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What goes on in the mind of Bill T. Jones while making his work? For this short video montage, Janet Wong – Jones’ artistic assistant and associate artistic director of New York Live Arts – gathered clips that give a sense of how Jones works and where he gets his inspiration. These include behind-the-scenes clips of rehearsals. For Deep Blue Sea, he was inspired by, among other things, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, in which the young black side-character Pip finds himself in the water during a whaling expedition. Jones reads from chapter 93: ‘Out from the centre of the sea, poor Pip turned his crisp, curling, black head to the sun, another lonely castaway...’ In his search for an elusive ‘we’ in these turbulent times, Jones uses the image of Pip to reflect on the dynamic between the individual and group identity. But also Yvonne Rainer’s No Manifesto and Martin Luther King’s I have a dream feature prominently in Bill T. Jones’ rich world of ideas as well.

credits

commissioned by Holland Festival a rumination on Deep Blue Sea, Park Avenue Armory cast Bill T. Jones, J. Bouey, Vinson Fraley Jr., Barrington Hinds, Chanel Howard, Dean Husted, Shane Larson, I-Ling Liu, s. lumbert, Penda N'diaye, Nayaa Opong, Marie Lloyd Paspe, Jenna Riegel, Christina Robson, Carlo Antonio Villanueva, Huiwang Zhang performance huidige en voormalige bedrijfsleden van de Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Company, Vinson Fraley Jr. with community participants from New York City and Fairfax, Virginia Interview conducted by Mutaurwa Mapondera music performed by Nick Hallett, Holland Andrews, Hprizm aka High Priest music by Nick Hallett, Holland Andrews, Hprizm aka High Priest arrangement Vinson Fraley Jr. original melody by Chanel Howard sung by Vinson Fraley Jr., Chanel Howard, Marie Lloyd Paspe