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The Bill T. Jones

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On Saturday, October 10, 2015 Bill T. Jones featuring the Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Company performed at the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach, California. The title of the piece was “Story / Time” and portrayed Mr. Jones sitting at a desk center stage throughout the show narrating personal stories as the nine dancers danced on the stage around him. The Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Company was founded in 1983 by Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane in New York City. The company is well known, and has performed at various venues across the world. While their performances have ranged over a wide array of subject matters, the company’s ultimate mission is to encourage the collaboration of artists and…show more content…
The theatrical decision to remind the audience that the person next to them is measuring time differently than they are, was a very smart decision because it added an extra level of interpretation of the piece. At the end of this experiment, Mr. Jones then reminded the audience that there was a total of 70 minutes of performance. When the show actually began, it started with a digital green timer on the wall counting by the second, accompanied by Mr. Jones sitting at a desk with a desk lamp. He began to read a story as a single dancer in a pink long sleeved top danced beside him. This dancer was definitely the most memorable mover of the company due to her exquisite fluidity within her movement, as well as the desirable synchronization between her movements and the words of Mr. Jones’s voice throughout the piece. As the performance carried on, the other dancers performed various solos, duets, and quartets, of modern movement while Mr. Jones’s stories carried on.
There were moments where it was easy to interpret Mr. Jones’s stories and see the correlation between the story and the movement, but there were also moments when it was easy to get lost in the movement and forget the story was even taking place. Although it could be frustrating at times to suddenly realize the story had not registered due to the captivation of the dancers, it was still nice to watch the dancers perform to spoken word. There is a lot of power in words, not only in what
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