honors include a MacArthur “Genius” Award,
the Kennedy Center Honors and two Tony Awards for Best Choreography – returns to the stage at
the center of an acclaimed new work for his renowned company. Inspired by legendary artist and
composer John Cage’s Indeterminacy, a performance of ninety one-minute stories interrupted by a
chance musical score, Jones creates a collage of dance, music, and seventy of his own short stories,
arranged anew for each performance by chance procedure.
In Story/Time, Jones fuses the age-old art of storytelling with a vibrant landscape of contemporary
movement and music. Similar to a busy streetscape or a crowded room, the experience challenges
audience members to find meaning and connection in the sweep of randomized, disparate elements.
Jones’ short stories are drawn from his own life and tales handed down through the generations of
his family. In layering a traditional form against the avant-garde compositional concerns of the midcentury modernists, the tension between high and low art is called in to question.
In his first project with the Company, composer, musician, and intermedia artist Ted Coffey, Ph.D.
composes and performs a new acoustic and electronic score that draws upon chance procedure and
interactive technologies. In Open Space, Newton Armstrong describes Coffey’s music as “subtle,
weird and devoid of heroics. It’s the kind of music that resonates for days after you’ve heard it, and
its spaces and gestures continue to form into new and extraordinary geometries.”
Long-time Company collaborators Robert Wierzel (lighting design), Bjorn Amelan (décor), and Liz
Prince (costume design) designed the immersive, minimalist stage environment.
Co-commissioned by Peak Performances @ Montclair State (NJ) and the Walker Art Center.
Developed in residence at Arizona State University Gammage Auditorium, Bard College, Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair
State University, University of Virginia, and the Walker Art Center.
Video: vimeo.com/38237079
password: btjaz
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane
Dance Company
Kyle Maude
Director of Producing and Touring
219 W 19th St.
New York, NY 10011
t: 212. 691. 6500 x262
f: 212. 633. 1974
[email protected]
newyorklivearts.org/#/BTJAZDC
North American Representation
Opus 3 Artists
470 Park Avenue South
9th Floor North
New York, NY 10016
t: 212.584.7500
[email protected]
opus3artists.com
European Representation
Gillian Newson
Dance Arts UK/MSM Ltd
t: +44 207 622 8549
m: + 44 776 816 6381
[email protected]
skype: gilliannnewson
Photos: Paul B. Goode
Play and Play: An Evening of
Movement and Music
“No other dancer-choreographer working
today allows past, present, and future to
mingle so freely in his body.” – Vanity Fair
“Take something and do something to it, and then
do something else to it.” – Jasper Johns
Play and Play: An Evening of Movement
and Music
“Rarely has one seen a dance company throw itself onto the stage with such
kinetic exaltation.” – The New York Times
Performed with live musicians,* Play and Play: An Evening of Movement and Music applies
Jones’s inventive choreography to some of the most important Western musical works of our
time. Featuring compositions by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Ravel or Schubert this
program highlights the joy of musicians and dancers working together.
Program A
D-Man in the Waters (1989)
“In a dream you saw a way to survive and you were full of joy.”- Jenny Holzer
Bill T Jones’s joyful tour-de-force, D-Man in the Waters, is a true classic of modern dance and a two time
New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Award-winning work. It is a celebration of life and the resiliency of
the human spirit that guides audiences through loss, hope and triumph. Set to Mendelssohn’s Octet for Strings
in E-flat Major, Op. 20 the work is one of the finest examples of the post-modern aesthetic and was featured in
PBS’s landmark film Dancing in the Light – Six Dances by African-American Choreographers.
Video: vimeo.com/27773181 password: btjaz
Spent Days Out Yonder (2000)
Spent Days Out Yonder is a pure musical exploration, rare in the Bill T. Jones canon, set to the second movement
of Mozart’s String Quartet No. 23 in F Major. The movement is firmly rooted in Mr. Jones’s elegant, weighted
movement vocabulary, challenging dancers to move with ease, efficiency and physical honesty through the
sublime score.
Video: vimeo.com/27774023 password: btjaz
Continuous Replay (1977, revised 1991)
Continuous Replay reflects Arnie Zane’s interests in photography and film. Originally choreographed by Zane
in 1977 as a solo titled Hand Dance and later revised as a group work by Bill T. Jones in 1991, Continuous Replay
is based on 45 precise gestures accumulated in space and time, cunningly complicated by discrete movement
events. A newly commissioned score for string octet by Jerome Begin combines motifs from Beethoven’s first
and last string quartets with recorded sounds to create a surprising soundscape. Can be performed with or
without nudity.
Video: vimeo.com/36301879 password: CRNYLA2011
* Requires local string octet at each engagement
Program B
Ravel: Landscape or Portrait? (2012)
This new work responds to Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major (1903), reflecting the wistful and
melancholic sentiment of the score as well as its precision and restraint. Similar to the music’s complicated
internal logic, one of two choreographic variations for the third movement (either landscape or portrait) is
selected by chance procedure before each performance.
Video: (Ravel and Story/): vimeo.com/68562220 password: btjaz
Story/ (2013)
Story/ is the latest result of the company’s continued investigation in using John Cage’s Indeterminacy as a
choreographic tool. Following the model for the acclaimed Story/Time, the work employs a random menu of
movement that is accompanied by Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14 (Death and the Maiden) to craft a
conversation between the music and the movement.
Video: (Ravel and Story/): vimeo.com/68562220 password: btjaz
* Requires local string quartet at each engagement
Reconstruction support for D-Man in the Waters provided by the American Dance Festival.
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane
Dance Company
Kyle Maude
Director of Producing and Touring
219 W 19th St.
New York, NY 10011
t: 212. 691. 6500 x262
f: 212. 633. 1974
[email protected]
newyorklivearts.org/#/BTJAZDC
North American Representation
Opus 3 Artists
470 Park Avenue South
9th Floor North
New York, NY 10016
t: 212.584.7500
[email protected]
opus3artists.com
European Representation
Gillian Newson
Dance Arts UK/MSM Ltd
t: +44 207 622 8549
m: + 44 776 816 6381
[email protected]
skype: gilliannnewson
Photos: Paul B. Goode
Body Against Body Program
“The combination of brisk formality and a deeply
sensual attack... was riveting decades ago and it’s
riveting today.” – New York Magazine
Body Against Body Program
“Bill T. Jones unadorned is a revelation.” The Boston Globe
The Body Against Body Program is an intimate and focused collection of duet works drawn
from the Company’s 30 year history. Bill T. Jones returns to his roots in the avant-garde with
a program that revives and reconsiders the challenging, groundbreaking works that launched
Jones and the late Arnie Zane, his partner and collaborator of 17 years. Still some of the most
significant examples of the postmodern aesthetic, these pieces redefined the duet form and
changed the face of American dance. Both conceptually and physically rigorous, the works take
on new life through the diverse dancers of Jones’s company, providing a rare look at the origins
of a widely acclaimed choreographer.
Programs include 2-3 works from the Company’s repertory:
Blauvelt Mountain (A Fiction) (1980, reconstructed 2002)
One of the first duets that Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane created together, Blauvelt Mountain capitalizes on the
disparities and specificities between distinct body types, often placing one person in a position of dependency.
Eccentric and occasionally humorous tableaux, casual conversations, and word associations are paired with
rigorous partnering sequences to suggest the mental and emotional engagement, heightened awareness,
and intimacy necessary for successful partnering.
Video: vimeo.com/26696698 password: btjaz
Duet x 2 (1982, reconstructed 2003)
The virtuosity of Duet x 2 is rooted in conventional modern dance vocabulary and marked by demanding
athletics, surprising shapes and changing relationships. The work underlines the power and emotion that is
experienced when two bodies walk, stand, support and crash through space at full throttle.
Video: vimeo.com/50232543 password: btjaz
Monkey Run Road (1979, reconstructed 2011)
The earliest of the Body Against Body duets, Monkey Run Road reveals the early dance-making concerns of Bill
T. Jones and Arnie Zane. Traces of the duo’s background in jiu-jitsu, social dancing, photography, and contact
improvisation are readily seen in the piece, where repetitive, athletic phrases are punctuated by minimalist tasks
and fragments of dialogue.
Video: vimeo.com/26697124 password: btjaz
Valley Cottage: A Study (1980/1981, reconstructed 2011)
A new reconstruction for 2011, Valley Cottage is a duet that has not been seen since its original performances in
the early ‘80s. The reconstruction draws upon the personalities and relationships of the company’s dancers in
place of the original spoken text by Jones and Zane.
Video: vimeo.com/35014669 password: btjaz
Duet (1995/2002)
For two dancers in perfect unison, this piece’s coolly sophisticated movement reflects Jones’s work with
Trisha Brown. The precise and challenging choreography is accompanied by John Oswald’s frenetic 1975
“plunderphonic” track Power, combining rock guitars with the exhortations of an evangelist preacher. The final
section is set to Daniel Bernard Roumain’s imagined conversation between titans of the mid-twentieth century
avant-garde and an aged African-American mother of twelve.
Video: vimeo.com/84739595 password: btjaz
Shared Distance (1982, reconstructed 2014)
Created concurrently with the trilogy of defining duets made and performed by Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane:
Monkey Run Road, Blauvelt Mountain and Valley Cottage. Originally made for Bill T. Jones and Julie West, this
duet plays on the masculine and feminine and the reversal of these gender-specific roles.
Video: vimeo.com/95913699 password: btjaz
Just You (1993, reconstructed 2014)
Originally titled It Takes Two, Just You was created by Bill T. Jones in 1989 for the duet company of Steven
Koester and Terry Creach, who were craving something informed by these pivotal duets between Jones and
Zane. The work was revived in 1993 for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, where the name changed
to Just You. Here the original idiosyncratic, formalist concerns were placed at the service of a more theatrical,
poetic purpose, made all the more poignant by its being danced to the delicious interpretation of standards by
Ray Charles and Betty Carter.
Video: vimeo.com/95904105 password: btjaz
Body Against Body was commissioned by The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston.
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane
Dance Company
Kyle Maude
Director of Producing and Touring
219 W 19th St.
New York, NY 10011
t: 212. 691. 6500 x262
f: 212. 633. 1974
[email protected]
newyorklivearts.org/#/BTJAZDC
North American Representation
Opus 3 Artists
470 Park Avenue South
9th Floor North
New York, NY 10016
t: 212.584.7500
[email protected]
opus3artists.com
European Representation
Gillian Newson
Dance Arts UK/MSM Ltd
t: +44 207 622 8549
m: + 44 776 816 6381
[email protected]
skype: gilliannnewson