Bill T. Jones, legendary artistic director, choreographer, and dancer is dressed is brown leather pants and a sweater patterned by leaves in autumnal purples. His silver hair and black glasses frame his sculptural face, which is quick to make eye contact and offer a big smile and bright sparkle.
Without wasting any time, he quickly shows us how many interpretations there are of something we've all lived with our whole lives - one minute of time. By asking us to raise our hands after one minute, and acknowledging our guesses, Bill T. Jones sets the stage for story time - stories of one minute each.
His performance didn't involve any dancing this time. To hear so much directly from Bill T. himself, and yet not see a single moving body changed the focus - perhaps he seemed more vulnerable than usual. Until now, Bill T. has read excerpts of the book with his company dancing at the same time. What we saw, however is a special version (rarely seen without dance) as a warm up for the performances to come at New York Live Arts in November.
Of the 60 stories that were chosen - by random chance - from 170 stories for his new book "Story/Time: The Life of an Idea" a few were chosen - by random chance - for the evening's reading. These stories, from all eras of Bill T.'s life, were accompanied by the music of Ted Coffy, who composed much of it, on the spot, letting chance decide.
A professor at University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Ted Coffy is dressed in faded jeans, a t-shirt and sweatshirt. His ponytail loosely framed his serious face which made more sense when he admitted he was uncomfortable knowing that "some of the audience may have seen him".
Sprinkled with artists names like Jasper Johns, John Cole, Virgil Thomson and Merce Cunningham, the one that clearly took center stage was modernist composer John Cage - and his love of indeterminacy. As Bill T. put it, "he is my grandfather and we are very different men. He was constantly messing with your expectations and found this a good thing because something will happen. Even if people don't like it, something will happen. He is a source, a comfort and a provocation for me."
Although I could not do justice to the vignettes themselves, they ranged from ear waxing to hitchhiking to hospital gowns and the homeless being fed goose meat. Yes, of course, a few were about dance, but surprisingly - dance didn't take center stage at all. One of the stories went something like…. "It is 2011 and I am composing this story while driving. I feel like crying or breaking something. This story will be better if I don't explain why."
When story time was over, it was conversation time. With his 94 year old mother in the first row, Bill T. acknowledged her when he spoke to his own upbringing and black culture. He responded to a question from the audience with another question... "What is black art? We're still going around and around about that. It's a sacred pain - it will always keep me looking for something." Bill T. didn't just accept our questions as they came out on the first try. In contrast to the theme of chance, like in his book and performance, he asked people to reconsider and reframe their questions for him. His responses were full of memorable one-liners and life lessons - like these...
"I'm a very ambitious son of a bitch." "I want people to say when it's all over, 'the dude was honest'." "The more the artist gets out of the way of his work, the more you can get into it." "Art history is made of schools. That's what academics do to explain artists." "I don't know if your life has to be interesting to tell interesting stories. {Pause} Therapy helps. {Laughter} No, for real, because it teaches you to observe yourself." "My question is how to stay true to all of my influences and still win."
The last one resonates with me the most. As chance would have it, (and he would be glad, I think), going to story time with Bill T. helped me define what's important to me and what I do.
Life Coach for Life's Dancers - helping people stay true and still win. (Thanks, Bill T!)