Program: Curriculum II
Running Time: 65 minutes, no intermission
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company website
“I have oscillated between two or more polarities my entire career: love, mortality, and what it means to be human.” – Bill T. Jones
For over 40 years, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company has shaped the evolution of contemporary dance through creation and performance of over 140 works. ADF-commissioned work Curriculum II, which premiered in June 2022, applies the ideas of Cameroonian historian and political theorist Achille Mbembe, Nigerian-born writer and scholar Louis Chude-Sokei, and Jamaican writer and cultural theorist Sylvia Wynter. Curriculum II explores the historical and persistent connection between race and technology and the pursuit of what is human. This is part of a series of works entitled Curriculum through which Bill T. Jones juxtaposes formal exploration with a range of today’s urgent topics as expansive as Jones’s artistry.
“Jones is not a choreographer in the sense that he just makes dances. He likes to tackle unlikely theatrical themes in unconventional ways…” – Hilary Ostlere, The Financial Times
Thursday, June 29 at 7:30pm *post performance discussion
Friday, June 30 at 7:30pm
Content Warning: Curriculum II explores the historical and persistent connection between race and technology and the pursuit of what is human. There is nudity and adult content/language. The visual installation includes hanged, whitewashed Black dolls and nooses. There is a physical reference to a Hitler salute. Attendees who may be sensitive to these elements, please take note. The performance utilizes strobe-like video and lighting effects.
Thank you for joining us this evening.
Photo Credit: Maria Baranova
Parking: Parking is available in the Bryan Center Parking Deck (Parking Garage IV) and can be purchased in advance for $5 per show here.
Curriculum II is commissioned and produced by New York Live Arts with commissioning support from PEAK Performances at Montclair State University in Montclair, NJ and the American Dance Festival, with support from the Doris Duke/SHS Foundations Award for New Works. Curriculum II premiered with PEAK Performances in June 2022. Created with support from the Made in Wickenburg Residency Program at the Del E. Webb Center for the Performing Arts in Wickenburg, Arizona with funding from the R.H. Johnson Foundation and The Welk Foundation.