Fondly Do We Hope... Fervently Do We Pray
About the Work
"I live with the uneasy feeling that society has shaped me as a result of something that was stolen from us when Abraham Lincoln was killed. The cynicism and alienation that I feel in my head and heart arose because of this strange turn of destiny."--Bill T. Jones
Bill T. Jones, center, views Abraham Lincoln's hat in the vault archives of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield on Oct. 15, 2007, with Welz Kauffman, president and chief executive of Ravinia Festival, left, and sculptor Bjorn Amelan, the creative director for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company.
(AP Photo/Ravinia Festival, Russell Jenkins)
Bill T. Jones peers at Abraham Lincoln's death bed at the Chicago History Museum in Chicago on Oct. 15, 2007. (AP Photo/Ravinia Festival, Russell Jenkins) Click here for the AP article
Continuing this tradition of challenging, thought provoking work, Mr. Jones has created a new evening-length work about Abraham Lincoln Fondly Do We Hope... Fervently Do We Pray, which premiered at the Ravinia Festival and is now on tour. Commissioned by the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois, Fondly Do We Hope... Fervently Do We Pray has found Mr. Jones "leading with his own heart," seeking a way to articulate if not reconcile the view of Lincoln he had as a young boy growing up during the civil rights struggle and as a mid-life liberal artist who "has very few heroes." The most ambitious project in the Company's history, Fondly Do We Hope... Fervently Do We Pray investigates the myriad meanings of Lincoln, rejecting accepted truth in favor of challenging (and celebrating) the lasting contributions of this great man. This dance theatre work investigates a handful of key moments from his remarkable life, allowing song and memory to transport the audience to an emotional and intellectual space beyond the boundaries of space and time. By envisioning the America that might have been had Lincoln completed the Reconstruction, Mr. Jones exposes the great distance between what is and what could have been.
Photos
Click here to view photos from the premiere of Fondly Do We Hope... Fervently Do We Pray at the Ravinia Festival.
Follow the Tour
Associate Artistic Director Janet Wong provides behind-the-scenes footage from the tour, and shows how the piece changes and grows over time. Visit the video diary at fondlydowehope.com to check out the ideas behind design and music. Find out about the little things that happen on the side in sideline. But more importantly, come and see the work somewhere.
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Tickets
Click here to view touring calendar and purchase tickets.
The Ravinia Festival is the Lead Commissioner of Fondly Do We Hope...Fervently Do We Pray. This project is made possible with lead support from the Company's commissioning program, Partners in Creation. Co-commissioning support provided by Lincoln Center Festival and Indiana University Auditorium. Development support provided by Performing Arts Center Purchase College.
Major support for Fondly Do We Hope...Fervently Do Pray is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and by the MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Additional support was provided by the Doris Duke Fund for Dance of the National Dance Project, a program administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts with funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and MetLife Foundation. Music commissioning support provided by The O'Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation.
