Where am I?...
Two days after Thanksgiving, four days since Fela! premiered on Broadway, seventeen days since Serenade/The Proposition opened at the Joyce Theater in NY, two months and ten days since Fondly Do We Hope... Fervently Do We Pray premiered at Illinois's Ravinia Festival, three months and twenty days since I last wrote a blog...
I received an email from Janet yesterday, which started as follows:
"Hello Bill (and Bjorn),
How are you?
This must be the first time you can relax since a very long time. I feel bad to have to discuss the upcoming weeks, but we have to keep going..."
As is so often the case, she is right! Still, the question remains: "Where am I?"
In the glorious hurly burly of gift-giving, hugs and kisses, congratulations, etc., following the opening night of Fela! I received the following in a hand made frame:
"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist thru any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatsoever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."-Martha Graham to Agnes de Mille
So, where are things?...
The Lincoln works are complete and the Company looks fantastic. On our recent tour they've played to enthusiastic audiences and each and every one of these performers are singular individuals complete in themselves, but certainly a part of a cohesive ensemble. This is no small accomplishment as the years pass and the challenge of keeping our enterprise healthy is ever present. Jean Davidson and our wonderful staff soldier on doing what has to be done with resourcefulness and commitment. On December 10 we hold our Fall Benefit, an opportunity to celebrate the Company, cultivate new friends, all grounded by a performance of Fela! Plans for the Company's future in this difficult economic climate continue. Chief among them is the issue of our home, our legacy, and yes, even what is the Company and how does it meet this future head on.
Still, the best I can do to answer the question "Where am I?" for myself and for those of you interested in reading this blog is to read through Ms. Graham's chillingly inspired pronouncement.
The biggest challenge to my present frame of mind is that here is a great artist, Martha Graham, speaking as a solely independent and alienated creator. I don't feel this way, particularly in the sense of being independent. And if that is the case, what am I to make of her line "It is your business to keep it [your expression] yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open." And did she really mean it when she said "It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions"?
But still, taken as a whole, her pronouncement particularly in its conclusion that no artist is pleased, there is no satisfaction whatever at any time, rings quite true and in its own way it comforts.
So while it's doubly difficult to end here, speaking of what is next, as I am not sure of where I am, I will agree with Janet: "We must keep going"!
More soon.
Happy Holidays.
-- Bill T. Jones (Saturday, November 28, 2009)
10 Comments
I just watched you and your troupe do "Zombie" on the Colbert Report.
For decades I've been disappointed and disgusted by modern choreographers and dancers because they hadn't a clue as to what they were actually saying with their bodies. Mostly they just gyrate and pose, make mechanical motions and do aerobics, or simulate sex.
You, though, understand! Every movement has a meaning that I can see and feel and understand with both mind and body – what a relief it is to me to see this.
Thank you.
Hi Bill just saw you steven colbert. What a neat man you came across as.. You seem so genuine .. Good luck in all your endeavors. Merry Christmas.
Kat
Hi Bill.
I had to laugh when I read the name of this posting. When I got the invite to attend the performance at the AT&T Performing Arts Center in January in Dallas, I looked at Paco and said "Where have I been?".
I had no idea you had become such a celebrated choreographer and started your own dance troupe. Ma Shapee would be so proud. Did she ever have a chance to see you perform?
The last time I saw you, Marcia and I gave you a ride back to Binghamton when we saw you hitch hiking.
Do you remember?
I have to tell you -- you were such an inspiration to me in a Midsummer's Night Dream. That play (although I was only a fairy) fanned a flame in me that is still burning. Thank you for taking the time as a high school senior to be kind to a 7th grader. I never forgot your kindness or your amazing giftedness.
Can't wait to see your work in January in Dallas! I know it's going to be an awesome performance.
Please greet your wonderful family for me.
God Bless,
Vicki (Miller)
I just read your blog and I must disagree
with the statement from Martha Graham's letter that there is no satisfaction at any time for an artist. I believe what's true is that the pleasure or satisfaction is not complete. It is that strange, undefinable combination of pleasure and displeasure that creates, as Martha says, " a queer divine dissatisfaction." Isn't this a part of why we "create" things and why we continue to create things? I fervently hope that you feel some satisfaction and pleasure from what you do because "we" feel satisfaction and pleasure from it. As my guitar instructor would say, "if you are not moved by you music, how can you move others with your music."
It's been a while since you've been to
our fair, but frozen, city of Minneapolis,
MN. Hopefully, you'll return one day.
C. Daniels
hi, bill & bjorn,--I've emailed you twice and have heard nothing back. I'm very proud of what I saw on colbert. I've shared the "fela!" reviews with friends and my daughter. I hope you tour out here in the second half of 2010. it's been a while since we've seen each other. I know you are extremely busy, but please check your email and write back as soon as possible. it's VERY important. since this is public, I don't want to say, but the email covers it. I hope you are well (you certainly looked great on colbert!) also, I have lost edie's # and am unable to get it from ken. my best to you all now and in the coming year!
always - - haRa
Dear Bill T. Jones,
I have followed your work for years and have been moved by your beautiful and thoughtful inquiries into the human heart and the human mind, but never moreso than tonight as I watched the Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. It was the perfect way to end Christmas day spent with children and grandchildren. An opening of the heart with a dialog by two men I admire and value. I hope to live long enough to see your Fondly...Fervently playing in a theater where I can see it.
Darrell Bourque
Louisiana Poet Laureate
wrote:
Dear Bill, Wish i could see Fondly--but it isn't coming my way. I have an idea for your next dance project------one on torture and what is does to a nation that does it. Medical complicity, Geneva Conventions "quaint" and more----
We need artists to speak out on this horrible thing that has happened and is still happening.
Thank you for being----
So why don't I see any dates on the west coast? Saw you on Bill Moyers, looked for an L.A. playdate . . . Alas!!
wrote:
Bill, you are a beautiful and inspiring man. We are much blessed for your insight and wisdom;-)
wrote:
congratulations on fela and your other projects. i am an aspiring playwright/composer/lyricist who has a project that i have resurrected and am proceeding to dust off and market. please view my site for script and music samples. It's called 'Pomade' and would be a dynamite project for any of our many black leading ladies. thanks.
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