Salem College is delighted to launch an exciting new series that will bring world-class artists and performers to Winston-Salem. For its inaugural year, the June Porter Johnson Series for the Visual and Performing Arts will showcase the work of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in the fall and performance artist Laurie Anderson in the spring.
Jones will speak, perform and screen a documentary based on his life and career during this two-day event.
All three Bill T. Jones events are free admission with reservation: call 336/917-5493 or email culturalevents@salem.edu.
Between Us: A Studio Showing
Friday, November 9, 7:30 p.m.
Followed by an audience Q&A and reception.
Hanes Auditorium, Elberson Fine Arts Center
Now in its 30th anniversary 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 emerged onto the international scene in 1983 with the world premiere of “Intuitive Momentum,” which featured legendary drummer Max Roach, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Since then, the 10-member Company has performed worldwide in more than 200 cities in 30 countries on every major continent. Today, the Company is recognized as one of the most innovative and powerful forces in the modern dance world.
In an intimate and informal setting, the Company will perform works from “Between Us,” a program of duets that reflect intriguing portraits of the relationship between two people.
This focused evening provides a satisfying look at the core of the Jones/Zane style and an overview of the Company’s evolution. The program will include an early Jones/Zane duet, a highly athletic pair of duets and another piece from later in Mr. Jones’s career. The Company in known for dancers with diverse personalities and backgrounds; partnering that is unconventional and unexpected; and a choreographic palette that draws from classical ballet, postmodern abstraction, and arrangements of gesture and shape influenced by film and photography.
This event is free of charge; however, tickets are required. The Salem College Dance Department is honored to assist in the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in a residency at Salem. Students and faculty will experience lectures on art-making and social engagement as well as intensive investigations of dance technique and choreographic form.
Screening of A Good Man Documentary
Saturday, November 10, 4:30 p.m.
Hanes Auditorium, Elberson Fine Arts Center
This 90-minute PBS American Masters film chronicles the intense creative journey of Bill T. Jones—a 2010 Kennedy Center Honors recipient and two-time Tony® Award winner for Best Choreography—as he tackles the most ambitious work of his career and leads the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in the creation of “Fondly Do We Hope…Fervently Do We Pray,” an original dance-theater piece in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s bicentennial commissioned by Ravinia Festival. Co-directors Bob Hercules of Media Process Group and Gordon Quinn of Kartemquin Films provide a window into the creative process and the creative crisis of one of our nation’s most enduring, provocative artists as he explores what it means to be a good man, to be a free man, to be a citizen.
An Evening with Bill T. Jones:
Insights on Directing, Choreography and an Artistic Life
Saturday, November 10, 7:30 p.m.
A reception follows the talk.
Hanes Auditorium, Elberson Fine Arts Center
Bill T. Jones, a multi-talented artist, choreographer, dancer, theater director and writer, will provide a keynote address on aspects of the artistic life to a general audience. He has received major honors ranging from a 1994 MacArthur “Genius” Award to Kennedy Center Honors in 2010. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2009 and named “An Irreplaceable Dance Treasure” by the Dance Heritage Coalition in 2000. His ventures into Broadway theater have resulted in two Tony Awards for Best Choreography, one for Spring Awakening and another for the critically acclaimed FELA!, the new musical co-conceived, co-written, directed and choreographed by Mr. Jones.