RADICAL MOVEMENTS.

THE WORK AND BACKGROUNDS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN CHOREOGRAPHERS BILL T. JONES AND RONALD K. BROWN REFLECT TWO VERY DIFFERENT GENERATIONS

At first glance, baby boomer Bill T. Jones and Gen X'er Ronald K. Brown actually seem to share quite a bit in common: Both are successful gay black choreographers whose works will be performed at the prestigious Lincoln Center Festival in July. Both have raised eyebrows with their bold-faced work. And both say that being gay was secondary to being black when it came to career obstacles.

At the genesis of their careers, however, the need for art to imitate gay life took on separate distinctions for them. Jones, now 48, began creating dances with his lover, the late Arnie Zane, in 1973 but says that "I never did gay-themed work. I never thought of it that way." Instead, he concentrated on stories from childhood, combining them with abstractions of movement. Conversely, Brown says that his earliest work from 1985 was gay-identifiable, such as Cooties, a dance that dealt with the paranoia surrounding gay men and AIDS.

The fact that Brown, 34, was involved in a circle of gay African-American men who were politically bent on celebrating all aspects of themselves made a difference. "It was a time for black gay men to create their legacy and living proof that we were there," he says. He also cites gay choreographers such as Alvin Ailey, David Rousseve, and Jones himself as those who paved the way for his generation's vision. Brown recalls that Ailey observed him working in the studio once and cryptically asked, "Are you one of mine?" Brown's recent work, Grace, bears the stamp of Ailey's traditional modern dance aesthetic and will be a Lincoln Center Festival performance by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Jones, on the other hand, was taught primarily by white female postmodernists; he remembers only one male mentor, decidedly heterosexual, a situation that "had its own sadness because I couldn't look to him for guidance." Jones rejected the superimposed desire for him to be the next Alvin Ailey, choosing to work specifically with Zane in the postmodern mode.

The two choreographers acknowledge that their influence has been felt by younger gay artists. On more than one occasion, Brown says, a fledgling dancer has come to him and said, "Ron, I see what you're doing, and it's allowing me to do what I'm doing." When Jones hears that he is a role model or icon, he balks. "First of all, they're telling you you're old!" he says with a laugh. "You are the granddaddy already. My vanity kicks in." He also suggests that issues of gender and race are less of an obstacle in the careers of today's young gay artists than mainstream commercial viability in a society that has gone into consumer overdrive.

Ruffling feathers is a trait that has inevitably gone hand in hand with Jones's politically and socially aware theater. His Still/Here, which forced audiences to rethink the boundaries of life and death, prompted a firestorm of publicity about what constitutes art. And Brown recalls an incident in which an elder from the black community cornered him after a performance of his dance company and suggested that his gay themes were too risque for the young audience. "It brought to my attention things I never considered to be controversial," he says.

Both men are adamant about educating people to change the way they look at diversity on and off the stage. "I hope that we as a society deal with our fear of difference and our need for everything to resemble us," Brown says. Jones has choreographed a new work, The Breathing Show, which explores why he originally wanted to dance at age 19, when his career was in its pupal stage. To the current crop of 19-year-olds he has this to say: "You can live with tragedy, with racism, with homophobia, and you can be fierce, and you don't have to accept any of it, but you have to be realistic about it. If those things have been my legacy for a younger generation of gay men and women, then so be it. I'm really proud."

Find more on Bill T. Jones and Ronald K. Brown at www.advocate.com

Carman also writes for The New York Times.