Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company in residence on campus

For the fourth summer in two decades Skidmore College welcomes the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company on campus for the annual summer dance workshop, scheduled June 3 to 23. 

The intensive workshop for pre-professional and professional dancers will focus on collaborative methods of creation. In addition to classes in technique and repertory, students will work collaboratively with SITI Company workshop participants in SITI Company's concurrent Skidmore workshop. This summer the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company is collaborating with award-winning director Anne Bogart and SITI Company to create a new dance-theater work coinciding with the 100th anniversary of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. This new work, A Meditation on The Rite of Spring, is being developed by the companies while in residence at Skidmore. The piece has been commissioned by Carolina Performing Arts, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and will premiere in January 2013.

Additional activities will include a performance of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center on Thursday, June 7, as part of SaratogaArtsFest; open rehearsals; and social events. The following public events are scheduled as part of the Skidmore Summer Dance Workshop featuring Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. Admission is free unless otherwise noted.

June 6: Lecture: "The Rite of Spring" with overview and history by Charles Joseph, professor emeritus, Skidmore College
7 p.m.- Arthur Zankel Music Center, Ladd Concert Hall

June 7: Performance: Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, A SaratogaArtsFest event.

7:30 p.m. - Pre-performance talk free with tickets for 8 p.m. performance

8 p.m. - Saratoga Performing Arts Center For tickets: www.spac.org or www.saratogaartsfest.org or call 518-584-9330 or 518-580-5596

June 13: Video Presentation: Excerpts from "The Rite of Spring" with discussion led by Janet Wong and Anne Bogart
7 p.m.- Skidmore Dance Theater

June 20: Dance and Theater Showing: An informal showing of a collaborative work-in-progress between Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and SITI Company. A Meditation on The Rite of Spring, developed while in residence at Skidmore, has been commissioned by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and will premiere in January 2013 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.
7 p.m.-Bernhard Theater

June 22: Dance Students' Showing: Participants of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company student workshop showcase their work during the residency.
5 p.m.- Skidmore Dance Theater

Over the past 30 years the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company has shaped the evolution of contemporary dance through the creation and performance of over 140 works. Founded as a multicultural dance company in 1982, the company was the result of an 11-year artistic collaboration between Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane. Today, the nine-member company is recognized as one of the most innovative and powerful forces in the modern dance world. The Company has performed its ever-enlarging repertoire worldwide in over 200 cities in 30 countries on every major continent.

In 2011, the Company announced a groundbreaking merger with Dance Theater Workshop to form New York Live Arts, an artist-led producing and presenting organization that strives to create a robust framework in support of the nation's dance and movement-based artists through new approaches to producing, presenting and educating. 

Bill T. Jones is the co-founder and artistic director of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and the executive artistic director of New York Live Arts. A multi-talented artist, choreographer, dancer, theater director and writer, his major honors include a 1994 MacArthur Foundation "genius" Award and Kennedy Center Honors in 2010. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and named "an irreplaceable dance treasure" by the Dance Heritage Coalition. In 2008, Skidmore College conferred an honorary doctorate upon Jones at the College's May commencement ceremony.

Jones's Broadway theater credits include a 2010 Tony Award for Best Choreography in the critically acclaimed FELA!, the musical that he co-conceived, co-wrote, directed and choreographed. He also earned a 2007 Tony Award for Best Choreography in Spring Awakening, as well as an Obie Award for the show's off-Broadway run. His choreography for the off-Broadway production of The Seven earned him a Lucille Lortel Award. In addition to creating more than 140 works for his own company, Jones has received many commissions to create dances for modern and ballet companies, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Boston Ballet, Lyon Opera Ballet, and Berlin Opera Ballet, among others.

Two visiting guest artists will participate in the Skidmore residency:

--Nicole Smith, artistic director of project:Smith, who also works for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company as a teaching artist and repetiteur, touring nationally and internationally. As a performer, she has danced in Doug Elkins and Friends' Fraulein Maria as Maria, and is also currently working with Zvi Gottheiner/Zvidance, Donna Scro/Freespace Dance, Maxine Steinman & Dancers, and as a guest artist with Shen Wei Dance Arts.  As an independent artist, she has taught modern dance and set choreography at many universities, performing arts schools, and most recently, Dance New Amsterdam.

--Stuart Singer, a Brooklyn-based performer and teacher. Originally from western Massachusetts, he began dancing at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter High School and received a B.F.A. degree from the SUNY-Purchase College Conservatory of Dance.  He has danced in the companies of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane (2004-2008), Doug Varone (2009), Wally Cardona (2008-2010) and Lucinda Childs (2011-present).  He is currently performing in the revival tour of the Philip Glass/Robert Wilson opera Einstein on the Beach. Singer is a guest artist in dance at Bennington College (2011-2012) and is a teaching artist for New York Live Arts.