Continuous Replay: The Photographs of Arnie Zane [Paperback]

Jonathan Green (Editor), Bill T. Jones (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 19, 1999

introduction by Bill T. Jones Arnie Zane (1948-1988) is best known for his seventeen-year personal and artistic partnership with choreographer Bill T. Jones. Their creative interchange defined each other's artistic vision and led to one of the most celebrated collaborations in late-twentieth-century dance. The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company continues to bear Zane's name and to be inspired by his spirit.Continuous Replay, which is titled after a dance work of Zane's, is the first comprehensive presentation of his photography. Zane took up the camera in earnest in 1971, the year he and Jones met. His photography examines the body's physicality, sexual identity, and potential for beauty and decay. The design of the book and of its associated exhibition--which will travel widely within the United States--reflects Zane's aesthetic strategies and the dynamic interplay between his art and life, photography and dance, his collection of found images and his own photographs, and his self-portraits and images of others. The core of the book consists of six portfolios that present Zane's photographs side by side with his artwork, sketches, performance notes, snapshots of Bill and Arnie, and video stills and photos of the company in action. The portfolios are interpreted through writings by friends, dancers, curators, and historians from the worlds of photography, art, and dance.Essays by Jonathan Green, Susan Leigh Foster, and Christine Pichini commentary by Bill Bissell, Bill T. Jones, Robert Longo, Philip Sykas, and Lois Welk

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Since its inception, photography has had a love affair with dance. Continuous Replay is a carefully assembled survey of the photographic work of Arnie Zane, the late avant-garde choreographer and cofounder, with Bill T. Jones, of the American Dance Asylum and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. Zane was a prolific and inventive photographer and incorporated this art into his choreography and performances until his death at the age of 39 in 1988. The book goes beyond the typical monograph and employs Zane's own choreographic techniques to engage the reader, including repeated, accumulating combinations of images and the juxtaposition of narrative text throughout. Zane's photographs are at once lovely, explicit, and challenging. Green, director of the UC-Riverside/California Museum of Photography, presents the imagesAranging from frank nude studies of torsos to staged tableauxAin the combinations Zane himself intended. Also included are essays about Zane and Jones's choreography. The result is an intriguing and important overview not only of Zane's photography but also of the contribution the Jones/Zane collaboration made to contemporary dance. Vital Grace, a collaboration between dancer/choreographer Cyrus and photographer Savio, is an exploration and celebration of black male dancers. The approximately 190 color photographs, mostly of dancers executing Cyrus's choreography along with some close-ups and portraits, are crisp, beautiful, energetic, and stylish. In their introductions, both Cyrus and Savio state a desire to capture the joy and individuality of the performers in a non-stereotypical way, and generally they succeed; the photographs literally leap off the page. Commentary by such dance artists as Geoffrey Holder, Gregory Hines, and Bill T. Jones further enhance this eloquent testimony to the vibrant presence of black men in modern American dance. Each of these books informs the other and would make a welcome addition to larger public libraries.ADebora Miller, Minneapolis
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Jonathan Green is Director of the UCR/California Museum of Photography at the University of California, Riverside, where he is Professor in the Departments of Studio Art and Art History. His many curatorial and book projects include Pedro Meyer's exhibition and CD-ROM Truths & Fictions (1993) and American Photography: A Critical History (1984).

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (March 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262571277
• ISBN-13: 978-0262571272
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 10.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,600,393 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2.0 out of 5 stars The Dancer Takes Photos, August 28, 2005

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This review is from: Continuous Replay: The Photographs of Arnie Zane (Paperback)

Eddie Murphy sings; Jamie Foxx plays piano; Bette Midler acts: many artists dabble in more than one genre. Here, the late Arnie Zane presents photographs. This book is really for Zane-Jones fans more than other people. It would make for a risque coffee table book. The photos of Zane with Jones don't appear until the end. Some of the photos were clearly too old to have been clicked by Zane himself. Unfortunately, unlike Kevin Aucoin who made diverse people look beautiful, this collection shows diverse people, many of whom look nasty. I didn't really need to see women in the nude missing THAT part. This book proves that Zane was a creator who will truly be missed. But I love so many more homoerotic and conceptual collections better than this one.