Famed choreographer to lead arts event


Performing arts legend Bill T. Jones will grace the stage of Bovard Auditorium, courtesy of USC Visions and Voices this Tuesday at 7:30 p.m with free admission.

The show will be a two-part event, with a performance featuring USC students in both the Thornton School of Music and the Kaufman School of Dance alongside Jones, as well as a discussion following the performance with Kenneth Foster, director of the USC Arts Leadership Program. The performance will be an innovative take on Story/Time, a spoken word piece immersed in dance and music. Each time Story/Time is performed, it is different because Jones works with new dancers and musicians who all have different interpretations of the work.

Jones is highly regarded as a leader in the arts, establishing himself in many different fields including dance, theater, music and activism. He initially studied to be a dancer at the State University of New York at Binghamton and has worked for years in the dance world. He has received numerous awards for his work, including a number of Tony Awards for his choreography, and has made groundbreaking progress in the arts community, forming his own dance company, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, in the 1980s. In 2011, he was appointed the executive artistic director of New York Live Arts, which is “an internationally recognized destination for innovative movement-based artistry offering audiences access to art and artists notable for their conceptual rigor, formal experimentation and active engagement with the social, political and cultural currents of our times,” according to the organization’s website.

Although he has done a majority of his work in the dance community, Jones has also worked on Broadway, in film and television, as well as new media, collaborating on different art installations and shows (New York Live Arts).

Tuesday night is sure to be a captivating and inspiring event featuring a visionary artist.