FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

THE BARD COLLEGE DANCE PROGRAM
AND BILL T. JONES/ARNIE ZANE DANCE COMPANY PRESENT
TWO SPECIAL EVENTS WITH BILL T. JONES

Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.—The Bard College Dance Program and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company present two public events featuring Bill T. Jones, artistic director of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, http://www.billtjones.org/. The two presentations, entitled “Making and Doing” and “Thought and Action,” will be free and open to the public on Wednesday, December 1, beginning at 5 p.m. For reservations and information, contact the box office at 845-758-7900.

Two-time Tony Award winner and MacArthur “Genius” Bill T. Jones visits campus just days before being honored in Washington, D.C. at the 33^rd annual Kennedy Center Honors. Mr. Jones leads these two engaging and thought-provoking events as part of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company’s partnership with the Bard College Dance Program:

“Making and Doing” invites the audience to view, critique and discuss three student dance composition projects with the student choreographers and Bill T. Jones. Artists and audiences of all genres will appreciate this rare opportunity to explore the creative process with a multidisciplinary master. The program takes place in the Fisher Center’s Thorne Dance Studio from 5–6:30 p.m.

“Thought and Action” offers a live performance of Bill T. Jones’s Floating the Tongue as the touchstone for a discussion of the philosophy of thought, action and consciousness as they relate to art and the act of creating. Mr. Jones created Floating the Tongue, a solo improvisation that seeks to reveal the activity of the mind as the body moves, during the same era in which Hannah Arendt outlined the nature of consciousness and the distinction between mental and physical activity in her 1978 work The Life of the Mind. Roger Berkowitz, Associate Professor of Political Studies and Academic Director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Ethical and Political Thinking, joins Mr. Jones for this discussion. The program takes place in the Fisher Center’s Sosnoff Theater from 7–8:30 p.m.

For more information about these programs call 845-758-7957, e-mail [email protected], or go to http://www.billtjones.org/.

ABOUT THE BARD COLLEGE DANCE PROGRAM

The Bard Dance Program sees the pursuit of artistry and intellect as a single endeavor. We believe that the study of the body is a cognitive act demanding both physical practice and academic exploration. We focus on dance and choreography as a performing art with an interdisciplinary scope. Students are exposed to areas of inquiry that represent the broader contexts in which the art form exists, in and outside of the arts. We expect students to take risks—risks that call on their participation as citizens of the world and cultivate their perceptive sensibilities. We foster the discovery of a dance vocabulary that is meaningful to the dancer/choreographer and essential to her or his creative ambitions. This discovery leads to the cultivation of original choices—choices informed by a full exploration of a student’s surroundings, choices that find expression in new and dynamic ways. We prepare dancers for the versatility and integration necessary to face the questions: Where will dance go next? What will the next dance revolution look like and where will it come from? We believe that serious inquiry in all areas of the liberal arts is critical to the development of the whole person and to the success of our future artists. For more information, please visit http://inside.bard.edu/dance or contact director Maria Simpson at 845-758-7996 or [email protected].

ABOUT BILL T. JONES

Bill T. Jones is the recipient of the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors; a 2010 Tony Award for Best Choreography of the critically acclaimed FELA! and a 2007 Tony Award, 2007 Obie Award, and 2006 Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation CALLAWAY Award for his choreography for Spring Awakening; the 2010 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award; the 2007 USA Eileen Harris Norton Fellowship; the 2006 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreography for The Seven; the 2005 Wexner Prize; the 2005 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement; the 2005 Harlem Renaissance Award; the 2003 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize and the 1994 MacArthur “Genius” Award. In 2000, The Dance Heritage Coalition named Mr. Jones “An Irreplaceable Dance Treasure.”  Mr. Jones choreographed and performed worldwide with his late partner, Arnie Zane, before forming the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in 1982. He has created more than 140 works for his company. He was recently featured in the acclaimed HBO documentary The Black List in 2008 and in 2009 was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Also in 2009, FELA! – the musical co-conceived, co-written, directed and choreographed by Mr. Jones – opened on Broadway, topping the Best of 2009 lists of The New York Times, USA Today, Time, New York Magazine and Time Out New York. 

ABOUT BILL T. JONES/ARNIE ZANE DANCE COMPANY

Over the past 28 years the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company has shaped the evolution of contemporary dance through the creation and performance of over 140 works. Founded as a multicultural dance company in 1982, the company was born of an 11-year artistic collaboration between Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane. Today, the company is recognized as one of the most innovative and powerful forces in the modern dance world. The company has performed its ever-enlarging repertoire worldwide in over 200 cities in 30 countries on every major continent. 

In 2007 the Ravinia Festival commissioned the company to create a work to honor the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. The company created three new productions in response: 100 Migrations (2008), a site-specific community performance project; Serenade/The Proposition (2008), examining the nature of history; and Fondly Do We Hope…Fervently Do We Pray (2009), the making of which is the subject of a feature length documentary by Kartemquin Films titled A Good Man, to be broadcast on PBS American Masters in 2011. For more information, visit billtjones.org.

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