Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company returns for June residency

Acclaimed for its original dance movement and theatrical flair, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company will return to Skidmore to take up residence June 3-23. This will be the third Skidmore residency since 1992 for Jones, whose choreography for the Broadway musical hit, Spring Awakening, was recently nominated for a Tony, an Obie, a Drama Desk Award, and a Lucille Lortel Award.

While at Skidmore, the 10-member company will conduct a three-week workshop for pre-professional dancers and present an array of public events, free except where otherwise noted. The residency will also provide creative time for the continued development of a major new work (co-commissioned by the College) to celebrate the company’s 25th anniversary. A showing of the new work in progress, starting at 7:30 p.m. June 16 in Skidmore’s Bernhard Theater, will be presented by SaratogaArtsFest, the June 15-17 community-wide festival of visual, literary, and performing arts. For admission details, visit www.saratogaartsfest.org.  Additional public events include the following:

- Dance lecture: "The Making of Another Evening: I Bow Down," from company associate artistic director, Janet Wong, 7:30 p.m. June 6, Dance Theater

- Master class (intermediate- and advanced-level ), 7:30 p.m. June 7, in the College’s Dance Center Studios. Admission is $10, registration at the door.

- Concert performance of Another Evening: I Bow Down (2006), 8 p.m. June 8, the Egg in the Empire State Plaza in Albany. With live music by Haitian-American violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain and the rock band, Regain the Heart Condemned. Pre-performance talk at 7:15 p.m. For information and reservations, call the Egg box office at 518-473-1845 or go to www.theegg.org.

- Open company rehearsal, 7:30 p.m. June 13, Dance Theater

- Induction of Bill T. Jones into the National Museum of Dance Hall of Fame, 6 p.m. June 15. Call 518-584-2225, ext. 3001 for reservations.

- Seven tai chi workshops, 6:30 p.m. June 11, 12, 14, 18, 19 and 21, and 9:30 a.m. June 16, Dance Center.

- Dance dialogue/demonstration with Bill T. Jones and director/choreographer David Gordon, 7:30 p.m. June 20, Dance Theater.

- Free showing by summer dance workshop students, 2 p.m., June 22, Dance Theater.

For more information call the Office of the Dean of Special Programs at 518-580-5590.

In 1982, Jones and dancer/photographer Arnie Zane formed the dance company that was to become “a major force in contemporary dance,” as Henry Louis Gates Jr. wrote in The New Yorker magazine. After Zane’s death, Jones continued to create galvanizing new works to explore such powerful issues as race, politics, spirituality, and death. Jones’s many accolades and awards include a 1994 MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant and designation as one of America’s “Irreplaceable Dance Treasures” by the Dance Heritage Foundation, and the 2005 Wexner Prize, given to artists who have been “consistently original, influential, and challenging to convention.”