Mayor Menino might as well declare the next seven days "Bill T. Jones Week," because the dancer/choreographer will be all over town with events leading up to his troupe’s FleetBoston Celebrity Series/Wang Center performances at the Shubert Theatre. Next Friday through Sunday, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center will present works set to music written by Beethoven, Shostakovich and Gyšrgy Kurt‡g and performed by the Orion String Quartet and members of Chamber Music Society Two with guests. But before that Jones will be talking and teaching at Massachusetts College of Art and the Boston Arts Academy. And next Thursday, in a free presentation at the Shubert, he’ll be staging The Table Project, which springs from his interest in involving in non-traditional performers chosen from the community.
Described by Jones as "a ritual around an interesting sculptural table that looks like a ziggurat" (it was designed by his companion, Bjšrn Amelan), this eight-minute dance set to Schubert’s E-flat Notturno Piano Trio will be performed twice. One cast will comprise six men over the age of 50, including Jones; the second will be a group of young girls picked by audition at the Boston Renaissance Charter School. Afterward, Jones will speak about "incorporating the community into my work" and there’ll be a Q&A session.
Imagine the likes of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Grossman and Wang Center president and CEO Joe Spaulding dancing before the public on a stage. "The men are of some prominence," Jones explains, speaking by telephone from his vacation getaway in northern New Mexico (where he spends from six to eight weeks a year, when his company is not touring the US and Europe). "There’s some meaning [added] when movers and shakers of the community take the stage. The contrast between the men and the young girls doing the same movements is entertaining, but it’s also revealing. I’ve asked for the widest possible demographics. I’d like it to be multi-racial, from different classes. The conceit of the thing is that it’s a microcosm of the community."
You have to love a guy who continues to honor the memory of his former partner, the late Arnie Zane, by keeping his name on the troupe. Jones and Zane met in the early 1970s, when they were students at State University of New York at Binghamton. They became life and work partners, first forming a duet company, then expanding to full-troupe status in 1982. After Zane died of AIDS, in 1988, Jones continued to perform and choreograph for his own company along with a host of others, including Boston Ballet, the Lyon Opera Ballet, and the Berlin Opera Ballet. Along the way he won a MacArthur "genius" grant, the Dance Magazine Award, and a slew of honorary degrees. Last June he celebrated his 50th birthday, and this September the company will mark its 20th anniversary with a run of performances at Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Of his recent work he says, "I can’t say I’ve given up politics, but I’m much more interested in how art and life honestly meet. I think that has to do with my perception of art, looking at art and how the artist is feeling about his material. My politics have been like my faith but my interest in form and style supersedes polemics right now."
The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company Engagement will perform at the Shubert Theatre, 265 Tremont Street in the Theater District, next Friday through Sunday, January 17 through 19. Tickets are $25 to $65; call (800) 447-7400 or go on-line at www.celebrityseries.org or www. wangcenter.org. "The Table Project" will be presented at the Shubert this Thursday, January 16, at 7:30 p.m., and it’s free to the public. Jones will present a lecture demonstration at Massachusetts College of Art, Tower Auditorium, this Tuesday, January 14, at 11:30 a.m. and will conduct a master class at the Boston Arts Academy that same day at 1:30 p.m. For information, call (617) 482-9393.
