Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters brings dazzling dance to Vancouver Queer Film Festival, to August 22
A look at the creation, and remount, of a seminal work that channelled the grief of the AIDS crisis
Out on Screen presents the Vancouver Queer Film Festival until August 22.
DANCE FANS won’t want to miss Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters, an energized, passionately felt documentary available for streaming at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival.
It takes a multifaceted look at the creation of a seminal dance work that was steeped in the grief of the AIDS crisis.
On one level, it tells the story, through interviews, of the creation of Jones’s 1989 ballet D-Man in the Waters—a piece that worked rivetingly through the loss of the choreographer’s partner and company cofounder Arnie Zane to the epidemic. It recalls a thriving New York City arts scene that was devastated by the disease. Details illuminate the extreme stigma of HIV/AIDS at the time: paramedics refused to touch Zane’s body when they arrived at his death.
On another front, a group of Loyola University students re-create the famous dance, the film tracking the process from gruelling auditions and rehearsals to opening night. A generation later, the students have little firsthand knowledge of AIDS, and the film asks whether a dance can have relevance outside of its own era. The answer in this kinetically shot dance doc? A resounding yes.
It’s striking to watch all this during another pandemic—and during a time when studio dancemaking has been so limited. This is a vivid celebration of the stories dance can tell and the power of the creation process.
Pair it with a home screening of Fabulous, another VQFF documentary that focuses on professional vogue dancer Lasseindra Ninja, who returns to her home country of French Guiana to teach the beauty and drama of her art form. It has to be performed underground in a country where being outed can carry consequences--but it's still fabulous.
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