Commissioned by Alvin Ailey in 1983, Fever Swamp was the first work created by Bill T. Jones, now a noted modern choreographer. It is an athletic romp for six male dancers set to a jazzy score by Peter Gordon.
"Re-staging Fever Swamp has been a joyful revisiting of an era and a sensibility some 15 years in the past. Fever Swamp looks back with curiosity to the music of Peter Gordon with its irreverent take on musical form and slyly subversive Pop inflection. The dance, like the music, while deeply engaged in formal issues, relies on a playful extroverted spatial approach and an eclectic movement vocabulary. Like the era that informed it, the work sets out to interrogate the notion of 'high' versus 'low' in culture and art. Originally made for six men, I have chosen to include women to give a richer emotional resonance and to expand the possibilities of partnering. Costumes and décor have been reconceived." Bill T. Jones on the revival of his work, Fever Swamp