Emperor Jones

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane & Company kicks off its 10thanniversary dance season with a tour de force: seven premieres scattered over five programs at New York's Joyce Theater, from October 13 through 25. Jones shows off his craftsmanship in expanding from duets with his late partner (who died as a result of AIDS in 1988) to collaborations with a company of highly individualistic dancers in works that are by turns mysterious, elusive, and raucous. Most startling is his solo, "Last Night on Earth," a meditation on sex and death, graphically illustrated and featuring vocal goddess Nina Simone, along with a set by painter Ross Bleckner and costumes by renegade designer Rifat Ozbek. "You have to take into consideration," Jones says, "our numerous lives—past, present, future, secret. . . . Sex is when you are most vulnerable, most desperate. You realize so much about sex is anger." Somehow, Jones makes real all those intangible emotions.

ROBERT TRACY