“The most important thing an artist has is the will to do something,” says the Tony winner, who is bringing his new work, “Analogy Trilogy,” to the Kennedy Center.
Bill T Jones in his New York office at Live Arts. By Sarah L. Kaufman Sarah L. Kaufman Dance critic covering arts and entertainment Email Bio Follow March 22 at 8:00 AM NEW YORK — Bill T. Jones walks into his office, and the room seems to shrink.
Strange as it may seem, the singularly magnetic performer and two-time Tony-winning choreographer has a desk job. At least some of the time, when he’s not researching a new piece or in the studio with his world-traveled group, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. It’s an unusual mix of roles. There’s little precedent in dance or theater for a nonprofit arts incubator to be led by an artist of Jones’s stature.
The opening section, “Analogy/Dora: Tramontane,” centers on the tales unspooled over dinner and wine several years ago by Jones’s mother-in-law, who was a French Jewish nurse during the Holocaust and helped other Jews get false papers and escape. Jones got on the phone, in life-coach mode, urging him: Lance, don’t just lie there! You’ve always wanted to write songs. Write one! Do something.
“I wanted him to hear it under the anesthesia, so in case he were to pass away, he’d hear it in his unconsciousness,” Jones says. Dora, for instance, lost her family to the Nazis. She nearly died of typhoid; she wrestled with guilt over the Jews she couldn’t save. And yet she has no bitterness.“She’s a calm, organized, loving human being who is intelligent and curious,” he says. “She would tell me terrible things that would happen. But then she would tell me some instance of great kindness between people.
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