Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company to Present NYC Premiere of ANALOGY TRILOGY

The Joyce Theater Foundation in association with New York Live Arts present MacArthur Genius Award and National Medal of Arts recipient Bill T. Jones and his company performing parts one and two of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company's new dance theatre work, Analogy Trilogy.

The New York City premiere of part one Analogy/Dora: Tramontane and part two Analogy/Lance: Pretty aka The Escape Artist will be performed at The Joyce Theater, October 25-November 6, 2016. For tickets and information, call 212-242-0800 or visit The Joyce Theater / www.joyce.org.

Complementing The Joyce Theater performances, Bill T. Jones will be in conversation with renowned artists. On October 29, Jones will be speaking with visual artist Carrie Mae Weems, and on November 5 with director Moisés Kaufman moderated by oral historian Mary Marshall Clark. Pretty Ball, a dance party on November 6, hosted by Bill T. Jones, Cain Coleman, Jr. as "Pretty" and the Dauphine of Bushwick, will close the company's season at The Joyce Theater. The events will take place at New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th Street, NYC, starting at 6PM. For tickets and information, visit: Events.

Developed by Bill T. Jones with Associate Artistic Director Janet Wong, the Analogy Trilogy is based on oral histories and inspired by W.G. Sebald's award-winning novel The Emigrants.
Part one, Analogy/Dora: Tramontane, recounts the story of 95-year old Dora Amelan, a French Jewish nurse, social worker and World War II survivor. Analogy/Lance: Pretty aka The Escape Artist, a tragic, yet humorous journey through the sex trade, drug use and excess during the 1980s.

Part One: Dora Amelan's harrowing, touching and inspirational story chronicle her live in Belgium, her mother's deaths as the German Army was marching into Belgium and her experience working at an underground Jewish organization in Vichy, France's internment camps, Gurs and Rivesaltes. Hers is a portrait of the ability to persevere and survive. Performance dates: Oct 27 at 8pm; Oct 28 at 8pm; Oct 29 at 2pm; Nov 1 at 7:30pm; Nov 2 at 7:30pm; Nov 5 at 8pm; Nov 6 at 2pm.

Part Two: Lance Theodore Briggs, a former dancer, model, songwriter, choreographer, exotic dancer and male escort, lived in the underworld of the late 80s and early 90s club culture and sex trade. His life has been a struggle through addiction and recovery, a battle with his own personal demons, drugs and excess. Lance's "pretty boy-gangster thug" character holds steadfast to his often tragic and sometimes outrageously humorous narrative, while facing an uncertain future. Performance dates: Oct 25 at 7:30pm; Oct 26 at 7:30pm; Oct 29 at 8pm; Oct 30 at 2pm; Nov 3 at 8pm; Nov 4 at 8pm; Nov 5 at 2pm.

Composer Nick Hallett and baritone Matthew Gamble accompany the stunning dancers of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company with a delirious mixture of lullabies, rhythm and blues and house music with many songs written by Lance himself. The music is performed live onstage while the dance evokes a ballet class, a lively disco and more indefinable interior landscapes.
Jones' Trilogy explores how text, storytelling and movement pull and push against each other creating other experiences through the combination and recombination of these elements. All three stories, while wildly different, ruminate on the nature of service, duty and the meaning of
a life well lived.

Analogy/Lance: Pretty aka The Escape Artist has been commissioned by the American Dance Festival, Dancers' Workshop and the Executive Director's Fund at The Joyce Theater Foundation and New York Live Arts, the home of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. Underwriting support for The Joyce's presentation of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company at The Joyce Theater is provided by Meryl Rosofsky and Stuart H. Coleman. Analogy/Dora: Tramontane has been commissioned by Peak Performances at Montclair State University. Co-commissioned by Dancers' Workshop and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Analogy Trilogy is produced by New York Live Arts. The development of new works by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company is made possible by the company's Partners in Creation: Anne Delaney, Zoe Eskin, Eleanor Friedman, and Carol Tolan.

This engagement is supported in part by the Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, the MAP Fund, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council with special thanks to Corey Johnson, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, the O'Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation, the Jerome Robbins Foundation, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Scherman Foundation, the Shubert Foundation, The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College and NYU Tisch School of Dance.

Located in the heart of Chelsea in New York City, New York Live Arts is an internationally recognized destination for innovative movement-based artistry offering audiences access to art and artists notable for their conceptual rigor, formal experimentation and active engagement with the social, political and cultural currents of our times.

At the center of its identity is Artistic Director Bill T. Jones, world-renowned choreographer, dancer, theater director and writer. New York Live Arts serves as home base for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and is the company's sole producer, providing support and the environment to originate innovative and challenging new work. New York Live Arts produces and presents dance, music and theater performances in its 20,000 square foot home, which includes a 184-seat theater and two 1,200 square foot studios that can be combined into one large studio. New York Live Arts offers an extensive range of participatory programs for adults and young people and supports the continuing professional development of artists and commissions.

Founded in 1982, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company 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.

The Joyce Theater Foundation ("The Joyce," Executive Director, Linda Shelton), a nonprofit organization, has proudly served the dance community for over three decades. Under the direction of founders Cora Cahan and Eliot Feld, Ballet Tech Foundation acquired and The Joyce renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea. Opening as The Joyce Theater in 1982, it was named in honor of Joyce Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz. It was LuEsther's clear, undaunted vision and abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately possible to build the theater. Ownership was secured by The Joyce in 2015. The theater is one of the only theaters built by dancers for dance and has provided an intimate and elegant home for over 400 U.S.-based and international companies. The Joyce has also presented dance at Lincoln Center since 2012, and launched Joyce Unleashed in 2014 to feature emerging and experimental artists. To further support the creation of new work, The Joyce maintains longstanding commissioning and residency programs. Local students and teachers (K-12th grade) benefit from its school program, and family and adult audiences get closer to dance with access to artists. The Joyce's annual season of about 48 weeks of dance now includes over 340 performances for audiences in excess of 150,000.

IF YOU GO:

The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Avenue (at the corner of 19th Street)
New York, NY 10011
Tickets start at $10 and can be purchased at www.joyce.org or by calling 212-242-0800

Program A: Analogy/Lance: Pretty aka The Escape Artist
Oct 25 at 7:30pm; Oct 26 at 7:30pm; Oct 29 at 8pm; Oct 30 at 2pm; Nov 3 at 8pm; Nov 4 at 8pm; Nov 5 at 2pm
Program B: Analogy/Dora Tramontane
Oct 27 at 8pm; Oct 28 at 8pm; Oct 29 at 2pm; Nov 1 at 7:30pm; Nov 2 at 7:30pm;
Nov 5 at 8pm; Nov 6 at 2pm