Bard College and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company Culminate the First Year of a Successful Partnership with a Long-Term Residency at Bard College in May

Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, April 23, 2010 – Bard College and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company culminate the first year of a successful teaching partnership with a creative residency from May 3-21 and announce plans for an expanded partnership in the 2010-11 academic year. As Bard students finish the 2010 Spring semester, they will have the opportunity to interact with the Company as it develops a new project entitled Another Evening: Venice, to premiere at the Venice Biennial’s prestigious International Festival of Contemporary Dance in June 2010. A host of education and outreach activities will be conducted for the campus and surrounding community during the residency period.

Over the past year, Bard students have had the unique opportunity to work closely with a world-renowned professional company during their undergraduate course of study - taking technique and composition courses from Company teaching artists, participating in class visits and lectures by Bill T. Jones and attending live performances of the Company’s current repertory followed by exclusive post-performance discussions with the artists.  During the May residency, students can experience the Company’s creative process as they observe open rehearsals throughout the residency and have numerous opportunities to interact with Company artists through additional master classes, showings and Company members’ critique of student work. Workshops and master classes with community partners such as Red Hook Public School District are tentatively scheduled throughout the residency.

The public is invited to attend a free work-in-progress performance of Another Evening: Venice on May 20 (Thurs at 2pm) in LUMA Theater of the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. For reservations and information, contact the box office at 845-758-7900, or go to fishercenter.bard.edu. This long-term residency is supported, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

Based on the success of the teaching partnership’s first year, Bard College and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company will double the Company’s 2010-2011 teaching commitment to a total of ten courses per year. As this innovative teaching partnership expands, students will gain an even more in-depth experience with the Company’s creative methods and continue establishing a meaningful connection to the professional dance/theater world. 

ABOUT ANOTHER EVENING: VENICE

 Another Evening: Venice is the next iteration of the Company's ongoing series of site specific work. The piece is being created especially for the monumental Teatro alle Tese at the Venice Dance Biennial and recombines movement fragments from the Company’s past work with new inspirations.

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/ARNIE ZANE DANCE COMPANY

Over the past 28 years, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company has pioneered diversity and inclusiveness and 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. Renowned for its athleticism and beauty, the Company’s work has been described as a fusion of dance and theater. By blending technology, live music, movement and theater, Mr. Jones and his Company have profoundly expanded the palette of modern dance. 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 including: Austria, Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, South Africa, and the UK.

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company freely explores both musically driven works and works using a wide variety of texts. The repertoire is widely varied in subject matter, visual imagery and stylistic approach to movement, voice and stagecraft. The Company has been acknowledged for its intensely collaborative method of creation that has included artists as diverse as Keith Haring, The Orion String Quartet, the Chamber Society of Lincoln Center, Cassandra Wilson, Fado singer Misia, Jazz pianist Fred Hersch, Ross Bleckner, Jenny Holzer, Robert Longo, Julius Hemphill, and Peteris Vasks, among others. The collaborations of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company with visual artists were the subject of Art Performs Life (1998), a groundbreaking exhibition at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN. 

The Company has received numerous awards, including New York Dance and Performance Awards (“Bessie”) for Chapel/Chapter at Harlem Stage (2006), The Table Project (2001), D-Man in the Waters (2001 and 1989), musical scoring and costume design for Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin/The Promised Land (1990), and for the 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. Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company has distinguished itself through its teaching and performing in various universities, festivals and under the aegis of government agencies such as the US Information Agency (in Eastern Europe, Asia and South East Asia).

For more information, please visit www.billtjones.org

FUNDING CREDITS

Another Evening: Venice is made possible with lead support from the Company’s commissioning program, “Partners in Creation,” which include the following donors:  the Argosy Foundation, Abigail Congdon and Joe Azrack, Anne Delaney, Eleanor Friedman, Barbara and Eric Dobkin, Ruth and Stephen Hendel, Ellen Poss, Marcia Radosevich, and Carol H. Tolan. 

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This event was last updated on 04-23-2010

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