Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company records

Home

Search Browse About

Items Collections Divisions

Digital Collections Using Images Using Data

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company records

Navigation About Filters

This collection is also available in Archives & Manuscripts
View In Archives »

Collection Data

Description: The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, established in 1982 by American dancer/choreographers Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, has performed worldwide in over 200 cities in 40 countries. The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company records document the work of the Company and its creators from 1970 to 2016. The collection contains dance and sound cue sheets, lighting and stage plots, photographs, programs, correspondence, posters, sheet music and lyrics, financial and legal documents, and audio and video recordings.
Names: Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane and Company (Creator); Jones, Bill T. (Contributor); Zane, Arnie, 1948-1988 (Contributor)
Dates / Origin: Date Created: 1970 - 2016
Library locations: Jerome Robbins Dance Division; Shelf locator: *MGZMD 477
Topics: African American dancers; AIDS (Disease) -- Social aspects; AIDS (Disease) in art; Choreographers -- United States; choreography; Dance -- 20th century; Dance -- photographs; Dance -- United States -- History; Dance companies -- United States; dancers; Stage lighting; dancers
Genres: Business correspondence; clippings (information artifacts); Costume design drawings; grant proposals; Negatives (photographs); Photographs; Posters; Press releases; Programs (Publications); Sound recordings; Video recordings
Notes: Biographical/historical: The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (henceforth referred to as the Company) was established in 1982 in New York City by dancer/choreographers Bill T. Jones (1952-) and Arnie Zane (1948–1988). Prior to founding the Company, Jones and Zane collaborated for eleven years, often addressing social issues and identity through dance. The Company they created has performed worldwide in over 200 cities in 40 countries, and is recognized as an innovative and powerful force 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. The Company is noted for its collaborative method of creation with such artists as Keith Haring, Cassandra Wilson, The Orion String Quartet, the Chamber Society of Lincoln Center, Fred Hersch, Jenny Holzer, Robert Longo, Julius Hemphill, and Daniel Bernard Roumain. Collaborations between the Company and visual artists are the subject of "Art Performs Life," a 1998 exhibition at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN. Prominent dancers who performed with the Company include Arthur Aviles, Janet Lilly, and Lawrence Goldhuber. One of the Company's most famous productions is Still/Here, which premiered in September 1994 at Biennale de la Danse in Lyon, France. The evening-length multimedia piece explores survival through dance and music, with a visual score edited from interviews with people facing life-threatening illnesses, including AIDS. The interviews are drawn from Survival Workshops Jones conducted in several American cities to prepare for the piece. The making of Still/Here is the subject of a 1997 PBS documentary by journalist Bill Moyers and filmmaker David Grubin. As part of the Company's 20th anniversary season, the piece was revived with the title, Still/Here Looking On. Other notable evening-length works by the Company include Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin/The Promised Land (1990, Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music); We Set Out Early… Visibility Was Poor (1996, Hancher Auditorium, Iowa City, IA); You Walk? (2000, European Capital of Culture 2000, Bologna, Italy); Blind Date (2006, Peak Performances at Montclair State University); and Chapel/Chapter (2006, Harlem Stage Gatehouse). The ongoing, site-specific piece, Another Evening, was last performed in its seventh incarnation as Another Evening: Venice/Arsenale (2010, La Biennale di Venezia). Two evenings of Bill T. Jones's solo performances have also been produced by the Company: The Breathing Show (1999, Hancher Auditorium, Iowa City, IA) and As I Was Saying… (2005, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN). The Company has received numerous awards, including New York Dance and Performance Awards for Chapel/Chapter at Harlem Stage (2006), The Table Project (2001), D-Man in the Waters (1989 and 2001), Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin/The Promised Land, (1990) and for its 1986 Joyce Theater season. 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. During its 25th anniversary season, the Company was comissioned by Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, IL to stage a work honoring the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. Three new productions were created for the project: 100 Migrations (2008), a site-specific community performance piece; Serenade/The Proposition (2008), which examines the nature of history; and Fondly Do We Hope… Fervently Do We Pray (2009), about Lincoln's legacy. The latter is the subject of A Good Man, a feature-length documentary by Kartemquin Films broadcast on PBS American Masters in 2011. The Company has distinguished itself through extensive community outreach and educational programs, including partnerships with Bard College, where members teach an innovative curriculum rooted in the Company's creative model and highly collaborative methods; and with Lincoln Center, which uses Company works in its educator-training and in-school repertory programs. University and college dance programs throughout the United States collaborate with the Company to reconstruct significant works for their students. The Company also conducts intensive workshops for professional and pre-professional dancers, and produces a broad range of discussion events at home and on the road. In February 2011, the Company's parent organization, Foundation for Dance Promotion, merged with Dance Theatre Workshop to create New York Live Arts. As of 2022, the Company operates out of New York Live Arts located in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City.; Content: The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company records date from 1970 to 2016 and chronicle the work of the Company and its creators, dancer/choreographers Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane. The strengths of the collection, created by Jones, Zane, and the staff of the Company, are its comprehensive documentation of technical aspects of productions, and the logistics of running and financing a large performing arts organization. All major productions by the Company are documented, along with numerous collaborative and community projects. There are more than 2,500 video recordings that depict rehearsals, performances, and workshops from throughout the Company's history, with particular emphasis on the production, Still/Here (1994). The collection does not provide insight into the personal lives of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane.
Physical Description: Extent: 82.15 linear feet (183 boxes, 22 tubes, 13 oversize folders)
Type of Resource: Text
Identifiers: Other local Identifier: (S) *MGZMD 477; NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b21764773; MSS Unit ID: 24325; Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 0dcdf8a0-125d-013e-79e4-0242ac110002

3 results found

The New York Public Library

Digital Collections

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company records

Collection Data

name

collection

genre

division

type

Date Range