How to Walk an Elephant

How to Walk an Elephant represents the first collaborative work that Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane created for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Its title is good-humored hyperbole, acknowledging the overwhelming complexity and power of the music—modern master Conlon Nancarrow's “Studies for Players Piano.” The work employs an ensemble of 12 men and women. The dance, running parallel to the music’s episodic structure, meanders through an obstacle course of movement inventions, sometimes slow and stately, at other times breakneck, pausing periodically for sly references to the classics, and specifically to George Balanchine’s Serenade.