RHYMES WITH DANCE BILL T. JONES BRINGS HIS POETIC AND CONTROVERSIAL CHOREOGRAPHY TO THE MUSIC CENTER.

Byline: Vicki Smith Paluch Correspondent

As one of the leading artists of his generation, choreographer Bill T. Jones is taking time to look back and plunge forward as his modern dance company arrives in Los Angeles with ``The Phantom Project.''

The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company will make its Music Center debut Saturday and Sunday with a repertory program featuring new and classic works never seen in Los Angeles before.

``I am trying to understand how to look forward and trying to make sense of then and now,'' said Jones, 53, during a recent interview at the Music Center.

Over the past three decades, Jones has created more than 50 modern dance works that incorporate text, vocalization and full-throttle physicality. Today, Jones considers himself a poet rather than a provocateur, saying that his work has become more mainstream over the decades. However, the central work of the company's U.S. tour is ``The Phantom Project: Still/Here Looking On,'' which is a restaging of Jones' most controversial work, the 1994 ``Still/Here.''

In 1993, Jones took part in a series of ``survival workshops'' with the terminally ill. Within months, Jones, who is HIV positive, produced ``Still/Here,'' a dance that interacted with the testimony of the patients he interviewed. The work engendered a storm of criticism, prompting one religious leader to attack its HIV subject matter - despite the fact that AIDS was only one of the deadly diseases discussed by the patients who were ages 12 to 74. A prominent dance critic refused to review it, denouncing it as ``victim art.''

Often described as an examination of mortality, ``Still/Here,'' Jones said, is about how we live.

Returning to the work, Jones took a long, hard look at ``Still/Here'' and distilled it. The original was a full-length work, running two hours with two acts. Now it is one hour long. Jones narrates the piece with a commentary that relates the history of the piece while offering a survey of his own choreographic career. It retains the sound collage of the patients' own words.

``Ten years ago, I made the work. The company is new, and I have changed,'' he said. ``It's not about mortality but about how we strive, succeed or fail in these art forms, which are so ephemeral.'' Jones and his late partner, Zane, formed their own dance company in 1982, after 11 years of dancing solos and duets. The two met at State University of New York, Binghamton. They started their long collaboration in 1971, and in 1973 formed the American Dance Asylum.

Zane's first recognition in the arts came as a photographer.

``Continuous Replay: The Photography of Arnie Zane'' was published in 1999. Together, Jones and Zane, a tall African-American and a compact Caucasian from the Bronx, shook up the dance world. Their dances had grace and intelligence as well as aggression. Language became a part of their dance theater. Sexual politics, racial politics, robust physicality and a dreamlike soulfulness were thrown into the mix.

In 1988, Zane died from AIDS-related lymphoma. ``Bill and Arnie arrived like a force from another dimension,'' wrote Eric Bogosian, who founded and ran the dance program at the Kitchen from 1977 to 1981, and presented Jones and Zane. ``The two men, partners in life as well as in art, acted like aesthetic catalysts upon one another. They did (and still do, because Arnie's vision continues to be part of their company) incite the best in one another, always pushing physical, intellectual and spiritual limits.''

While ``The Phantom Project'' is the centerpiece of the weekend's performance at the Music Center, the company will also perform ``There Were'' and ``Mercy, 10 x 8 on a Circle.''

``Mercy, 10 x 8 on a Circle'' is one of Jones' newest works. Set to Beethoven's ``32 Variations on an Original Theme in C Minor,'' is pure dance, featuring five couples and their relationships. It is a distillation of his ``Reading, Mercy and the Artificial Nigger,'' a work based on the Flannery O'Connor short story. As a sister piece, ``Mercy'' takes the rigorous and multifaceted partnering for five duets from ``Reading'' and presents it as a constantly evolving cycle of duos that create an unpredictable theme and variation response to the music.

``There Were'' was created in 1993 and contains the seeds of ``Still/Here.'' ``It was designed as a wistful elegy to friends who are no longer with us,'' said Jones. The work features Jones reciting the poem he wrote - upon which he based his dance. Jones, a long and lean man, sat back in his chair at the conference table, adjusted his large, black-frame glasses and recited the poem in a deep, mellifluous voice:

``There were so many when we started/Will they ever return to us across these fallen flowers?''

Nine company members engage in a courtly dance that has a childlike innocence and simplicity. The dancers execute extreme changes of tempo, from quick and energetic leaps to slow, gliding footfalls set to the surprisingly tonal music of John Cage's ``Six Melodies for Violin and Keyboard.''

``I imagined the people to be my departed friends who were having a picnic in heaven,'' he said. ``It is a ritual dance that is serious to us, but for them it is tongue in cheek.''

As far as the future is concerned, Jones said he is ``wrestling with the question of that war, taking stock of what one does with big challenges as individuals and society.''

He is also wrestling with another question: ``What's the relevance of art right now?'' he pondered aloud. ``Moral accountability. Having a public voice to be strong and unafraid. I need to create work that feels and smells of the time in which it was made.''

He calls himself a poet - and not because he writes poetry. ``I take that which is personal and infuse that with universality.''

BILL T. JONES/ARNIE ZANE DANCE COMPANY

What: Dancers perform ``The Phantom Project,'' featuring new and classic works never seen in Los Angeles.

Where: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown Los Angeles.

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets: $20 to $50. [phone]. www.musiccenter.org.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company doesn't shy away from controversial subjects, which are given added context with the recitation of the company leader's poetry.

(2) no caption (Male dancer)