DANCE

With Bill T. Jones, you never know what you will get. Having started out (with Arnie Zane) as an in-your-face choreographer – admired as much for his guts and honesty as for his small-scale dances – Jones developed into one of the most acclaimed (and maligned) artists creating hugely popular (and controversial) multimedia dance-theater pieces. Then all of a sudden, he pulled back to embrace abstraction, autobiography, and formally tight essays. The two West Coast premieres in Berkeley appear to have a little of all this. Program one, As I Was Saying ... is billed as "mostly a solo" in which Jones explores a variety of music, including that of jazz performer Lord Buckley, widely credited as precursor to rap, and Bach's Partita in D Minor, performed live by violinist Nurit Pacht. Program two, Blind Date, is a company piece; it's Jones's response to 9/11 and everything that has followed. It incorporates autobiographical elements – not from Jones, but from four of the company's international dancers. Both programs will feature at least some live music. (Rita Felciano)

BILL T. JONES/ARNIE ZANE DANCE COMPANY

Zellerbach Hall, Fri/20-Sat/21, 8 p.m.

Bancroft at Telegraph, UC Berkeley, Berk. $26-$48. (510) 642-9988, www.calperfs.berkeley.edu