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While watching Bill T. Jones’ “Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” my persistent thought was that live, I would find the piece much more powerful. This leads me to think that the live dance is a separate genre from the filmed dance piece, one more focused on the visceral, and the other more on the analytical; I think the live genre is more suited to Jones’ piece. His treatment of audience emotion is also interesting, in contrast to Stowe’s method. He is trying to touch emotions that Stowe also tries to touch in the novel, but in a way that leaves more room for interpretation and ambiguity; he is trying to provoke strong feelings, but he does not follow the surest formula for making the audience, say, cry, the way Stowe does.

Seeing the video of Bill T. Jones’ “Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin” immediately brought to my mind the end of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Song” (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/song-3/): “yes, yes,/that’s what/I wanted,/I always wanted,/I always wanted,/to return/to the body/where I was born.” I think these lines strike at what Jones’ piece is trying to get at (From what I understand of his commentary): Love of the body, and a visceral understanding of the commonality of the human body, is a form of paradise. I like that a poem and a dance piece can use very different methods to get to the heart of an audience member (me), but still activate the same feeling.