"From the start of "A Quarreling Pair," which opened on Tuesday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival, you feel that you have been plunged deep inside a private world. This is partly because its source material, a short puppet play from 1945 by Jane Bowles, depicts a suffocating, insular relationship between two sisters. But it is also because Bill T. Jones, the director and choreographer of this dance-theater adaptation, has lived with the Bowles play for so long -- 15 years -- that it has transformed itself in his mind, becoming a sort of cryptic shorthand for all manner of riffs."
]]>"Bill T. Jones is full of surprises. Who'd imagine he'd turn Jane Bowles's eccentrically poetic 1945 puppet play, A Quarreling Pair, into a parable in the form of a variety show about venturing from an ivory tower? He even introduces the protagonists, Harriet and Rhoda, in an "act"--a shadow play, with Leah Cox and Paul Matteson deliciously miming the genteelly squabbling sisters, while Stewart Singer and Tracy Ann Johnson voice Bowles's text on tape."
]]>"Tony Award winner Bill T. Jones will direct and choreograph the world premiere of Fela!, a new musical based on the life of groundbreaking African composer, performer and activist Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Featuring a book by Jones and Jim Lewis, Fela! will feature Kuti's music performed live onstage by the band Antibalas and other members of the New York Afrobeat community. Its limited off-Broadway run begins previews at 37 Arts on July 29 with opening night set for September 4, and will play through September 21."
Read Article at Broadway.com
Read Notice in New York Times
For more information and tickets, visit FelaOffBroadway.
THE BILL T. JONES/ARNIE ZANE DANCE COMPANY TURNS 25
Plans include three premieres, an off Broadway show, the opening performances of BAM's Next Wave Festival, national and international tours
Consider the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company's 25th anniversary celebration a launching pad for its future. And what a future it promises: premieres, new venues, and a cornucopia of new ideas.
The first of the Company's major events, the world premiere of "Another Evening: Serenade/The Proposition," takes place July 10-12 at the 75th anniversary celebration of the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC. The premiere marks the beginning of Jones's three-prong exploration of the resonant legacy of Abraham Lincoln.
Without introducing the literal character of Lincoln, "Serenade/The Proposition" weaves dance, text derived from period writings, video, and new and traditional music to explore the essential and powerful issues Lincoln's presidency raised about the moral, social and political future of the vulnerable young nation. Although essentially abstract, a human and nonjudgmental heart beats through the entire work, which takes place on a blazing white stage amid towering white columns.
Bjorn Guil Amelan, the Company's creative director, designed the elegantly dramatic set, and Janet Wong, the Company's associate artistic director, created the compelling video. Robert Wierzel designed the lighting. Employing the full company of 10 dancers, "Serenade/ The Proposition" integrates performances by actor Andrea Smith with music created and conducted collaboratively by cellist Christopher Antonio William Lancaster, vocalist Lisa Komara and keyboardist Jerome Begin.
"Fondly Do We Hope--Fervently Do We Pray..." a major commission from the Ravinia Festival, scheduled to premiere at the Festival in September 2009, will add another dimension of Jones's examination of the legacy of Lincoln. Full evening in length, "Fondly Do We Hope--Fervently Do We Pray..." uses Jones's childhood vision of the historic president for a starting point. Expect a dance brimming with ideas, challenges to conventional thoughts about Lincoln, and perhaps suggestions of alternative notions of Reconstruction had Lincoln lived.
Integral to the work will be material gathered from the "100 Migrations" workshops scheduled for New York, NY; Charlottesville, VA; San Francisco, CA; and Chicago, IL. Jones and his company members will encourage the 100 participants in each workshop (representing a diverse and multi-generational population) to express their own interpretations of Lincoln through movement phrases and gestures.
The making of "Fondly Do We Hope--Fervently Do We Pray..." will be documented by Kartemquin Films, whose work has been broadcast nationally on NBC, PBS, Cinemax, and The Sundance Channel and whose "Hoop Dreams" won a 1995 Academy Award nomination.
Also under consideration is a solo work, "Lincoln Lectures" (working title), a text-based theater work combining spoken word, movement and music featuring Jones and additional performers.
The Company opens BAM's 2008 Next Wave Festival with the New York premiere of "A Quarreling Pair," based on the two-character play by Jane Bowles of the same name, September 30 & October 2-4, 2008. The show is the result of Bill T. Jones's 15-year fascination with Bowles's four-page puppet play. In his 90 minute production, Jones takes this apparently simple story of two sisters with radically different views of the world as a point of departure for a multi-layered theatrical exploration of what happens to a relationship lived in isolation. A combination of choreography, text, and an original score, the work creates a tension between the uniquely creative means Jones employs to explore a play that warns of the emotional suffocation and spiritual inertia resulting from a life lived without imagination and curiosity.
One of the most articulate and inspiring artists of his generation, Jones, who has received almost every major award given in the arts, is also a much sought-after speaker. In May alone, he received an honorary Doctorate in Letters from the College of the Arts at Montclair State University on May 15 and on May 17 he received an honorary doctorate from Skidmore College. He delivered the commencement address to the graduating class at Columbia University School of the Arts on May 21; and he participated on the panel for the "The Creative Brain" at the World Science Festival at New York University on May 29.
In addition to learning and rehearsing the new dances, the company is racking up frequent flyer miles big time. Its performances of its newest hit, "A Quarreling Pair," is being presented in Santa Fe, NM on June 7; Lawrence, KS on October 10; Charlotte, NC on February 24, 2009; and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., March 24-25, 2009. "Chapel Chapter" will be performed at Jacob's Pillow in Becket, MA, June 26 - July 6; in Créteil, France, November 27-29; and in Rome, Italy, December 3-4. In addition to the ADF performances this summer, "Serenade/The Proposition" will also be performed in Boston, MA, October 24-26; Tampa Bay, FL on February 18, 2009; and Lake Worth, FL, February 20-21, 2009.
Jones is also currently creating a new musical schedule for a limited run at 37 Arts. Previews begin July 28; opening night is August 28, closing night September 21. Entitled "Fela," and based on the turbulent life of the charismatic Nigerian composer and politician Fela Anipulako Kuti, the show, co-written by Jones and his long-time dramaturge Jim Lewis, will be directed and choreographed by Jones. Born in Abeokuta, Nigeria in 1938, Fela, "He Who Has Death In His Pocket," was a singer-composer, trumpet, sax and keyboard player, bandleader, and the inventor of Afrobeat. Throughout his life, Fela fought against the corruption that permeated post-colonial Nigeria even running for President of his country. He was imprisoned, tortured, spending the remainder of his life in conflict with the regime.
]]>By JENNIFER DUNNING
Published: December 3, 2007
MONTCLAIR, N.J., Nov. 30 -- Bill T. Jones's new "Quarreling Pair" may surprise those familiar with his work over the last 20 years. There are no overarching social themes or emotions. The tone is relaxed and instinctual. Based on a short play by Jane Bowles, "A Quarreling Pair" does not look at our time or the cultural history that shaped it. Instead, Mr. Jones and his scenic designer, Bjorn G. Amelan, delve into the central relationship and tone of this odd little four-page puppet play and then move through it, as through a magic mirror, into a complex, dreamlike world in which their imaginations run playfully, riotously wild.
]]>By Pamela Squires
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, March 24, 2008; Page C05
"No one is better at mixing mediums onstage than Bill T. Jones. Like a medieval alchemist, he puts together strange ingredients and, in his case, comes up with gold. In his fascinating Chapel/Chapter, a soprano chants the distilled version of a grisly murder. Church bells send a horde of butterflies flitting across a video screen. Not every action makes sense, but the effect is marvelously unsettling."]]>
One of the finest and most daring choreographers discusses his work in Series: "Helen Edison Lecture Series".
]]>Thursday, May 29, 8:00 PM - 9:30 PM , NYU - Skirball Center
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