Bardian SPRING 2011

an artist first, before a choreographer. I insist on that for myself. But
dance, it is heroic to me. When I see and I remember the life of a
dancer, I see dancers are very brave. Every day they face pain, doubt,
fear; their bodies are changing in front of my eyes. One day a person
is doing fine; he has an accident; the next day he cannot move. But
everybody in the group must come to the rescue, make profound
changes in the choreography, as a group. This is a picture of how I
think people should always behave. They bond. This feels like a
healthy community. Dance brings people together in that way.
So the question is, what do my dancers give, or what have they
given, to Another Evening? They are endlessly fascinating to me as
beings—men, women, black, white, small, large, open, free, quiet,
reserved. They are humanity. Ah! I have a little bit of humanity right
here and I can get this humanity to do things. But I talk to this
humanity and it is like a computer. It solves problems with me and
for me. When I started Another Evening, I was determined I was going
to make every movement. I didn’t want [the dancers’] participation.
But it doesn’t work that way. They always give an idea, they change a
movement, sometimes by mistake and sometimes purposefully. And
I see their change and I can resist or I can accept. The healthy thing
is to accept. This is always a struggle for me.
The company is now 28 years old. There is nobody in my world
who remembers when the company started. So this passage of time
is very real, this memory that, as time goes on, becomes my memory.
Another Evening tries to make us aware of that passage of time. But I
have to make my peace with the fact that everything is changing and
it changes rapidly. Sometimes it makes me very anxious, sometimes
it makes me sad, and sometimes it’s exhilarating, like a parent with a
child. The child is going to learn as they learn. The parent has to enjoy
that, as opposed to being frightened by it. I am trying to enjoy it, as
change, as rapid change, happens, new personalities, new problems.
I’m trying to enjoy the change.
bill t. jones 15