An Interview with Bill T. Jones (fromprecedingpage)

friends come and sit with him and they're
really stunned at how he looks. "My God,
look at him." Also sound familiar? And
they don't even talk to him for several days,
and he then the first one gets up his nerve to
talk and he says "Well now look, Job. This

   

of influence on our lives. Well, let's talk
about it in the open, and let's hear your
answers, because they have this particular
ring to them in the open.

I want people who don't believe to at
least see someone who does believe and to

doesn't hap- turn the question
pen to an in- back on them-
nocent per- selves - "what
son, you I do I believe?
know. Obvi- Mého age ye except What sense do I
ously you did a unc O  make of the
something concerns at this point? world and the
wrong." Job How hum n f ?" suffering and
says, "No, I a aewe what-have-
c o u 1 d n ' t you?" It's ulti-
have." And mately about us.
the next one No, his an-

says, "See Job, you're just too proud. Obvi-
ously you think you're perfect but God
knows you're not, and that's why you're
being punished." Or "It's original sin," says
the third one, "It's a sin even before..."

Nothing shakes Job's faith, and in the
end, God gives him back everything: his
cattle, his health, he has more children than
before, and he lives to be 140 years old or
something like that.

So I say to the Reverend, "What are we
to make of this? How do we, as modern
people, believe it? Is AIDS punishment
from God?" And I ask him to answer those
questions honestly in an auditorium in his
own community.

OITM: So that's not scripted.

BTJ: No, never scripted. I want him on
the spot, to answer the questions as he
would if I went to him privately. And you
know, there's a lot of talk these days that the
so-called religious community exerts a lot

A A . A A n a A ; A A A A A A A A A A A . A A A A A A AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

swers may not be satisfying to you, but do
you have a set of answers that are satisfying
to you? That's the most honest way I can put
it in dealing with sophisticated people with
very sophisticated late twentieth-century
problems.

I know that when we look at death, and
I think many of us in the gay community
have plenty of opportunity to look at death
—the closer we gettoit, something happens.
We change, we expand in some ways.
Some of us go out shrieking and crying and
afraid, but many, I think, meet it in incredi-
bly noble ways that illuminate everyone
around them. I'm saying, "Do we have to
wait to get to that point to find out what
these people know, what those who go
before us know?" That's one thing that was
an influence in the making of the piece.

It's not a piece about AIDS per se, but
it is a piece that asks questions in the time
of AIDS, the deepest questions in my life

Partners in Recovery and Growth Inc., Therapists

Erica Marks, S.A.C., A.C.H., Director
Giita Clark, Associate
Sherry Hunt, B.A., A.C.H., Associate

Sexuality, Substance Abuse, Spirituality, Parenting, Gestalt, T.A.,
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January 1991

right now. "What do I believe? What do I
love? What would I die for?" Now every-
one should answer them in their own way,
but I ask you in Burlington, you've got to
come with your whole self.

Diversity is one of the things thatl ask
of the community. The last image is a stage
full of naked people singing. Yes, it's a very
precious image; it is; I know. It makes some
people really uncomfortable, and it's too
easy and sweet and it's a cliche and all, but
I think it's worth stating.

You know, my mother is in this piece.
She's seventy-five years old; she's a South-
em Baptist; she's very religious. She had
the issue of homosexuality come to her,
and she had to ask God to help her deal with
it. And she is dealing with it, and the thing
I prod her most about is that she stands be-
side me in this.

Every night she does a prayer, which is
done from the heart. She asks the Lord to
take care of her son. Tonight she wants Him
to come into this room and move this room
and give her son and his dancers power to
do this...and she really means it. She'll go
there with me. She will go.

That is to me an aspect of the piece
which is about healing, and I offer it. Yes,
it's very personal — "Oh, how dare he show
his own personal life?!" — but I'm saying
that is what my work has always been made
of, and it's what I have to offer.

I said to someone, "I came out in this
piece as a New York artist who had a desire
for the sacred, who had a desire to reunite
with his personal tradition and tradition at
large, and I did it all publicly." I came out.
It's like coming out in a way, this work.
Everywhere I go, I'm assuming that people
right now want to feel less alienated.

A lot of us are very angry, and right-
fully. We should be. But there is an anger
that is a constructive one, that we pull back
the bow and we aim witha steady hand—it's
when all of our mind and our passion are
united and we let it fly. When it's gone, we
letit go. But it was all about the pulling back
of the bow and the focusing — just put it all
into that moment.

That's what I want this work to be. It's
something like a ritual I've given myself to
do, and it's a good one; it's not just for me.
I think it can really heal. It can make a
difference.

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