AADH Day 17 – “What is Black Dance?”
and Bill T. Jones
• “What is Black Dance?”
• Bill T. Jones
• Fish Story
• Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land
Intro - Labels in dance – Background
• Labels serve a purpose – to market dance
• To defining and position an artist
• Historical or and cultural context
• Postmodern, new dance, avant-garde
• Audience not always aware of the entire history
Postmodern era
• Grew out of 60s, Cmerce Cunningham and Judson Church
• Rebellion against classical modern dance of Graham, Humphrey,
Limon,
• Sixties about experimentation, black power movement -civil rights
• Dancers seeking balance between the narrative and pure movement
Postmodern Aesthetics
• Assemblages of period or theatrical reference - comment on the
present. Historically aware.
• Second wave of postmoderns - people like Bill T. Jones, Ralph Lemon
• Return to "theatrical and virtuosic performance.
• Perform personal intimate
Labels
• Postmodern - separation from audience as necessary for performance
event
• Black artists desire to foster communication form and function united
• New dance - political and social activism
• 90’s popular terms - multicultural and diversity
What is Black Dance?
• Who defines the answer.
• Term – black dance, obscure meaning – yet loaded with power
• Echoes the question from 1930’s – “What shall the Negro Dance
about?”
What is Black Dance?
Funding entities – for black dance – labels pigeon holes companies
• Critics – lump choreographers together
• Who does this term refer to?
• Black Dance – a label critics use to summarize a richly diverse body of
work
What is Black Dance?
• Responses to the Term
• Insistence for the freedom to define culture on their own terms,
likewise for their creative work.
• Black choreographers feel their work is about life informed by their
lives. Artists who happen to be black,
What is Black Dance?
• Lumping all Af- Am dance forms separates and diminishes their
diversity
• Issue now is artistic freedom “Cultural imperialism vs. cultural selfdetermination.”
• A misconception – that ethnicity predetermines culture
• Dialogue needed on this issue
What is Black Dance?
• How does this relate to identity.
• What examples have we seen so far?
• Whose perspective is being presented?
• Bill T. Jones - What does black mean in western culture context?
Focus on Bill T. Jones
• Biography to Autobiographical material in dance
• Born 1952 – tenth of twelve children
• Grew up in upstate New York
• Informed his understanding and confusion about race
Aesthetic Choices - Methods
• Talking in dance – postmodern aesthetic – telling his story
• Formalism – pure gesture and line, recall opening day poem
• Personal emotion – dares to show anger, express love
• Pedestrian – blends technique with simplicity
• Improvisation as a creative process
• Contact Improvisation – especially in early duets with Arnie Zane
Focus on Bill T. Jones - Issues of Identity
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Life and Art - blur the boundaries
• Arnie Zane – lover and collaborator
• Their duets exposed their relationship
• Continent of two
• Politics – personal, class and race – they drew directly on their own
lives to understand their identity
Life and Art - blur the boundaries
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Arnie Zane died in 1988 of AIDS
• Fish Story – an earlier dance that explores death
• Performed in 1980 in the context of Jones great loss of Zane.
• Aesthetic choices, fractured language and dance blur, have to read both
texts
Arnie Zane died in 1988 of AIDS
Fish Story - 1990 Performance
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Other Dances
• Untitled – expresses anger
• Etude – pure design in space
Untitled
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Etude
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Uncle Tom’s Cabin/Last Supper/The
Promised Land (1990)
• About faith, History, Anger and Seeking Common Ground
• Identity – who are we first, second and third.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin/Last Supper/The
Promised Land (1990)
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Uncle Tom’s Cabin/Last Supper/The
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Bill T. Jones - Last Night of Earth
• What does he say about history?
• History has rules, one: identity forged by violence and deprivation will
manifest violence and deprivation
• Such rules must be broken, a conscious effort
• Black people’s experience has helped to educate the human heart
• History is a mirror in which to see himself
Uncle Tom’s Cabin/Last Supper/The
Promised Land (1990)
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How do you respond to his historical
account?
• More and more personal- history ultimately is what happens to you
• What you do or do not do
Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin – sketch of the story
• Entre act Faith - on stage interview with a priest or rabbi on issues of
faith
• This follows Bill T. Jones dancing to the reading of Job,
• Jones own tragic loss of his partner parallels Job’s loss
• Yet Jones does not regain all back in the end through faith
Uncle Tom’s Cabin/Last Supper/The
Promised Land (1990)
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Uncle Tom’s Cabin/Last Supper/The
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Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• Was to acknowledge his division from his mother’s faith
• Sixties naivete to go beyond anger, beyond division
• With an African-American voice speak to a diverse audience,
• Speak about being human, our lives, our dreams
Uncle Tom’s Cabin/Last Supper/The
Promised Land (1990)
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Uncle Tom’s Cabin/Last Supper/The
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Four - The Promised Land
• King’s speech backwards as an argument
• Dance develops abstractly - people gradually disrobing
• First Arthur Aviles has appeared alone as nude - by end everyone is.
• Community and personal gutsiness to confront self-willing to expose
self and join in community
Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin
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Uncle Tom’s Cabin/Last Supper/The
Promised Land (1990)
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Jones’ goal for LSUTC
• Wanted to disavow an identity as a dying outcast,
• Affirm our commonality through the body, “we are not afraid”
• His company reflects the diversity of the audience he hopes to speak
to, drew on real life identities of his cast
Jones goals for LSUTC
• Work addresses the disorientation, that he feels around issues of power,
sex, race, religion, and art
• Desire to blend political, social, spiritual issues with narrative and
movement
Jones goals for LSUTC
• Work addresses the disorientation, that he feels around issues of power,
sex, race, religion, and art
• Desire to blend political, social, spiritual issues with narrative and
movement