Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company - Dec. 2 at The Egg

two dancers in foreground lean sideways in connection to one another; arms of other dancers are visible in background

Prime Performance - Saturday, December 2, 2023 at 8pm
Please note: This performance takes place at The Egg

Born in 1982, this trailblazing company foreshadowed issues of identity, form and social commentary that would change the face of American dance.  With a repertory that is widely varied in its subject matter, visual imagery and stylistic approach to movement, voice and stagecraft, it remains one of the foremost contemporary dance groups in the world.
 

  • Individual tickets - $36
  • Dance in Albany packages available at 10%-50% (see info on the left)
  • Dance in Albany packages available through The Egg Box Office at the Empire State Plaza or by calling 518-473-1845 on Monday through Friday between 11am and 3pm
  • Purchase individual tickets on-line here
     

Company's web site

Presented in partnership with The Egg as part of the Dance in Albany series. This engagement is supported by The Audience Building Project, a program of the Lake Placid Center for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts with support from the Governor and New York State Legislature. Support also provided by Executive Park at 4 Tower Place in Albany.

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company was born in 1982 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.

The repertory of the company is widely varied in its subject matter, visual imagery and stylistic approach to movement, voice and stagecraft and includes musically-driven works as well as works using a variety of texts. The company has been acknowledged for its intensely collaborative method of creation that has included artists as diverse as Keith Haring, Cassandra Wilson, The Orion String Quartet, Chamber Society of Lincoln Center, Fred Hersch, Jenny Holzer, Robert Longo, Julius Hemphill and Daniel Bernard Roumain, among others.

The program will feature Love Redefined from 1996 and Story/ from 2013. 

Inspired by Love Defined, a 1992 commission for the Lyon Opera Ballet, Love Re-Defined is a “powerful...immediate” and “moving” (The San Francisco Chronicle) ensemble work that embodies Jones’ distinct and poetic style, drawing freely from both classical and modern movement vocabularies. Set to Daniel Johnston’s innocent and whimsical music and featuring décor by Donald Baechler, Love Re-Defined is an energetic reflection on love and human relationships.  

Story/ is a reworking of Story/Time (2012) in which everything is subjected to chance-choreographic material, music/sound, lighting, set elements and costumes. Story/ draws from the trove of choreographic material and design elements of Story/Time. The work is set to Schubert's String Quartet #14, Death and the Maiden. The choreographic material of Story/ spans about 35 years. The earliest excerpt is from Blauvelt Mountain (1980), a seminal duet featuring Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, while the most recent material comes from A Rite (2013). The structure and content of Story/ was generated with and to the music and as such allows a conversation between choreographic and sound elements. In creating the piece, Jones was exploring the dramaturgical possibilities that arise when movement dialogues with and interrogates music and vice versa.

The company has received numerous awards, including New York Dance and Performance Awards (“Bessie”) for Chapel/Chapter at Harlem Stage (2006), The Table Project (2001), D-Man in the Waters and (1989 and 2001) and Deep Blue Sea (2021), musical scoring and costume design for Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land (1990) and for the groundbreaking Joyce Theater season (1986). The company was nominated for the 1999 Laurence Olivier Award for “Outstanding Achievement in Dance and Best New Dance Production” for We Set Out Early… Visibility was Poor.

Prior to the performance, there will be a Prelude talk sponsored by the Dance Alliance that begins at 7:15pm at The Egg.  Mary DiSanto-Rose, former Dance Department chair at Skidmore College, will be in conversation with Jones and Janet Wong, Associate Artistic Director of the company and New York Live Arts.