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Creator
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane and Company
Call number
(S) *MGZMD 477
Physical description
77.57 linear feet (171 boxes, 22 tubes, 3 oversized folders)
Language
English
Preferred Citation
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company records, (S) *MGZMD 477. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Repository
Jerome Robbins Dance Division
Access to materials
Some collections held by the Dance, Music, Recorded Sound, and Theatre Divisions at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts are held off-site and must be requested in advance. Please check the collection records in the NYPL's online catalog for detailed location information. For general guidance about requesting offsite materials, please consult: https://www.nypl.org/about/locations/lpa/requesting-archival-materialsRestrictions apply

The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, established in 1982 by dancer/choreographers Bill T. Jones (1952-) and Arnie Zane (1948-1988) has performed worldwide in over 200 cities in 40 countries. The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company records (1970-2016) document the work of the Company and its creators from its inception to 2016. The collection contains production files, photographs, programs, publicity materials, technical tour files, special project files, general company records, posters, designs, audio recordings, and video recordings.

Biographical/historical information

The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company was established in 1982 by dancers Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane (1948–1988). Prior to founding the Company, they had collaborated for eleven years, refining the duet form and adressing issues of identity, form and social commentary. The Company they created 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 repertory of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company is widely varied in its subject matter; visual imagery; and stylistic approach to movement, voice, and stagecraft. The Company is noted for its collaborative method of creation with such artists as Keith Haring, Cassandra Wilson, The Orion String Quartet, the Chamber Society of Lincoln Center, Fred Hersch, Jenny Holzer, Robert Longo, Julius Hemphill, and Daniel Bernard Roumain. The collaborations between the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and visual artists were the subject of "Art Performs Life" (1998), an exhibition at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN. Prominent dancers who performed with the Company include Arthur Aviles, Janet Lilly, and Lawrence Goldhuber.

The Company's notable evening-length works include Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin/The Promised Land (1990, Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music); Still/Here (1994, Biennale de la Danse in Lyon, France); We Set Out Early… Visibility Was Poor (1996, Hancher Auditorium, Iowa City, IA); You Walk? (2000, European Capital of Culture 2000, Bolgna, Italy); Blind Date (2006, Peak Performances at Montclair State University); Chapel/Chapter (2006, Harlem Stage Gatehouse); and Fondly Do We Hope… Fervently Do We Pray (2009, Ravinia Festival, Highland Park, IL). The ongoing, site-specific piece, Another Evening was last performed in its seventh incarnation as Another Evening: Venice/Arsenale (2010, La Biennale di Venezia).

The Company has also produced two evenings of Bill T. Jones's solo performances: The Breathing Show (1999, Hancher Auditorium, Iowa City, IA) and As I Was Saying… (2005, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN). An in-depth examinations of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane's collaborations can be found in Body Against Body: The Dance and Other Collaborations of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, (1989, Station Hill Press) edited by Elizabeth Zimmer.

The Company has received numerous awards, including New York Dance and Performance Awards ("Bessie") for Chapel/Chapter at Harlem Stage (2006), The Table Project (2001), D-Man in the Waters (1989 and 2001), musical scoring and costume design for Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin/The Promised Land, (1990) and for the groundbreaking Joyce Theater season (1986). The Company was nominated for the 1999 Laurence Olivier Award for "Outstanding Achievement in Dance and Best New Dance Production" for We Set Out Early… Visibility was Poor.

During the Company's 25th anniversary season in 2007, Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, IL commisioned the Company to create a work to honor the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. The three new productions created in response were 100 Migrations (2008), a site-specific community performance project; Serenade/The Proposition (2008), examining the nature of history; and Fondly Do We Hope… Fervently Do We Pray (2009), the making of which is the subject of a feature-length documentary by Kartemquin Films entitled A Good Man, which was broadcast on PBS American Masters in 2011.

The Company has distinguished itself through extensive community outreach and educational programs, including partnerships with Bard College, where company members teach an innovative curriculum rooted in the Company's creative model and highly collaborative methods; and with Lincoln Center Institute, which uses Company works in its educator-training and in-school repertory programs. University and college dance programs throughout the U.S. work with the Company to reconstruct significant works for their students. The Company also conducts intensive workshops for professional and pre-professional dancers and produces a broad range of discussion events at home and on the road.

Scope and arrangement

The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company records (1970-2016) document the work of the Company and its creators, dancer/choreographers Bill T. Jones (1952-) and Arnie Zane (1948-1988). The strengths of this collection, created by Bill T. Jones, Arnie Zane, and the staff of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, are its comprehensive documentation of all technical aspects of productions of the Company, and of the logistics of running and financing a large dance company, in New York and while touring nationally and internationally. The collection also documents original music composed for Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company productions, and how that music was produced. Jones' artistic process is documented with his choreographic notes and video recordings. The collection does not provide insight into the personal lives of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane.

Series I: Production Files documents the logistics of creating dance performances. The most extensively represented aspects of production are technical. Included here are lighting plots, designs, and cue sheets; prop lists; sheet music; sound cue sheets; and costume designs and inventories. There are occasionally notes on choreography, budgets, contracts, agreements, headshots, resumes, and correspondence with dancers, composers, and other collaborators.

Series II: Photographs includes extensive photographs of the company's productions and dancers, as well as of individuals such as Bill T. Jones, Lar Lubovich, Meredith Monk, and Arnie Zane. Photograph formats include negatives, contacts sheets, slides, and full sized prints.

The programs included in Series III comprehensively document the Company's domestic and international productions from 1980 to 2016. Publicity materials consist of articles on Jones, the Company, and its productions; as well as press releases, press kits, and other publicity materials.

Series IV: Technical Tour Files consists of working files on the cities the Company visited on domestic and international tours. These files contain technical information on the venues where the Company performed, as well as general tourist information on the cities, budgets, receipts, and sometimes publicity materials, programs, and correspondence with Jones and other Company staff members regarding the venue and performances.

Series VI: Special Projects covers benefits, galas, charitable initiatives, community projects, and performances or events that are not clearly defined as associated with a specific production or touring season. These files provide a broader picture of the Jones' and the Company's activities between 1976 and 2007. They contain correspondence, event schedules, budgets, programs, menus, guest lists, and invitations.

Series VII: General Company Records consists mainly of operational files dating from the 1980s through the 2000s. These files demonstrate the complexity of operating a large international dance company. Included here are files from Arnie Zane's office, which document his professional interests and work during the 1980s; as well as files on the many awards and tributes received by the Company and by Bill T. Jones. There are also files maintained by administrative assistants and other Company employees, containing materials such as Board meeting minutes, schedules, notes, reports, inventories, and business correspondence. The subject files cover such topics as collaboration with other companies and performing artists, board member recruitment, the challenges of trying to attract young supporters, marketing strategies, the Company's search for a permanent dance space in Upper Manhattan, and the Dance Theatre Workshop (DTW) merger. The financial challenges of running an arts organization are illustrated with grant proposals. Financial files include audit materials/year-end financial summaries, which give an overall picture of the Company's finances. Legal documents include contracts and insurance papers. Tax documents are also included, which are only available to researchers with permission from the donor.

The collection also includes a large number of posters (in Series VII) and lighting and set designs (in Series VIII) from Company productions and repertory performances; and over 3,000 audio and video recordings. More detailed description of Series IX: Audio Recordings and Series X: Video Recordings will be found at the series level.

The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company records are arranged in eleven series:

  • Series I: Production Files
    1979-2012
    15.69 linear feet (42 containers)
  • Series II: Photographs
    1974-2013
    6.92 linear feet (19 containers)
  • Series III: Programs
    1980-2016
    12.0 linear feet (30 containers)
  • Series IV: Publicity Materials
    1984-2011
    3.58 linear feet (9 containers)
  • Series V: Technical Tour Files
    1985-2013
    4.79 linear feet (12 containers)
  • Series VI: Special Projects
    1976-2007
    5.88 linear feet (15 containers)
  • Series VII: General Company Records
    1978-2011
    17.71 linear feet (43 containers)
  • Series VIII: Posters
    1973-2013
    7.58 linear feet (21 containers)
  • Series IX: Lighting and Set Designs and Plots
    1970-2009
    6.71 linear feet (16 containers)
  • Series X: Audio Recordings
    1982-2007

    This collection contains audio recordings of the music used in Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company productions and Bill T. Jones' solo show, and interviews with Jones. There are also recordings of other music (arranged by composer or artist) which may have been written for or used in Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company productions, but is not identified as such.

  • Series XI: Video Recordings
    1974-2013

    The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company records include more than 2,500 video which provide a comprehensive history of the Company and Bill T. Jones' career from 1974 to 2013. These recordings document all major Company productions with rehearsal and performance footage in New York and other cities where productions premiered, as well as and on both domestic and international tours.

    The most extensively documented production is Still/Here (1994), a dance piece which explores and contemplates survival, life and art through dance and music, with a visual score made from edited interviews with people who were or are facing life-threatening illnesses, including AIDS. The complete video recordings of the Survival Workshops Jones conducted in major American cities, from which the text of Stll/Here was drawn, are a highlight of the collection.

    There are also video recordings of interviews, lectures, classes, and solo performances by Bill T. Jones.

    The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company used a code to identify the category and date of the majority of video recordings, which is documented in this inventory. The prefix designates genre (B (Broadcast), I (Interview), L (Lecture), P (Performance), R (Rehearsal), SP (Special Project), and W (Workshop); followed by the date, beginning with the last two digits of the year, followed by the digit or digits of the month, and day, and in cases where there are multiple recordings from the same day, an additional numerical sequence. For example, R921142 indicates the second rehearsal recording from November 4, 1992.

Administrative information

Custodial history

Purchased from New York Live Arts in 2017.

Processing information

As far as possible, the organizational structure in which the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company maintained its own records has been retained. The folder titles and classifications assigned by the Company staff have also been maintained, which has created some inconsistency in naming conventions.

Processed by Diana Bertolini and Valerie Wingfield in 2018.

Using the collection

Location

Jerome Robbins Dance Division
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498
Third Floor

Access to materials

Some collections held by the Dance, Music, Recorded Sound, and Theatre Divisions at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts are held off-site and must be requested in advance. Please check the collection records in the NYPL's online catalog for detailed location information. For general guidance about requesting offsite materials, please consult: https://www.nypl.org/about/locations/lpa/requesting-archival-materials

Access restrictions

Audio and video recordings are unavailable pending digitization.