About this Event
5/1 Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company "Collage Revisited" & "Story" @ UMass (Amherst, MA)
Friday, 8-10pm
Frederick C. Tillis Performance Hall, Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts,
151 Presidents Dr,
Amherst, MA 01003
Contemporary dance's legendary innovators perform a pair of their most acclaimed works, "Collage Revisited" and "Story."
1. The History of Collage (1988)
The Historic Significance:
- A Final Collaboration: Created in 1988, this was the very last work Jones and Zane choreographed together before Zane tragically passed away from AIDS-related complications later that same year.
- Shattering the "Ideal" Body: At the time, modern dance was still dominated by a very specific, homogenous body type. Jones and Zane rebelled against this by building a company of varying sizes, statures, and races, proving that technical brilliance did not belong to a single demographic.
- Radical Storytelling: Collage was built as a surreal, Freudian dreamscape. It blended high-energy, eclectic dance with spoken word, lectures on Freudian theory, and audio recordings from the 1979 San Francisco riots following the assassination of Harvey Milk. It brought the raw reality of gay life, systemic anger, and the looming shadow of the AIDS crisis directly onto the concert stage.
Why It Is Still Relevant:
The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company has recently been touring a remount of this work as Collage Revisited. It remains a vital piece of art because the fights it chronicled—queer rights, systemic oppression, and navigating profound communal grief—are still very much alive today. Furthermore, witnessing the kinetic, defiant energy of this piece reminds modern audiences of the sheer bravery it took to make unapologetically queer, boundary-pushing art during the height of the 1980s AIDS epidemic.
2. Story/ and Story/Time (2013)
The Historic Significance:
- Taking on the Avant-Garde Establishment: Created by Jones 25 years after Zane's death, this work was deeply inspired by mid-century avant-garde composer John Cage’s Indeterminacy (a 1958 work where Cage read 90 one-minute stories using randomized, chance-based timing).
- Fusing "Hot" and "Cold" Art: Historically, the predominantly white avant-garde dance world (led by figures like Merce Cunningham and John Cage) valued "cold," detached, and highly abstract art. Jones, as a Black gay man whose work was famously "hot"—deeply narrative, emotional, and overtly political—used this project to crash these two worlds together. He utilized Cage’s "chance" methods (randomizing the order of the movement each night) but infused it with intensely personal stories, Franz Schubert's Death and the Maiden, and highly emotive human movement.
Why It Is Still Relevant:
Because Story/ uses an ever-changing "menu" of movement and sound driven by real-time cues, the dancers have to make split-second decisions on stage. No two performances are ever the same. This chaotic indeterminacy perfectly mirrors the feeling of the modern digital age: we are constantly bombarded with randomized, fragmented pieces of information, and we are continually forced to forge our own narrative, connection, and meaning out of the noise.
TICKETS:
Tickets start at $40 or $20 for five-college students
YOU MUST BUY YOUR TICKET(S) FROM UMASS FREDERICK TILLIS PERFORMANCE HALL USING THIS LINK:
IMPORTANT: Please also register on Eventbrite if you want to meet with the Q-MoB group before the performance for dinner & drinks at Johnny's Tavern. REGISTERING ON EVENTBRITE DOES NOT GET YOU A TICKET FOR THIS PERFORMANCE & WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO SEE THE PERFORMANCE. YOU MUST BUY YOUR TICKET FROM THE UMASS URL ABOVE.
OR : Please donate $10-$20 to help assure Q-MoB can continue to offer more than 20 activities & multiple resources & services to rural queer men all over the region. If you attend 2 or more Q-MoB events/month, please consider becoming a monthly sustaining donor. By donating $25, $50, $75, or $100/month you can help to sustain the incredible variety of activities, services, and resources Q-MoB provides and assure all of these activities are accessible to men regardless of their age, income, or ability, and best of all you can avoid having to donate at each and every event you attend. Monthly Sustaining Members pay only once a month and then can attend all our activities with no further donation.
HOW TO REACH US THE DAY OF THE EVENT:If on the day of the event you need to cancel or be late or have trouble finding the group, please call/text Mike McGuill (who's phone number will be in your confirmation email) and if you have questions about dinner & drinks before the day of the performance you can SEND US A NOTE or call/text Q-MoB at 413-344-8162. If you register on Eventbrite but do NOT buy your tickets from UMass Frederick Tillis Performance Hall, you will not be allowed into the performance. Registering on Eventbrite DOES NOT GET YOU A TICKET TO THIS PERFORMANCE, it only lets Q-MoB know you want to join our group for drinks/dinner BEFORE the performance.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Jacob's Pillow, 358 George Carter Road, Becket, United States
USD 0.00
