aadh day 17 – “what is black dance?” and bill t. jones

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?”


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


• 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,


• Lumping all Af- Am dance forms separates and diminishes their diversity

• Issue now is artistic freedom “Cultural imperialism vs. cultural self-determination.”

• A misconception – that ethnicity predetermines culture

• Dialogue needed on this issue


• 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



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 AIDSFish Story - 1990 Performance



Other Dances

• Untitled – expresses anger

• Etude – pure design in space

Untitled



Etude



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.

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

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


• 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

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

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

aadh day 17 – “what is black dance?” and bill t. jones

Documents

term black dance

dance backgroundlabels

earlier dance

market dance

negro dance

dance postmodern aesthetic

black choreographers

black mean