The simple movement that members of the audience made at the end of last week’s performance by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company demonstrated an audience engagement unusual in modern dance performance. Jones initiated the gesture, a fisted hand uncurling to an outstretched palm, and as the audience mirrored it, they signified their willingness to be alert and actively engaged with the material and questions posited by the company. This was just one of the striking moments left by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company on campus last weekend in a series of performances of recent work and a lecture that sought to get the audience to stop passively absorbing material.
Bill T. Jones, the co-founder of the respected modern group, gave a lecture at Memorial Chapel on Thursday that immediately diverged from normal lecture practices when he started to move throughout the audience and the space of the chapel.
“I’ve come to think that if everything goes really well in this life, or we’re really good, or we’re really lucky, we will get to tell all the stories, we will get to play all the parts,” Jones said.
This was as close to the thesis of a normally constructed lecture as Jones would get that night. He spent the evening recounting fragments of his life of significance that wasn’t always readily apparent: teaching a technique class in South America, taking his mother to see “Titanic,” etc. Though the link was never overtly explained, all the pieces seemed to come together at the end of the lecture to explain how one person grew to view dance as his “imperfect weapon.” What connected the disparate threads of the lecture was the physical presence of Jones himself. He moved about the room, up and down aisles, with a disarming self-awareness.
“He was one of the most beautiful speakers I’ve ever seen,” said Illana Gross ’09. “His movement, intonation, and word choice was moving poetry. For me, he tapped into an emotional spring.”
Jones concluded his talk with an unconventional question and answer session, which he initiated by asking a member of the audience some questions. The exchange that followed had mixed effects, but it instantly signaled that the speaker was far more interested in the audience and their aspirations than discussing his own work. While the audience’s reaction was not entirely positive, his unconventional technique left an impression on those fortunate enough to attend.
This talent for making people look inside themselves and try to answer questions about their current situation is a hallmark of the company. Started by the unlikely coupling of Jones and Arnie Zane in 1982, the group has become one of the most respected in modern dance. They are a distinctly American company that doesn’t shy away from controversy in the service of exploring truth. Their canon of work, experience, and movement styles ranges from yoga to West African. Their internationally performed repertory includes such famous pieces as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “Still Here,” the former exploring race in America and the latter chronicling what it’s like to live with long term illness and the death of loved ones. The company works within guidelines that Jones articulated in the setting of the lecture.
“The enemy is ignorance, fear, lack of generosity,” Jones said.
“Another Evening: I Lay Down,” the new work presented last weekend in the CFA Theater by the company, can be described as a broad-reaching record of human history and emotion. On its most basic level, it was biblical, sometimes even apocalyptical, in scope, referencing events under the frame of Noah’s Ark that included Hurricane Katrina and the sinking of the Titanic. It began with the same hypothesis of a good life that Jones spoke of at the beginning of his lecture.
“The weaving of movement, live music and singing, spoken stories about his own life, spoken stories that all of us already know and can relate to like Noah’s ark, recorded speeches from world leaders, etc., etc. was brilliantly done, incredibly moving, and thought-provoking,” said Sarah Taylor ’07.
The stage opened on a Piet Modrian (a famous Dutch painter of the early 20th century) color scheme of boxed whites, yellows, and a black structure with red sliding doors. The boxes etched out on the floor were illuminated in various ways throughout the performance, giving the impression that the dancers were moving on something otherworldly. This fit the very spiritual nature of the piece, which included sections of a Buddhist passage and stories from the Old Testament. The instrumentation in the piece managed to just escape being sonic chaos. There was a death metal band, revealed when the red doors opened, a violinist and sound effect maker, pianist, and singers. Despite the sampling of music styles ranging from classical opera to folk song, the wide-scope of the piece and careful coordination between the musical dance elements made this a fitting choice.
The choreography itself was gathered together from various pieces worked on by the company from as far back as 1994. Because of this, there was often an apparent gap between the words and the movement, discouraging the viewer from trying to interpret meaning in every specific motion. The pieces mostly lacked solos and intentional shows of technical skill, aiding in putting everything together into one cohesive whole.
“The piece impacted me so much, my pulse was up the whole time,” said Brendan McEmtee ’10.
On Friday night, the end of the performance was met with an enthusiastic standing ovation and a good deal of the audience staying for a post-performance discussion. One of the many topics discussed was how to use dance as a new medium for positive social change.
“This is what I love about Jones’s work; it is so relevant to all of us, to our experience as human beings,” Taylor said. “It encourages us to look at important ideas and questions while always including an aura of beauty and hope for what all of these ideas and questions could mean.”