Bill T Jones has always gone against the grain made it clear that while he appreciates and admires other choreographers, he is his own artist with his own techniques for choreography and dance. In his life, it is probably true that the existence of Graham, Ailey, Cunningham and other great modern artists pushed Jones to be his own artist and find his own voice and individualism from the other artists of his time.
Jones has always used experiences from his own life to create his choreography. Topics such as death and dying, as well as survival, are topics that Jones has tackled in some of his most notable works. And although most of his influences have been from directly from his own life experiences, some were also from world events: specifically, slavery. Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin/The Promised Land is a piece that Jones himself says “…started of talking about slavery was, at the end, the ultimate vision of freedom” (Gates, The Body Politic). In this piece, nudity was used to show how common and similar we really all are to each other. Because the early 90’s were still a time of social and racial segregation, still struggling to move towards equality that continues today, this piece showed that while looking at the different bodies nude, the audience was unable to tell or even care who was rich, poor, married, single, or even gay or straight. Jones grew up in an area predominately white, so he had clear inspirations from his early childhood situation.
In 1985 the AIDS test became widespread available, and both Jones and his partner, Arnie Zane were tested, both to learn that they were tested positive. This began Jones’ interest in death and disease, for which later in 1992, he hosted Survival Workshops that gathered people who had fatal illnesses to talk about their experiences in depth and detail. This, of course, led to the creation of Still/Here, in which these experiences shared by the people from the workshops are danced on stage in a creative, dark way.
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