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Artist-in-Residence |
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The Walker Art Center has an extensive commissioning and presenting history with this celebrated dance company whose past works (including Still/Here) have deeply touched many in the Twin Cities and across the country. The company was in residence in September 1998 and engaged in 16 educational and community programs as well as performing a new work, We Set Out Early . . . Visibility Was Poor at Northrop Auditorium. The company appeared in conjunction with the Walker's exhibition Art Performs Life: Merce Cunningham/Meredith Monk/Bill T. Jones. The New York Times describes We Set Out Early. . .Visibility Was Poor as "all visual effect, startling in its purity of vision and movement." This full-length work, the company's first since the overwhelmingly successful Still/Here (1995), is a stunningly beautiful exploration of movement. Bill T. Jones writes: " 'Naming things is only the intention to make things.' I must testify to the veracity of this quotation, attributed to the poet Frank O'Hara. The title of my new evening-length work, We Set Out Early . . . Visibility Was Poor, existed long before any movement was invented. It reads like the first line of a short story that promises to tell of a journey, to chronicle some community's adventure, and in some essential ways, it already does, though not in any programmatic or obvious sense." During the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company residency, Jones and company members will lead numerous public and private community activities, including forums, workshops, lecture-demonstrations, master classes, and post-performance discussions. Jones will participate in a forum on art and race with leaders in the African-American community, and lead workshops and discussions with emerging local artists at Intermedia Arts and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Additionally, the company will conduct classes and lectures with Twin Cities youth, including events at the Minnesota Center for Arts Education and Dunwoody Institute. This artist residency marks the beginning of the company's four-year home-away-from-home commitment to the Twin Cities to build a sustained relationship with community organizations and local audiences. |
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BIOGRAPHY Born in 1952, Jones began his dance training at the State University of New York at Binghamton (SUNY). In 1974, he became cofounder of the American Dance Asylum. Before forming Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (then called Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane & Company), Jones choreographed and performed nationally and internationally as a soloist and with his late partner, Zane. Recently, Jones served as choreographer-in-residence at the Lyon Opera Ballet (1995-1997) and has directed projects for theater, including Derek Walcott's Dream on Monkey Mountain at the Guthrie Theater in 1994. In addition to a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 1994, Jones has received a number of awards throughout his career, including choreographic fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) awards, an "Izzy" Award, and the Dorothy B. Chandler Performing Arts Award. Last Night on Earth -- part memoir, part meditation, and part performance -- was published by Pantheon Books in 1995. An in-depth look at the work of Jones and Zane can be found in Body Against Body: The Dance and Other Collaborations of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, published by Station Hill Press. With Gretchen Bender, Jones codirected a television adaptation of Still/Here produced with KTCA-TV in St. Paul and Amaya in Paris. It won two awards: the FIPA Palme d'Or Biarritz (1996) and the Grand Prix, Scenes d'Ecrain, Bruxelles (1997). |
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RELATED EVENTS TALKING DANCE WITH BILL T. JONES BOOK-SIGNING WITH BILL T. JONES WALKER'S BACK TO SCHOOL MASTER CLASS WITH BILL T. JONES BEGINNER MOVEMENT CLASS/OPEN REHEARSAL BOOK-SIGNING WITH BILL T. JONES WE SET OUT EARLY . . .VISIBILITY WAS POOR THIS RESIDENCE IS MADE POSSIBLE BY SUPPORT FROM THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS. |
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