ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses two very different ways in which British dance companies, DV8 Physical Theatre and Adventures in Motion Pictures, approached the issue of representations of gay masculinities in the 1980s and 1990s. To set this in context, it is necessary to note briefly the development of gay activism during this period, particularly in the US, around the AIDS epidemic. When David Gere interviewed Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane in June 1987, they admitted that they had actively resisted making their gay relationship part of the frame through which their work was interpreted (Gere 2004: 122-3). Gere spoke to them shortly before Zane went public with his AIDS diagnosis. In his autobiography, Jones has given a very honest account of their visits to a gay bath house in Greenwich Village where, before AIDS was known about, promiscuous sexual practices most likely resulted in spread of infection (1995: 153-8). It was in 1987 that ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, was founded. Medical researchers first identified the AIDS virus in 1981 but it was, probably, not until the Hollywood film star Rock Hudson died of HIV-related illness in 1985 that the significance of the epidemic registered on public consciousness. ACT UP campaigned against the inadequate political and administrative responses to the epidemic made by U.S. and European governments, and attacked international drug companies for discriminating against and exploiting AIDS sufferers. Zane, with Jones's support, went public about his diagnosis at a time when the effect ofthe epidemic on the dance world, in particular, was devastating.
