Local Lens Film Series: Can You Bring It

About the Film

Reaching beyond the world of dance and the remarkable legacy of renowned choreographer-dancer-director Bill T. Jones, this documentary touches the essence of creativity and its relevance to the times in which we now live. It is a film about the fierce necessity of art in the face of catastrophe.

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, Bill T. Jones had lost his life and artistic partner, Arnie Zane to AIDS. D-Man in the Waters gave physical manifestation to the fear, anger, grief, and hope for salvation that Jones and his company felt as they faced their fate in the AIDS epidemic. In the film, as we follow 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 lives in order to commit and perform it successfully. Through an extraordinarily rich structure of cinéma vérité, interviews, archival material, and uniquely powerful dance cinematography, this lyrical documentary uses the story of an iconic dance to illustrate the power of art and the triumph of the human spirit in the face of catastrophe.