Bill T. Jones
“Still/Here”
Big Idea/Subject: Life and Death
Major Theme: Survival
Medium/Presentation: Performance, collaboration
Visual Components: Movement, integrated art, space, line, balance, unity
Above is a snapshot of a performance piece titled Still/Here. Choreographed by Jones, his company members use movement to depict the stories and struggles of survivors of life-threatening illnesses. Company members of his often have unconventional body types for ‘professional’ dancers and a variety of races and backgrounds. His piece also involved real video testaments of survivors he collaborated with. Watching the documentary on the background and collaboration that went into creating this piece was incredible. Relatively early on in Jones’ career his partner in choreography and life, Arnie Zane, died from complications of AIDs. Jones, himself, is HIV positive. Coming to terms with his partner’s death and his own diagnosis served as inspiration for creating this piece. He wanted to focus on the journey people go through when suffering and how people deal with that suffering and healing. The title of this work, Still/Here, is particularly interesting. It has many meanings. Even without the hyphen, the phrase ‘Still Here’ has immense power in this piece focusing on survival and the journey to get to that point of being a survivor. With the hyphen, the title evokes more of a feeling – the idea of being still is interesting; not many people are capable of being completely still and listening or feeling. It takes control and practice. It takes strength. Here seems to be an emotionally charged statement of acceptance and presence in the world. Together, Still/Here, seems to mean that these survivors possess an amazing amount of strength to have survived he journey they underwent and now contain the pride to carry that knowledge and strength within themselves. Combining real survivor accounts in the form of video with the movement of people emulating the pain of these real stories, this performance is a fantastic culmination of collaboration of survivors’ perspectives on beating sickness paired with the genius of Jones’ integrative choreography.
This piece (and documentary on the piece) is a good way to bring up difficult subject matter in the classroom. Death and illness are equally hard topics for anyone to deal with especially students K-12. Viewing this performance and analyzing its conceptual aspects may be the key for students to understand how to cope with events going on in their personal lives. It could also help children understand the importance of different perspectives, narratives, and how every art form is important and interrelated. Questions to pose to students could include: What does performance art mean to you? Is dance art? Why is concept behind an artwork like Still/Here important? Would the meaning of this piece still be conveyed if no video testaments were incorporated? How does a piece like this one connect with everyone? A project to introduce based on Still/Here could include expressive paintings or drawings using body movement to convey emotion or story. Other projects might touch on the effect of suffering in artwork with portraits or scenes. Another important aspect of Jones’ piece to introduce would be the positive effects of collaboration with multiple people and the melding of multiple mediums to create a whole. A possible lesson to introduce would be to have students collaborate with students from other class areas, such as the dance or music programs, to create a cohesive end product using multiple areas of talent to create a narrative or social statement.
Sources used: http://artsci.wustl.edu/~perfhist/spr_07_essays/vocal_with_kinesthetic.html, http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/archives/billtjones_stillhere_flash.html
Sarah Kedzior 