Norton Owen introduces highlights from past PillowTalks with choreographer Bill T. Jones, including reflections on his philosophy of partnering and its roots in contact improvisation. He also offers advice on how audiences might best approach his work and shares the personal story of a gift from two Pillow patrons.
[Music begins, composed by J.S. Bach, performed by Jess Meeker]
Norton Owen: Welcome to PillowVoices, a production of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival with content from the Pillow Archives. I'm Norton Owen, the Pillow’s Director of Preservation, and it's my pleasure to introduce and host this episode featuring Bill T. Jones who first performed at Jacob’s Pillow in 1989. Through excerpts from PillowTalks in 1997 with David Gere and in 2010 with Maura Keefe, we hear some of the origins of Jones’ belief that ‘any body can dance with any other body’ - a powerful entry point to experiencing the work of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane Dance Company - and a distinction that continues to this day. We also hear a very personal story of a gift from audience members at a Jacob’s Pillow performance turning into a deeply meaningful memory of committing to the future.
Today we are traveling back to a moment in time before Bill T. Jones was awarded a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to art and dance, before his National Medal of Arts, and before being named An Irreplaceable Dance Treasure, we are going back to the summer of 1997. Dance scholar David Gere reminds us in this PillowTalk with choreographer Bill T. Jones that there is a school of thought that says it doesn’t really matter what an artist intends in their work. What matters more is what audiences see and feel on their own accord and from their own context. At the same time, it’s natural to be deeply curious and want to know what was intended by a choreographer and to discover if it aligns with our own interpretations of a dance. As part of the 1997 season, Bill T. Jones kindly agreed to the Pillow’s request to watch video clips of his choreography along with audiences and describe some of the internal intentions in a PillowTalk with David Gere. The full recording of this talk is available in the Pillow archives onsite and is well worth a listen for those in search of a rare ‘director’s cut’ or inside peek at Jones's mindset. In this curated excerpt we learn a bit about Jones's relationship to contact improvisation and the moment he first discovered the opportunities in juxtaposing different bodies in partnering, an aspect of his choreography still very much present in his work today.
Bill T. Jones: Well here we see a man, who appears to be completely alone. And behind him there is a ghost, a figure that’s moving his big heavy arms. He walks slowly downstage and we’re curious to know what that little pale arms are doing moving his big black arm. And this debut here, music from [unclear word] which sings of first time the lead, the narrator of the song meets an English galley and they go on a journey.
David Gere: The music is very, very quiet.
Bill T. Jones: Very quiet. I wanted to sound like it was in another room. And then the man keeps…there is this slithering upstage, rond de jambe movement, that takes us back to the top where we started, which is something we were very interested in at that time. Points in space that are very precise that we keep returning to, so the [unclear word] of film loop that slowly evolves in front of you. Now the two individuals are doing the same path, back downstage but she is now his equal. And they are listening to each other as he gently undulates his right arm as she is still [unclear word]. It’s very important that the performers have an internal sense of rhythm and that they be totally resolved in what they are doing between the two of them. Don’t want it to be boy meets girl duet and it’s not about the battle of the sexes. It’s trying to be about two very different human beings performing something. They both agree to perform and share in giving and taking. Here we have what for us at the time a classical use of the arms, sort of rounded, low port de bras. We were constantly peppering what we did with these references to a dance form that felt totally alienated from. And initially, it was an ironic juxtaposition so that we, the woman leans the man onto her back. The audience is a bit surprised how we changed the vocabulary and the vernacular (?).
David Gere: One of the things that I noticed Bill in what you had to say about the relationship between this particular man and this woman in this dance, which is that she is his equal [Jones: Yes], that she lifts him. And you noticed that there was, of course you could hear this audibly, there was a loud audience response. This is actually from a performance I think just two nights ago [Jones: Mm-hmm]. Why do you think the audience's response is so strongly to the idea that this small woman is just supporting that large man for a moment?
Bill T. Jones: I think it's the, it's the juxtaposition and the surprise of that unusual reversal of roles. And it shouldn't be surprising considering what we have seen now in the dance world probably approaching 30 years. Contact improvisation was designed using principles taken from martial arts, jujitsu, karate, so that any person could use could, using leverage, lift any other person. I remember my first duet where we used to go to the jams with Judy Bender, who was a former ballerina, but she was very tiny. She was probably 5 '2", maybe 5 '2", 5 '1", and she weighed 90 -some pounds, and I was at that time easily 165. And the first moment that she was able to took me on to come back was a revelation for me and I think that that's what was natural to this choreography. But it's still a bit unnatural to the public at large and so they find it humorous and the dancers have to be pulled back from playing the humor of that. It's not really a circus act it's trying to in our day we played a completely dead pan because this is the way we danced. These dancers are a little more knowing.
Norton Owen: In this next excerpt, which takes place 13 years later during a PillowTalk with Maura Keefe, we hear Jones go deeper into how his partnering choreography evolved after the death of his dance and life partner Arnie Zane, as well as Jones’ advice on the ideal way he likes to experience art and how he invites us to experience his dances.
Maura Keefe: I think people know your large group works. They know your extraordinarily, profound solo performing. One of the things that I think you do better than anybody else I've seen make work is make duets. And I think I, I was wondering if you think that comes out of your sort of early negotiations in contact, you're working as a, as a duet pair with Arnie. If, if there's just something about the, I think I see in your work that you allow there to be a notion of two individuals and a partnership to exist [Jones: Hmm] simultaneously. And if you could just talk a little bit about that.
Bill T. Jones: Well, you know it, strangely enough, no one's ever really asked that way, and I appreciate it because I would say yes, it was the fact that we were, we were intimate, but also there was something about contact, there was something about living communally with Lois Welk, Joe Becker, Donny Joseph, Linda Berry, uh, all of us, um, sort of leading and following. Class would be as much improvisation as it would be trying to do tendus. Trying to process this exciting new form, which was called ‘Contact’ which taught pretty sophisticated as you know, sophisticated understanding of leverage [Keefe: Hmm], counter pull and all of those things. That was very, very, was heavy stuff. It was one, and maybe because Arnie and I were the most, I wouldn't know, we weren't the most ambitious, but definitely Arnie broke rules when he, and I think it was he wanted to set contact [Keefe: Oh, interesting] duets [Keefe: Mm-hmm], which was at, at that time, at least from certain quarters, was sacrilegious.
Maura Keefe: Mm-hmm. Kind of heresy 'cause it's an improvisational form.
Bill T. Jones: It should be improvisational. You know, Steve Paxton, who I have great respect for, developed contact improvisation, he made a piece at Purchase called, Suspect Terrain. And, uh, suspect terrain, I believe geologists in the room might have to correct me, but suspect terrain is when a geologist finds a, uh, a specimen of rock or stone or, or soil in a place that has nothing to do with what's around it. They call it suspect terrain. And he said that he thought improvisation was in the world of dance, suspect terrain. So that, when we decided, I don't know who went first, was it me or Arnie? Knowing Arnie, it was probably him, that we were going to try to set these lifts and exchanges and all,that was a big transgression, but it was also the way that we made the duets that you just described.
Maura Keefe: M-hmm. I think the, just the scale of your bodies, you were having to always figure out those, those questions of physics [Jones: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm]. And I think in later works, you have continued Bill. I'm thinking of a piece called, um, oh, I'm not remembering the name of it, but it certainly shows up in Soon and maybe it's Out Someplace as well. We see these pairings of very tall people with very short people [Jones: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm]. And that, that can, you know, the possibilities that are there are, you figured them out.
Bill T. Jones: Well any body can dance with any other body. That's what was so egalitarian or democratic about that form.
Maura Keefe: So what about the collaboration between dancers when not in improvisation, but then when you're setting those duets?
Bill T. Jones: Hmm. What about it? What do you mean?
Maura Keefe: Oh do you think that, I mean it's just so, if you as choreographer are working with a dancer and setting a duet, does the playing field get a little more level because it's a duet? [Jones: Hmm] And so even if you're the one who's in charge?
Bill T. Jones: Well, it's been a long time since I was, I really had a, a partner [Keefe: Mm-hmm] in that respect. I've been already, since Arnie died already. Shortly after that, most people I was dancing with there was Arthur Aviles. Yes [Keefe: Mm-hmm]. There was Amy Pivar. Yes. But neither Arthur nor Amy came from a contact point of view. Um, Julie West, this young woman from Ottawa, she and I made some rip rowing, uh, duets with sand, sandlot gymnastics [Keefe: Mm-hmm]. Yes. But, uh, by the time the, we got to Jacob's Pillow, which was, um, that was, I called Liz Thompson and said, don't you think it's time that we came? That was the year, it might have been the very fall, or maybe it was the next year after Arnie had died and the company was already doing other things [Keefe: Mm-hmm]. So, no, I was, um, was, did I make a duet with, with I'm sure, I'm sure I must be making a mistake. Did I make a duet with somebody who was just an equal? [Keefe: Mm-hmm] We were making a duet anymore? No. That, that was probably. I think that was part of grief as well [Keefe: Mm-hmm]. I think that was part of grief. I tell people about, uh, pieces like Blauvelt or Valley Cottage, these were our, it was Monkey Run Road. Blauvelt, Valley Cottage. Those were our, if you, if I'm allowed to say our classic duets, where all this stuff from the seventies that we had coalesced into a body of work. And we, I remember once flying to Hong Kong and getting off of the plane after 22 hours, jet lagged out of our minds and getting to our hotel. And there was a young man, young, uh, Chinese man who says, you know, we have a disco dance we'd like you to judge [Keefe and audience laugh]. Let's see your routine in the lobby of a hotel. Having yet not yet checked into the room. We're on the side going through what we do. No warmup. We knew it. So cold. I reach here, he reaches here, the arms go there, there, there, there, there, there, there. Now he was dead by March of ‘88 and that was probably somewhere in the early eighties [Keefe: Mm-hmm]. So I think there was a grieving, a grieving that went on. Out of a planet with several billion people. I don't wanna be too sentimental here, ladies and gentlemen, but I think out of a planet of several billion people that was a partner. There was a dance, which is a puzzle, and one part's gone. So for a while it felt this way, like, and it was here. And uh, when we decided to, for The Kitchen, reviving these works that Deborah Jowitt was on a panel with, I think Heidi Latsky, myself and Sean talking about the early days.
Maura Keefe: Heidi Latsky and Sean Curran, members of the company.
Bill T. Jones: Yeah. And she said, Bill, you should get out of the way of these dances. Get out of the way of these dances and let other people do them.
Maura Keefe: So to let the dances, the choreography have a life with new people in it [Jones; Mm-hmm]. That must've been a kind of wrenching moment in a certain way to think it had been so personal.
Bill T. Jones: Yeah, it was, I was a little angry at her when she said it, um, and very complex feeling about it, but you know, she was right [Keefe: Mm-hmm]. She was right. Yeah. Yeah, she was right.
Maura Keefe: So your collaborations, since Arnie's passing have been, and all along, you've worked with all different kinds of people. Visual artists, and I was thinking, looking at some of the people you've worked with, uh, Keith Haring and Robert Longo, you had costumes designed by sculptor Louise Nevelson.
Bill T. Jones: Oh, uh, yes, that's true [Keefe laughs] I did, didn't I? Uh, actually, I wore an, uh, an outrageous robe that she had made, but not necessarily for me [Keefe: Hmm]. But I did wear it in a piece.
Maura Keefe: Could you just say something about visual artists and working with visual artists and what's the common language you share with them?
Bill T. Jones: I am of the mind that I actually am making a visual art [Keefe: Mm-hmm]. With the same prerogatives as sculpture [Keefe: Mm-hmm]. I can juxtapose anything. I can disrupt, I can set up a rule and then bash my own rule. It is all about, um. Looking, and at the same time as you're looking, you're hearing, and you are, if you're like me, you're looking, you're hearing, you're thinking, and you're feeling, and you're supposed to be all of that is the experience as far as I'm concerned. But do you have permission to move back and watch yourself watching? [Keefe: Hmm] That's what I say. The holy grail for me in, in art making and particularly in performance, is to give audiences permission, actually that they're responsible. Sit back. Even as you are engaged, but watch with another part of the brain, watch yourself watching.
[Musical interlude "String Octet in E Flat Major" by composer Felix Mendelssohn from D-Man in the Waters by Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane Dance Company]
Norton Owen: We conclude this episode with a very tender story Jones tells of an experience he had just before a matinée performance at Jacob’s Pillow. It is in response to the question of what was the ‘switch point’ for him after being diagnosed HIV positive and expecting he would die, but then being surprised by surviving, learning from all the different people living with HIV that he interviewed when creating his seminal work Still/Here, and then embracing the courage to make plans far into the future.
Bill T. Jones: The switch came for me, I think, when I had fell in love again and made a commitment to somebody right here, at the Jacob’s Pillow, in the woods, that we were going to live together for 20 more years. And it was very hot one day before a matinee performance, two men, very handsome young men and obviously were lovers came up with a bag full, did this for us, a bag full of rose petals. And they said to me, "You know, we really love your work.” I'm standing with this person who, you know, I never talked about this. There's a point to that, Lord, you've got a relationship. And we knew something was going on. It was like, "This is who you are." I opened up with some pink rose petals. We'd go down the road here into the woods, and looks like I know I'm throwing at him, he's throwing at me, and we're talking about dance, and the Pillow, and what if, if we were friends, what would we do for each other? So the next thing you know the bag is empty, we're standing, surrounded by rose petals, and uh, there's a matinee, and we rush back [audience laughs]. Right here at Jacob’s Pillow. So that's one thing. And also to what I went through with Still/Here. It was very good to do, to go out and meet people who were living a life-threatening illness and have them tell me, you have to get up every day, you got to show up for your life, and pain is no big deal, it's a 16 -year -old to me. They were all living in the moment, but yet they were daring to plan and I stopped, I felt embarrassed to sit and mope and to worry. So that helped me too. And the fact that it's good news in some quarters that we've reported about healthcare and drug therapies available.
David Gere: The so-called cocktail.
Bill T. Jones: Yes, which government worked for everybody and also everybody can't afford it. But all of them together said, "Why don't you imagine a future where you live rather than a future where you don’t live?" And I think that changed everything. Plus the fact is I've been away from dancing so much that in Still/Here. And the work that we started to touring [unclear word], was a new way I started dancing when I made that movement. And I wanted to find a way to move in it. I thought I was dancing more and better than I ever had before. So the fire was burning again, and I entered into it.
[Musical interlude "String Octet in E Flat Major" by composer Felix Mendelssohn from D-Man in the Waters by Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane Dance Company]
[Music begins, composed and performed by Jess Meeker]
Norton Owen: That’s it for this episode of PillowVoices. Thank you for joining us today. On behalf of Jacob’s Pillow we look forward to sharing more dance with you through the films, essays, and podcasts at DanceInteractive.jacobspillow.org and of course through live experiences during our Festival and throughout the year. Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts for helping launch this podcast series. Please subscribe to PillowVoices wherever you get your podcasts and visit us soon, either online or onsite.