Before launching into his radically engaging new work "Story/Time" at the Walker Art Center choreographer Bill T. Jones leads the audience in a "conceptual warm-up" exercise. He asks us to raise a hand when we think a minute has passed. Most everyone is early by several seconds. It's the first of many instances during the evening when we are reminded that time is not a fixed concept. It shifts and bends according to circumstances -- many beyond our control.
Dances with stories by Bill T. Jones & Co.
REVIEW: Jones explores interplay of movement and words, as well as music and the element of chance.
By CAROLINE PALMER
February 17, 2012 at 5:25PM
"Story/Time" is comprised of 70 one-minute long stories written and read by Jones, a maverick mover who remains seated at a desk for the duration. The nine members of his New York-based troupe swirl around him on a stage marked off with a numbered grid. Chance procedures govern some content and performance order. These elements reference the visionary John Cage, whose 1958 piece "Indeterminacy" inspired Jones to take a new direction in his own work.
What starts out as a seemingly intellectual exercise quickly becomes something else altogether -- an evolving personal account. Time is a basis for structural organization but it doesn't wield a tyrannical influence. The dancing and storytelling complement one another yet also compete for attention -- intentionally and provocatively. Different senses are triggered simultaneously by the subject matter and the dynamic interactions between the dancers as well as the dreamlike sound score by Ted Coffey resonating from different parts of the theater.
The work is autobiographical in parts but it also relies on fiction, vocalization and silence. Its narrative arc has more to do with an assemblage of events ranging from the mundane to the extraordinary -- and how each influences the other.
Jones' writing is spare and powerful, addressing such difficult topics as the death of his father, his mother's grief and the death of his longtime partner and artistic collaborator, Arnie Zane.
The movement reinterprets these brief flashes of memory or insight but rarely reacts to them directly. Each dancer adds a vital energy that enlivens the words and affirms the power of being present in every moment. Interplay of light and darkness is also important, suggesting an emotional landscape defined by the extremes of experience. It is through the perspectives of others we often find something familiar, fulfilling and true. Something we couldn't have seen otherwise. Jones delivers an opportunity for such reflection with "Story/Time."
