Over Again
Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Company of New York Live Arts
Analogy Trilogy – Dora:Tramontane
Eisenhower Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
March 28, 2019
What has become of yesterday’s rebels? In the instance of Bill T. Jones, this dancer remains a choreographer true to his Castor and Pollux vision of companionship with the late Arnie Zane (1948 – 1988). Jones made “Dora” in 2015, basing it on oral interviews he conducted with Dora Amelan, a French/Belgian nurse who was Jewish and bravely, adventurously survived Nazi Germany’s domination of her countries. It has a cast of 9 dancers. Much of the time, one or more of the dancers talks into a microphone. The narration is not totally audible even to audience members with very sharp ears.
Presumably it is Dora’s story that is being told. What the audience can take in completely is what happens on stage. There is a stopped-and-start alternation to the dancers’ actions that often gives the proceedings the semblance of being a frieze of figures from an ancient temple, one that has come alive. The linear frieze is frequently split into couples or individuals. Jones’ 9 dancers are distinct in appearance but, when moving moderately together, they share a firm pliancy. Two of the performers could seem singular. One was a woman with a shaved head. Her image was skeletal. The other stand-out was a short Asian fellow who sported fast footwork and at times a clownish face like that of Marcel Marceau.
The pace kept alternating from slightly sedated, moderately slow motion to spurts of frantically fast dashing about. Pedestrian activity, ballet steps and lifts as well as expressions of anguish occur. The alternation happens over and over again. for an hour and a half. For me, it became tedious. Bjorn Holmgren’s pallet of colors on stage was gray, orange and variant reds, black and white. The gray of the backdrop curtain was a constant; the other shades appeared in the simple costuming and on props of pasteboard cut like architectural components. The dancers manipulated the props. Over and over again.
Jones co-credits former and current cast members plus Janet Wong for the choreography. The music was diverse - by Schubert, Charles Trennet, Jean Lenoir and Anna Marly. “Dora” is the first part of Jones’ “Analogy” trilogy. Part 2 (“Escape Artist”) and Part 3 (“The Emigrant”) were to be performed the next evenings. Only the skeletal woman and the slight heaviness, the retard in the slower action evoked the Dora story. Still, Bill T. Jones’ “Dora” is not abstract choreography.
copyright © 2019 by George Jackson
