Famed dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones will speak at the University’s first ever Convocation for the Arts Sunday, signaling the start of Jones’ week as the dance department’s artist in residence Nov. 9 to Nov. 15.
Jones’ visit to Charlottesville is part of his year-long “100 Migrations” project, which will take place at the University and in the greater Charlottesville area as well as in three other locations across the country.
Elizabeth Hutton Turner, vice provost for the arts, explained the importance of having an artist like Jones visit our community. “Bill T. Jones is a national treasure,” she said. “He has taken dance to an entirely new level of communication and performance. If we want to see a vivid demonstration of how history connects to the present, if we want to see how the arts can be further integrated throughout our academic enterprise, then it is important that we invite an artist of the caliber of Bill T. Jones.”
While at the University, Jones, a 2006 Tony Award winner for his choreography of Spring Awakening, will explore background material to help shape his new major work, “Fondly Do We Hope — Fervently Do We Pray”. The piece will be a dance/theater piece based on the words and teachings of Abraham Lincoln and will explore how those words resonate today. Jones hopes to premiere the work at the Ravinia Festival, to be held in Chicago in 2009 to commemorate the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth.
“I want art that teaches me something. I want art that asks the big questions about living, justice, beauty and strength,” Jones said in a preview documentary about the project by Kartemquin Films, which will chronicle Jones’ visit to the University. “Any good work of art must talk to us. What does it have to say to us today?”
While here, Jones will give lectures and teach advanced dance classes. In addition, Jones, along with 10 dancers from his Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, will gather 90 members of the University and Charlottesville communities to perform in the free performance of “100 Migrations” Nov. 15 at 4 p.m. at the south end of the Lawn.
Jones’ events will not just incorporate dance and drama majors, but anyone who has an interest in the arts. This sense of diversity is one of the central reasons for his visit and Turner’s vision for arts at the University.
“We’re looking to go across boundaries,” Turner explained. “We’re trying to see the student as a whole person.”
Turner also explained why further exploration of the arts is crucial to the development of the University and its students.
“Artists demonstrate new relationships and in these shifting perspectives we gain unexpected vantage points, which will lead to new questions,” she said. “We also derive the empathy necessary to assume leadership roles in society today.”
Turner said the University is exploring how to incorporate the arts into the educational process.
“At the end of this, we will be in a different place, she said. “If we can see and acknowledge the creative enterprise inherent in our work, we will have exponentially augmented our mission as a university."
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