ADF Presents: Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters w/ a Formal Talkback Session

Running time: 90 minutes

Tickets: FREE! First-come, first-served

Join in celebrating the 30th Anniversary of ADF’s Screen Dance Festival with a documentary, Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters. The film will be followed by a Q&A with director, ADF alum, and former member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Rosalynde LeBlanc, Bill T. Jones, and two NC educators and former members of the company, Andrea E. Woods Valdés, Chair of Duke Dance Program, and Janet Lilly, Professor of Dance at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters brings to life the creative process that culminated in choreographer-dancer-director Bill T. Jones’s tour de force ballet D-Man in the Waters, one of the most important works of art to come out of the AIDS crisis. In 1989, D-Man in the Waters gave physical manifestation to the fear, anger, grief, and hope for salvation that the emerging Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company felt as they were embattled by the AIDS epidemic. As a group of young dancers in the present re-interpret the work, they deepen their understanding of its power—exploring what is at stake in their own personal lives in order to commit and perform it successfully. Through an extraordinary collage of interviews, archival material, and uniquely powerful cinematography, this lyrical documentary uses the story of this iconic dance to illustrate the power of art and the triumph of the human spirit. Winner of a 2024 Peabody Award!

Sunday, June 21 at 7 pm *Formal Talkback Session

American Dance Festival, ADF