“We were hurting, but our work was a way that we kept going,” says Bill T. Jones in a new trailer for “Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters.” Rosalynde LeBlanc and Tom Hurwitz’s documentary revisits the historic moment and creative process that led to Jones’ 1989 ballet “D-Man in the Waters,” which is considered one of the most important works of art to come out of the AIDS crisis.
The DOC NYC title sees Jones reflecting on the origin of the trailblazing ballet and a new group of dancers in the present re-interpreting the work. “What is ‘D Man’? Is it alive now? Is it a cautionary tale? Is it one of inspiration?” asks Jones.
“‘Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters’ is about the power that art has to both sustain us and to galvanize us in times of despair,” LeBlanc told us. She added, “In 1989, ‘D-Man in the Waters’ gave physical manifestation to the fear, anger, grief, and hope for salvation that the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company felt as they were embattled by the AIDS pandemic.”
The director emphasized that she’d like audiences to “think about the essential and energizing force that is community, and the ways in which the human condition is vastly more improved by collective thinking than by individualistic thinking” after watching the film.
“Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters” opens in select theaters and virtual cinemas July 16.
