Honored Dance Icon Bill T. Jones to ‘Serenade’ Asheville

Bill T. Jones Dance Company’s performance piece based on the life of Abraham Lincoln, Serenade/The Proposition.

Two-time Tony Award winner and 2010 Kennedy Center Honors Recipient Bill T. Jones is recognized as one of the most innovative and powerful forces in the dance world. On April 15 in the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, Western North Carolina will get a rare chance to see the Bill T. Jones Dance Company’s performance piece based on the life of Abraham Lincoln, Serenade/The Proposition. Complementing the company’s dancers with video projection, live music, recorded sound collage, and live actors, the multimedia extravaganza is unlike just about anything that’s been seen on stage in Asheville.

Mr. Jones has been honored and recognized in many ways for his work. He is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” grant, an Obie Award, and two Tony Awards, one in 2007 for choreography for Spring Awakenings, another in 2009 for his musical Fela!, based on the life of groundbreaking Nigerian composer Fela Kuti. In December 2010 Jones was named a Kennedy Center Honors recipient along with Merle Haggard, Jerry Herman, Sir Paul McCartney, and Oprah Winfrey.

Serenade/The Proposition focuses on the Civil War era, drawing on
Lincoln’s inaugural address and the writings of Frederick Douglass to
examine how we talk to each other and ourselves about history. In a set
of movable columns animated by video projection, time and place shift as
the cast of dancers, musicians, and actors assemble and reassemble a
sense of history, both shared and personal. Evoking the sounds and
sentiments of Lincoln’s era, the score draws from Mozart’s Requiem,
“Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and “Dixie” in stirring original
arrangements that create a contemporary, playful musical collage for
cello, piano, and soprano voice. The cutting-edge choreography becomes
the core element in a feast for the senses.

Commissioned for Lincoln’s 2009 bicentennial, Serenade/The Proposition
premiered in 2008 at the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC, earning
praise from many sources: “Exciting… playful and stirring” (NY Times),
“Compelling storytelling and deeply romantic choreography” (Washington
Post), “Supremely distinguished” (Wall Street Journal), “A thing of
immense beauty and consequence” (Chicago Sun-Times).

Video of Serenade/The Proposition is available on Bill T. Jones’ YouTube
channel. More information is available online at www.billtjones.org,
www.kennedy-center.org/programs/specialevents/honors/index.cfm, and at
www.ashevillebravoconcerts.org.

This presentation of Serenade/The Proposition with The Bill T.
Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company is presented by Asheville Bravo Concerts,
the area’s oldest non-profit arts organization.
Tickets are $20-$60 and can be purchased by calling Asheville Bravo
Concerts office at (828) 225-5887, visiting www.ticketmaster.com, or in
person at the Civic Center Box Office. Student tickets for all Bravo
concerts are half-price.

Bravo’s 2011-2012 season will include the Soweto Gospel Choir, an encore
performance of the National Acrobats of the People’s Republic of China,
and the Moscow Festival Ballet performing the classic Ballet Giselle.