MUSEUM OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA, BLACK PUBLIC MEDIA and WORLD CHANNEL present —

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African Diaspora Film Club at MoAD | CAN YOU BRING IT: BILL T. JONES AND THE D-MAN IN THE WATERS with Co-Directors Rosalynde LeBlanc and Tom Hurwitz

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Join us today on Zoom at 5pm (PDT) for our discussion:

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Please click the link below to join the webinar:

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https://moadsf-org.zoom.us/j/88080896088?pwd=YWZqSitGVHBtUGhFOGFKRlZmVFdjUT09
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Passcode: 386082

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Join us for our bi-monthly series, The African Diaspora Film Club. Modeled after our African Book Club, we will meet every other month to discuss a film that we have all viewed in advance of the discussion. The conversation will be moderated by Cornelius Moore, a longtime director at California Newsreel and film series curator at MoAD. We will be choosing a selection of films, some previously screened at MoAD. You may have already seen it, or this may be your first introduction. In either case, join us for a lively discussion of the film.

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This month we will be discussing BILL T. JONES AND D-MAN IN THE WATERS (2020, 87 minutes). You will receive instructions to join via zoom after you sign up here. Look for an email from MoAD after you signup, if you don't receive it in your inbox, look in your spam or junk mail.

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We will not be screening the film. CAN YOU BRING IT: BILL T. JONES AND D-MAN IN THE WATERS will be featured in the 2023 Season of Afropop: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange which will premiere on April 3, 2023. You can stream it on your local PBS channelor The World Channel.

View the film in advance and then join us for the discussion on Sunday, April 16th from 5-6pm (PDT).

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Directors Rosalynde LeBlanc and Tom Hurwitz will join us for the discussion.

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Check out this Artist Chat with Co-Director Rosalynde LeBlanc and Bill T. Jones!

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ABOUT THE FILM

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Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters is a feature documentary that traces the history and legacy of one of the most important works of art to come out of the age of AIDS - Bill T. Jones' tour de force ballet "D-Man in the Waters". In 1989, "D-Man in the Waters" gave physical manifestation to the fear, anger, grief, and hope for salvation that the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company felt as they were embattled by the AIDS pandemic. As a group of young dancers reconstructs the dance, they learn about this oft forgotten history and deepen their understanding of the power of art in a time of plague.

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ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

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Rosalynde LeBlanc is a Bessie-nominated dancer who has spent thirty years in dance as a performer, choreographer, and educator. She holds a BFA from SUNY Purchase and an MFA from Hollins University. She is a professor and current Chair of the Dance Program at Loyola Marymount University. Prior to her academic career, Rosalynde was a member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, and the Liz Gerring Dance Company. As a guest artist, Rosalynde has danced with Colleen Thomas Dance, Keith Johnson and Dancers, Charles Moulton, Keigwin + Company, in productions with New York City’s Metropolitan Opera and with Joachim Schlömer for the 250th Mozart Celebration in Salzburg, Austria. She has had her writing published in the leading international dance periodicals, Dance Magazine and Ballettanz, and her choreography has been licensed and commissioned by professional and student companies around the country. She continues her work with Bill T. Jones in the preservation of his legacy and pedagogy, directing the Educational Partnership between the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and LMU’s Dance Program.  In 2020, Rosalynde’s work in dance and service to education earned her an honorary induction into the Jesuit Honor Society, Alpha Sigma Nu.

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Tom Hurwitz, ASC is one of America’s most honored documentary cinematographers. Winner of two Emmy Awards, the Sundance and Jerusalem Film Festival Awards for Best Cinematography, Hurwitz has photographed films that have won 4 academy awards and several more nominations (most recently for Dancemaker and Killing in the Name). His features and television programs have won literally dozens of awards, Emmy, Dupont, Peabody, Directors Guild and film festival awards for Best Documentary, over the last 25 years — most recently were Emmy Awards for Best Documentary Specials for the PBS show Jerome Robbins and the PBS series Franklin, and Sundance Awards for Queen of Versailles, and Love Free or Die, on all of which Hurwitz directed the photography. His recent film, Nothing Left Unsaid: Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt, was shown at Sundance and on HBO.

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This program is co-presented by WORLD CHANNEL

WORLD shares the best of public media in news, documentaries and programming. WORLD’s original series examine the issues and amplify the voices of those often ignored by mainstream media. The multicast 24/7 channel helps audiences understand conflicts, movements and cultures from around the globe. Its original work has won a Peabody Award, an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award, an International Documentary Association Award, a National News and Documentary Emmy Award, two Webby Awards and many others honoring diversity of content and makers. WORLD is carried by 193 member stations in markets representing 75% of US TV households. Funding for WORLD Channel is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Wyncote Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts and Artworks. WORLD is produced by GBH in partnership with WNET and is distributed by American Public Television (APT). Find out more at WORLDChannel.org.

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The African Diaspora Film Club is presented in partnership with Black Public Media

Black Public Media (BPM), formerly known as National Black Programming Consortium develops, produces, funds, and distributes media content about the African American and global Black experience. Our mission is to commit to a fully realized expression of democracy and we accomplish this by supporting diverse voices through training, education, and investment in visionary content makers.

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For 40 years, BPM has addressed the needs of unserved and underserved audiences. BPM continues to address historical, contemporary, and systemic challenges that traditionally impede the development and distribution of black stories.

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