Growing up in the ’60s—gifted, black and gay — Bill T. Jones discovered brave new worlds in the words of James Baldwin. “It was like someone taking me by the hand on a roller-coaster ride,” he says now of “Another Country.” “And it didn’t hurt that he was a black man, speaking in an urbane, inner-city voice that knew the black church as much as my parents did. Those pages set the template for the achievements of my life.” Now, after too many awards to mention, the Bill T.Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company co-founder is marking what would have been the writer’s 90th birthday with performances by Stew, Fran Lebowitz, Colman Domingo and others
April 2327 at New York Live Arts in Chelsea; newyorklivearts.org. Here’s what’s in his library.
Giovanni’s Room
by James Baldwin
I was too busy living gay liberation to go back to descriptions of sad old queens preying on rent boys. I’m a post-Stonewall personality, and I didn’t want to read this. Only when I prepared for this festival did I read it, and now I think it’s one of Baldwin’s greatest.
James Baldwin: A Biography
by David Leeming
Leeming was Baldwin’s unofficial “secretary” and longtime friend. He takes us through his entire oeuvre. Analysis, biography — all of these things are tied up together here, and Leeming is able to destrand them, brilliantly. Baldwin has wonderful conundrums in his life, and Leeming can explain [them]. If you want to know about Baldwin, you couldn’t choose a better place to start.
Rites of Spring
by Modris Eksteins
Like most modern dancers, I accepted the mythology of Nijinsky creating this masterpiece of modernism. And we’ve all read about the riot [after its premiere]. But Eksteins makes the case that this was actually a rehearsal for WWI. He makes trenchant associations between Stravinsky’s music and the forces at work in Europe at the time.
The Tail of the Dragon
by Marcia B. Siegel
This is a brilliant series of essays, actually reviews, that Marcia Siegel — a wonderful and underread writer — put together in the ’90s about the ’70s and ’80s. She did an earlier book, but this goes deeper into Twyla Tharp and Trisha Brown, with a glimpse of newcomers like Bill T. Jones. Her introduction is a must-read.