NY Live Arts Hosts Conversation with Bill T. Jones & Oskar Eustis

Legendary choreographer, National Medal of Arts (2013) and MacArthur "Genius" Award (1994) recipient, and artistic director of New York Live Arts, Bill T. Jones welcomes a discussion with Oskar Eustis-Artistic Director of New York's Public Theater, who has nurtured one game-changing hit after another for the Public, including the award-winning musicals Fun Home and Hamilton. As both leaders in the arts world and change-makers, Jones and Eustis delve into the responsibilities of both arts organizations and artists.

This casual and free flowing public exchange will speak to ideas of art spaces as incubators for resistance, performing arts existing within corporate culture, and ultimately self-reflection from Jones and Eustis on their motivation as artistic veterans to continue creating.

Monday, February 11, 2019 at 7 PM
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street, NYC
Tickets: $10, newyorklivearts.org 212 924 0077

Bill T. Jones (Artistic Director/Co-Founder/Choreographer: Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company; Artistic Director: New York Live Arts) is the recipient of the 2014 Doris Duke Artist Award; the 2013 National Medal of Arts; the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors; a 2010 Tony Award for Best Choreography of the critically acclaimed FELA!; a 2007 Tony Award, 2007 Obie Award for his choreography for Spring Awakening; the 2010 Jacob's Pillow Dance Award; the 2007 USA Eileen Harris Norton Fellowship; the 2006 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreography for The Seven; the 2005 Wexner Prize; the 2005 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement; the 2005 Harlem Renaissance Award; the 2003 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize; and the 1994 MacArthur "Genius" Award. In 2010, Mr. Jones was recognized as Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, and in 2000, The Dance Heritage Coalition named Mr. Jones "An Irreplaceable Dance Treasure." Mr. Jones choreographed and performed worldwide with his late partner, Arnie Zane, before forming the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company in 1982. He has created more than 140 works for his company. Mr. Jones is Artistic Director of New York Live Arts an incubator for movement based artists at every level of their career.

Oskar Eustis has served as the Artistic Director of The Public Theater since 2005. In the last three years, he has produced 2 Tony Award-winning Best Musicals (Fun Home and Hamilton), and back to back winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Hamilton and Sweat. He came to The Public from Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI where he served as Artistic Director from 1994 to 2005. Eustis served as Associate Artistic Director at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum from 1989 to 1994, and prior to that he was with the Eureka Theatre Company in San Francisco, serving as Resident Director and Dramaturg from 1981 to 1986 and Artistic Director from 1986 to 1989. Eustis is currently a Professor of Dramatic Writing and Arts and Public Policy at New York University, and has held professorships at UCLA, Middlebury College, and Brown University, where he founded and chaired the Trinity Rep/Brown University Consortium for professional theater training. At The Public, Eustis directed the New York premieres of Rinne Groff's Compulsion and The Ruby Sunrise; Larry Wright's The Human Scale; and most recently Julius Caesar at Shakespeare in the Park. He has funded numerous ground-breaking programs at the Public, from Public Works and Public Forum to the EWG. At Trinity Rep, he directed the world premiere of Paula Vogel's The Long Christmas Ride Home and Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul, both recipients of the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Production. While at the Eureka Theatre, he commissioned Tony Kushner's Angels in America, and directed its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum. Eustis has also directed the world premieres of plays by Philip Kan Gotanda, David Henry Hwang, Emily Mann, Suzan-Lori Parks, Ellen McLaughlin, and Eduardo Machado, among many others.