Trailer To ‘Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters’ Doc
Kino Lorber has released the trailer to CAN YOU BRING IT: BILL T. JONES AND D-MAN IN THE WATERS, co-directed by Rosalynde LeBlanc and Tom Hurwitz. The film celebrated its world premiere at DOC NYC and will open in select theaters and virtual cinemas on Friday, July 16th at Film Forum in New York and on Friday, July 23rd at Laemmle's Royal in Los Angeles, with national rollout to follow.
The New York Times’s rave review for Bill T. Jones’s 1989 dance, D-Man in the Waters, termed it "a new work that marks a new lease on inspired creativity…the kind of piece that sets audiences cheering" (Anna Kisselgoff). Created to celebrate the spirit of Demian Acquavella, one of the company’s dancers, diagnosed with AIDS, it was presented by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company just a year after Zane’s death from AIDS at age 39. Jones describes their relationship: "Arnie and I were a couple. We were a continent of two." CAN YOU BRING IT – co-directed by Rosalynde LeBlanc, a former dancer with their company, and Tom Hurwitz, the son of great Martha Graham dancer Jane Dudley – is a vibrant, inspired portrait of the brilliant and charismatic dancer/choreographer. Built around a current production of D-Man in the Waters (directed by LeBlanc), the film records the struggle of today’s young dancers to interpret the emotional anguish of the early AIDS epidemic era, from which Jones’s creation sprung.
Synopsis: 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 (both partners at the time) 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.
