Imagine you're at a "Transformers" movie and you realize that America's dance master is sitting nearby.
It's possible. Bill T. Jones admits a fondness for action adventures and more. He's an amiable guy in conversation; a fiercely imposing one at work. Now he's featured in a PBS special tonight; here's the story I sent to papers:
By MIKE HUGHES
Rich contrasts ripple through the world
of Bill T. Jones, the dance master. He's:
– An amiable man who's fond of action
movies. He's also imposing – tall and taut, able to control any
room with his physical and verbal presence.
– A star, the winner of two Tonys, a
Gish Prize, a MacArthur “genius” prize and more. Still, his field
(dance) is often overlooked. “I come from a very poverty-stricken
art form,” he said.
– Someone who's done spartan work –
“me on an empty stage, gesticulating and talking.” But on PBS'
“American Masters,” we see see him develop a complex piece,
swirling with film, music and words.
Then there's his relationship with the
history of Abraham Lincoln – which is what he's doing in the PBS
film. He was commissioned to create a piece for the 200th
anniversary of Lincoln's birth in 1809.
Jones had grown up thinking of Lincoln
as “this man who is like Santa Claus or Jesus Christ, a secular
saint.” He leaped into the flip side, reading debunkers who said
Lincoln was merely being political.
Then, he said, came “a moment when I
realized, 'Bill, you've gotta lead with your heart.'”
His heart felt Lincoln was a good man
in an awful era: “Can you imagine that?” Jones asked. “Coming
into office and two weeks later having the bloodiest battle this
country has ever seen happen on your watch (and) some people say you
set it off ….Mrs. Keckly, the freed slave who was (his wife's)
seamstress, describes him doubled over with anxiety in his
nightshirt, literally doubled over.”
So Jones created an elaborate Lincoln
piece, with cameras following its development.
“We were actually there the day …
everybody arrived at the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Ill.,” said
co-director Bob Hercules, “all the way to the premiere of the
piece, almost two years later.”
Cameras showed Jones teaching, molding
and, on occasion, fuming. “It really demonstrates what it takes to
be an artist,” said Susan Lacy, founder of the “American Masters”
series, “the kind of commitment, … the difficulty, the
self-doubt.”
Yes, doubt. “Like most artists, we
are incredibly self-involved (and) I'm full of insecurity …. I go
in the studio, I gotta start all over again and prove it again to
me.”
Now PBS viewers will see him work at it
from the start.
– “Bill T. Jones: A Good Man.”
under the “American Masters” banner
– 9-11 p.m. Friday, PBS (check local
listings)