SUMMARY
Arnie Zane (1948-1988) is best known for his seventeen-year personal and artistic partnership with choreographer Bill T. Jones. Their creative interchange defined each other’s artistic vision and led to one of the most celebrated collaborations in late-twentieth-century dance. The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company continues to bear Zane’s name and to be inspired by his spirit.
Continuous Replay, which is titled after a dance work of Zane’s, is the first comprehensive presentation of his photography. Zane took up the camera in earnest in 1971, the year he and Jones met. His photography examines the body’s physicality, sexual identity, and potential for beauty and decay. The design of the book and of its associated exhibition—which will travel widely within the United States—reflects Zane’s aesthetic strategies and the dynamic interplay between his art and life, photography and dance, his collection of found images and his own photographs, and his self-portraits and images of others. The core of the book consists of six portfolios that present Zane’s photographs side by side with his artwork, sketches, performance notes, snapshots of Bill and Arnie, and video stills and photos of the company in action. The portfolios are interpreted through writings by friends, dancers, curators, and historians from the worlds of photography, art, and dance.
Essays by Jonathan Green, Susan Leigh Foster, and Christine Pichini. Commentary by Bill Bissell, Bill T. Jones, Robert Longo, Philip Sykas, and Lois Welk.