New York Live Arts Presents Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company World Premiere In Home Season

New York Live Arts will present a 2025 Home Season for Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company featuring two programs, May 15-24.

Program A presents the World Premiere of Curriculum III: People, Places & Things and Program B features an anticipated reprise of Memory Piece: Mr. Ailey, Alvin…the un - Ailey?, originally created and performed by Bill T. Jones for the recent Edges of Ailey exhibit at The Whitney Museum of American Art.

Performed by the 10 Company members and set to a soundtrack culled from the counterculture which Jones sees himself a part of, Curriculum III: People, Places & Things is a multidisciplinary reflection on the world we live in right now through the mechanisms of recalling, reinventing and imagining. Jones's latest Memory Piece is the second in a series of solo performances reflecting on influential moments and figures throughout his illustrious career. The Home Season will be presented at the New York Live Arts Theater (219 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011) May 15, 16, 17 & May 22, 23, 24. Tickets start at $40 with limited Pay-What-You-Wish options, and can be purchased at NewYorkLiveArts.org or 212-924-0077, on sale now. Please see additional ticketing information below.

Curriculum III: People, Places & Things was created against the backdrop of a memory of freedom, and with that memory comes a taste for self determination: living where one wants to live; loving who one wants to love, celebrating that youthful desire to be free and discover the world and oneself within it. Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company began this work as an exploration of stateless people drifting in the seas, a rumination on willful displacement and searching; recognizing the dichotomy between desperation and the commitment to one's own freedom. Where everything from the environment to authoritarianism and political upheaval seem to be like the ocean itself, unknown and full of darkness and anxiety. Both violent and elegiac, the work examines who is or what makes an American in light of the demonization of immigrants, mass deportations, surveillance, and censorship. Jones shared lyrics from the 1965 Bob Dylan song “Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues,” which is referred to in different manners throughout the piece :

“Up on Housing Project Hill, it's either fortune or fame

You must pick one or the other, neither of them are what they claim

If you're lookin' to get silly, you better go back to from where you came

Because the cops don't need you, and man, they expect the same”

In his latest deeply personal Memory Piece solo, Bill T. Jones reflects on pivotal moments and influential figures throughout his groundbreaking career. A meditation on legacy, artistic evolution, and self-definition, Mr. Ailey, Alvin…the un - Ailey? intertwines spoken word, movement, and music to craft an intimate, multilayered homage to a dance world mentor. Jones, who has often described himself as having taken a different path than Alvin Ailey, uses this performance to examine that divergence—inviting audiences into a rare, reflective space, revealing the tensions, inspirations, and transformations that have shaped Jones as an artist and visionary.

Curriculum III: People, Places & Things is performed by Company members Barrington Hinds, Jada Jenai, Shane Larson, Danielle Marshall, Jacoby Pruitt, Philip Strom, Hannah Seiden, Mak Thornquest, Rosa Allegra Wolff, and Huiwang Zhang. “The dancers give tour de force performances — unflappable, tireless, committed and wholly individual,” said Gia Kourlas of The New York Times. The piece features lighting design by Robert Wierzel, sound design by David Van Tieghem, costume design by Liz Prince, and video design by Janet Wong.