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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 6, 1995)
t V ju s t ou t ▼ Jan u ary 0 , 1 0 0 5 ▼ 2 7 D ance of L ife Arts critics abound with kind words fo r the Bill T. Jones!Arnie Zane Dance Company by Jann Gilbert ime magazine tells us it’s a “Black Jones/Zane Dance Company “to be entertained, Renaissance” and puts him on the moved, shocked, angered.” A good performance cover. The A lew York Times' Anna should at least make one think; a great perfor Kisselgoff calls him “lyrical” and his mance should make one feel. Certainly audiences work “simplicity and sophistication.” may expect to do both when the Bill T. Jones/ Obviously Portland is in for a treat when Portland Arnie Zane Dance Company comes to Portland. State University’s Contemporary Dance Season The company is scheduled to perform StillZ presents the Bill T. Jones/Amie Zane Dance Com Here at PSU on Jan. 13,14 and 15. Still/Here is a pany this winter. multimedia piece focusing on survival in the face of life-threatening illness. The piece is based on Survival Workshops called ‘Talking and Moving About Life and Death.” For a year and a half, volunteers in 10 cities suffering from life-threatening illnesses engaged, on videotape, in dialogue about their illness and Jones and Zane’s history began when the two then described in movement how they felt, using met through Jones’ sister-in-law. That meeting a specific movement vocabulary taught to them led to a relationship that lasted 17 years, until by Jones. The workshops generated gestures which Zane’s death in 1988. Elizabeth Kaye of The New informed the movement phrases and choreo York Times Magazine writes, “[Zane] was a pho graphic material for Still/Here. tographer but took dance classes because he wanted Still/Here is performed in two segments. Both to be with Jones as much as possible.... Their first are about human feelings. The first section fre performance established them as being bizarrely quently features stillness. The second segment ingenious and iconoclastic, whether doing their own choreography or other people’s.” The two formed a full-time company after 11 years of working to gether as a duo. Today, the Bill T. Jones/Amie Zane Dance Company dancers are from varied back g ro u n d s, which range from athletics, acting, and classical bal let to Irish step-dancing. The 11 dancers are Afri can American, Euro pean A m erican and Latino/a. And they come in a variety of body shapes ranging from short and compact to tall and rangy. Several have shaved heads. Their per sonal variety is as di verse as that of their work. In an article called “The Beauty of Black Art,” in the Oct. 10, 1994, issue of Time Bill T. Jones magazine, Jack E. White becomes more dynamic, as if to announce a pres describes Jones: “[T]oday he works with the ence and a need to hope. intensity of someone who knows his time is Jones will give a lecture on Jan. 11 about the running out. He creates as many as five new piece and the issues it raises, followed by a ques- pieces a year for his own New York City- tion-and-answer session. The lecture will open based. . .dance company, as well as for such clas with a 10-minute introductory video on the Sur sical troupes as the Berlin Opera Ballet, and the vival Workshops filmed by media artist and Still/ Boston Ballet. ‘I’m terrified,’ he says, ‘but I’m Here collaborator Gretchen Bender. Jones and going to try to pursue these dreams I have while I members of the troupe will provide an in-depth can. * if explanation and demonstration of the gestures Jones, who was diagnosed HIV positive in generated from the workshop participants. The 1985, has been described as having an "emphatic presence that allows him to dominate any room he lecture will be held from 1 pm to 3 pm in Room 190 of the PSU School of Business Administra enters.” Both his age, 42, and his diagnosis have tion. Dance season subscribers will be admitted done little to slow him down. According to The free; there will be a $4 charge for nonsubscribers. New York Times, “[H]is company played a two- In addition to the lecture, there will be a master week engagement at the Joyce Theater in New dance class Jan. 13 from 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm in York, then played Florida, Pennsylvania, Paris Room 207 of the Health and Physical Education and Cannes. Then Jones returned to the states for Building. The class will be taught by Andrea E. a week, conducted Survival Workshops in three Woods, rehearsal director for the company. The cities, returned to Paris, flew to North Carolina to class will be based on the company’s class warm spend Christmas with the poet Maya Angelou, ups, workshops and current repertoire. Woods then went to...M inneapolis to direct Derek will lead participants through movements and Walcott’s play Dream on Monkey Mountain.” explorations of group dynamics with exercises in Kisselgoff describes Jones as a “choreogra group consciousness, weight sharing, level chang pher who has succeeded in making a virtue of a ing, etc. There will be a $4 charge for nonsub natural provocativeness.” In the Village Voice, scribers; no charge for subscribers. Deborah Jowitt writes that audiences go to see the T WE REPLACE WINDOWS Now you can replace your old windows with new vinyl custom fit insulat- ea windows. Your new windows will keep your home warm er in winter, cooler in summer, reduce condensation ana sound proof your home. 18 year of experience in the same location makes us one of Portland's most experienced window compa nies. 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