Analogy/Lance: Pretty aka The Escape Artist WORLD PREMIERE

In Part Two of Analogy: A Trilogy, we meet Lance, whose battles with his own personal demons-drugs and excess-exposes us to another type of war. It was the battlefield of the nightlife and underworld of the late 80s and early 90s club culture and sex trade. This “pretty boy-gangster thug”, a name he acquired in prison, holds steadfast to his often tragic and sometimes outrageously humorous narrative, while facing an uncertain future.

Lance T. Briggs (LTB or Pretty) was born in 1970 in Buffalo, NY. He was the only boy among five children. He fathered one son. He is a former dancer, model, songwriter, choreographer, exotic dancer and male escort. His life has been a struggle through addiction and recovery. In 2014, he began an oral history project with his uncle, Bill T. Jones. He is currently in recovery after having lost the use of his lower limbs due to certain medical circumstances not quite understood. He is writing a memoir called “Welcome to The Pretty Show”.

Composer Nick Hallett and baritone Matthew Gamble will accompany the stunning dancers of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company with a delirious mixture of lullabies, rhythm and blues and house music. The music will be performed live onstage while the dance evokes a ballet class, a lively disco and more indefinable interior landscapes.

This piece is part of Analogy: A Trilogy developed by Bill T. Jones with Associate Artistic Director, Janet Wong. Insipired by W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants, Jones continues his exploration of how text, storytelling and movement pull and push against each other and how another experience can be had through the combination and recombination of these elements. All three stories, while wildly different ruminate on the nature of service, duty and the question of what is a life well lived.

Commissioned by the American Dance Festival, Dancers’ Workshop and the Executive Director’s Fund at The Joyce Theater Foundation