NYU Skirball presents two marathon performances of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company’s acclaimed Analogy Trilogy. This is a rare opportunity to see the three parts of the Trilogy performed as a whole.  The complete Trilogy is made up of Analogy/Dora: Tramontane; Analogy/Lance: Pretty aka the Escape Artist; and Analogy/Ambros: The Emigrant (in its New York City premiere).

*Please Note: The run time is 6 ½ hours, which includes a 45 minute intermission and 90 minute dinner break.

The following runtimes are approximate:
Act 1 3:00pm-4:30pm (90 mins)
Intermission 4:30pm-5:00pm (30 mins)
Act II 5:00pm-6:30pm (90 mins)
Dinner Break 6:30pm-8:00pm (90 mins)
Act III 8:00pm-9:30pm (90 mins)

Five reasons you won’t want to miss this living legend:

 Bill T. Jones is “arguably the most written-about figure in the dance world of the last quarter century, [he] is inarguably the most broadly laureled.”
∙ Wendy Perron calls the trilogy “epic” (plus a sneak peak!) in Dance Magazine.
∙ In an interview with the New York Times, Jones asks: “‘Am I arguing that collage, assemblage, can be just as moving as Shakespeare, just as important and vital to us?’ (The answer would be yes.)”
∙ The trilogy is inspired by W. G. Sebald’s The Emigrants – first published in 1992, and reissued in 2017, coinciding with political moment of border walls and travel bans. Read more about Sebald’s work, in a New Yorker essay by Andre Aciman and in The Literary Review.
∙ The work is performed to Nick Hallett’s live score, which includes passages of The Emigrants set to music.

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Analogy Trilogy, inspired by W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants, was created by Bill T. Jones, Associate Artistic Director Janet Wong, and the company, over the course of four years. It combines dance, theater and oral history in an investigation of memory, storytelling and form. Performed to live music composed by Nick Hallett, the complete trilogy searches for the connection between three varying stories, focusing on memory and the effect of events on the actions of individuals.

Analogy/Dora: Tramontane
Based on an oral history Jones conducted with 98-year old Dora Amelan, Dora is a meditation on perseverance, resourcefulness and resilience while suggesting the amorphous nature of memory.

Analogy/Lance: Pretty aka the Escape Artist
Lance, based on an oral history Jones conducted with his nephew, Lance T. Briggs, is a tragic, yet humorous journey through the sex trade, drug use and excess during the 1980s.

Analogy/Ambros: The Emigrant
Ambrose is a fictionalized history that examines trauma and its effects on the course of an individual’s life, weaving together story, character, multi-media and song. Composer and vocalist Nick Hallett has set passages of the story to music and will be joined by pianist Emily Manzo and all the members of the company performing an original song cycle that partners with their movement, both as soloists and in a ghostly choir.

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, founded in 1982, was born out of an 11-year collaboration between Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane (1948–1988). During this time, they redefined the duet form and foreshadowed issues of identity, form and social commentary that would change the face of American dance. The company has performed worldwide in over 200 cities in 40 countries on every major continent and is recognized as one of the most innovative and powerful forces in the dance-theater world. NYLA/Bill T. Jones

Conceived and Directed by Bill T. Jones
Choreography by Bill T. Jones with Janet Wong and Current and Original Cast
Company:
Vinson Fraley, Jr., Barrington Hinds, Shane Larson, I-Ling Liu, Penda N’diaye, Jenna Riegel, Christina Robson, Carlo Antonio Villanueva and Huiwang Zhang
Original Score Composed by Nick Hallett
Décor by Bjorn Amelan
Lighting Design by Robert Wierzel
Costume Design by Liz Prince
Projection Design by Janet Wong
Sound Design by Samuel Crawford

Skirball Moves programming is generously supported by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation and the Harkness Foundation for Dance.

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Bill T Jones
Photo Credit: Ben McKeown
Bill T Jones
Bill T Jones
Photo Credit: Paul B Goode
Bill T Jones
Photo Credit: Company Management
Bill T Jones
Photo Credit: Paul B Goode
Bill T Jones
Photo Credit: Andrea Mohin
Bill T Jones
Photo Credit: Christina Lane
Bill T Jones
Photo Credit: Paul B Goode
Bill T Jones
Photo Credit: Paul B Goode

Go Beyond

Seán Curran on Bill T. Jones

As artists, how do we tell stories – our own and others’ – vividly yet honestly?