“Ideas of death don’t change,” Bill T. Jones recently told the Observer. “We are born, we grow and some of us will give birth, and we will definitely die. That is the human condition.” We were talking about embedded themes Still/Herehis multimedia work that rocked the world of dance theater in 1994. Now, 30 years later, it will return to the stage where it first premiered, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) as part of its Next Wave 2024 & Emerging Visions festival. .
That work is as important as it ever was going to be in its entirety. “Fighting death, it’s fun,” said Amy Cassello, BAM’s artistic director. “I think that’s why the clip is important to present. It is something we all know and cannot escape, but it is not wisdom. It’s emotional.” When asked why he chose to enter the revival of the critically-controversial episode at Next Wave, a festival that often focuses on experimental and forward-thinking voices, Cassello demurred. Still/Here it is timeless “because of the way it was created, in its vision and in its activities, and because it is about the inevitability of death, which makes it necessary to celebrate life. That doesn’t go away. Thirty years ago, AIDS presented a particular challenge. On the surface, we are coming out of a different epidemic, but in my mind, everything and nothing has changed. “
When Jones, founder and art director of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, became pregnant Still/Herehe thought it would be a piece about the body and death. He had lost his partner and friend Arnie Zane to AIDS in 1988 and was an HIV positive man himself. But then she was challenged by a breast cancer survivor and activist to do a piece about breast cancer, and Still/Here it grew in scope.
Between 1992 and 1994, Jones conducted thirteen workshops across the country with people living with life-threatening illnesses. He called them “Survival Workshops,” and his friend and artistic collaborator Gretchen Bender went with him, recording them all on his video camera. “Because he was with me in all these places,” says Jones, “the workshops became something. Other raised quality.” Some of the images from these workshops are used in practice, but more importantly, what they heard and saw in those sessions became the basis Still/Here.
That fueled the conflict. One critic (who refused to even see the piece) felt that Jones was creating “victim art” and “showing the wounds” of the dying, but those who attended the play saw that this was not the case. In the first one Still/Here as early as 1994, Jones wrote: “My intention from the beginning of this project was to create a work, not as a vision of death and decline, but with the intelligence and courage necessary to perform the act of living.”
Observer spoke to Josie Coyoc, one of the original cast members of Still/Hereabout the process of creating and making the piece, which he called one of the best experiences of his life (“It was exciting. It was powerful. It was heartbreaking at points. It was my life.”).
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“I love that Bill is incredibly honest and brave,” Coyoc said. “He comes to you, and asks, ‘How is this life? What are your secrets? What can you share with me, because I am going through a very difficult time. What can I learn from you? What can I share with other people that will make this better for us?’ I must say that I don’t know that even in my life I feel I can do that, but he does it every time he does art.”
Coyoc said Jones wanted, frankly, to honor the people who shared their experiences at the conferences. He took their gestures seriously. “It wasn’t just, Oh, this is a handshake,” he explained. “It was, Why does this person shake your hand the way he does? Was it weak? Was it strong? Was it assertive? Was it like a hug? Was it fast? Or, you know, hold onto your hand for a while? … He was making sure that we brought out these special people who were talking about deep feelings about what they were going through.”
Several members of the original cast, including Coyoc, were invited to attend rehearsals with the new cast and answer any questions they might have. Hannah Seiden, the current dancer taking on the role of Coyoc, asked Survival Workshop participant Tawnni Simpson how she did some fatal falls. Coyoc took off his shoes and said, “Well, let me show you!” He still remembered the move he had been making continuously for two years—”It’s in my DNA.”—so he climbed onto Seiden’s partner’s shoulders, and saw the spots fall on his arms. “Dance is still almost like an ancient art,” he said, “in the sense that it is really transferred from body to body, through the person.” And I needed to hear what he was doing, if he was doing things right. And I needed Hannah to see what it looked like to do it first hand. ” After that, he spoke to them. “I just said, ‘It’s you it should hold him. There will never be a doubt that you will make every effort to catch it.’”
This creates layers. The essence of the Survival Workshop participants can be heard on stage, as well as that of the original and current actors. Tawni Simpson features Josie Coyoc, featuring Hannah Seiden. “What you’re going to see, in one way or another,” Jones said, “are spirits that have transcended time and space.”
Jones is looking forward to the dancers getting the experience of performing this song in front of an audience, “a big audience,” and deliver Still/Here to the new generation. “I really like the history of art. I want people to know that they are part of the process now, something that is transferred from time to time, and you can feel it—the method of the piece is understood in my heart and, therefore, in this small company. “
“I think it’s going to be a special emotional experience,” Cassello said at the end of our interview. “I don’t want to be hyperbolic about it, but … it’s kind of weird.”
Bender, who died in 2004, wrote the original Still/Here Letter: “We hope that the collaborative part of this work will highlight the human body and spirit within its culture of visual and auditory shadows—pictures and music accompanied by dance, sadly insisting that we are “still here” and trying to understand what a gift it is.”
Still/Hereproduced by New York Live Arts with lead support from the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and “Dance Reflections” by Van Cleef & Arpels, will be at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House from October 30 to November 2.
