The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company will stop performing and touring in December 2027, New York Live Arts announced on November 6, ending 45 years of work. Its last year centers on Memory Palace, a retrospective that premieres in New York in March.
The final year opens in Boston, with performances at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston on November 20–22, 2026.
Memory Palace follows at New York Live Arts in Chelsea as a two-week festival, March 3–13, 2027, built from performance, film and conversation. More of the program is still to be announced, and a special presentation is planned for the New York Live Arts gala on March 15.
The company then tours through December. Confirmed presenters so far are the American Dance Festival in Durham, N.C., Dancers’ Workshop in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and Meany Center for the Performing Arts in Seattle, with more dates planned in France, Italy and Spain. The last performance is on December 31, 2027, presented with Park Avenue Armory in New York.
Bill T. Jones, the company’s co-founder and artistic director, is approaching his 75th birthday. “I still have an enormous appetite for making art,” he said in the announcement, “and I believe this is the right time to bring the Company’s extraordinary chapter to a meaningful conclusion.” He stays on as Founding Artistic Director of New York Live Arts, which will keep commissioning, producing and presenting work. Memory Palace is also meant to outlast the company, through exhibitions and a legacy film.
Jones and Arnie Zane founded the company in 1982, after 11 years of working together; Zane died in 1988. Since then it has made more than 140 works, played more than 200 cities and won six Bessie Awards in the Choreographer/Creator category. The repertoire includes D-Man in the Waters, Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land, Still/Here, Fondly Do We Hope… Fervently Do We Pray and Deep Blue Sea. Jones himself holds two Tony Awards, a MacArthur Fellowship, the National Medal of Arts and a Kennedy Center Honor.
New York Live Arts was formed in 2011 when the company joined with Dance Theater Workshop. Dates for the tour will be added at New York Live Arts as they are confirmed.
