At the height of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company lost one of its founders. The members of the group, devastated by their personal loss and frightened by the epidemic raging around them, decided to channel their grief, fears, and hope into the creation of an original and deeply moving dance work. They titled the piece “D-Man in the Waters,” after a fellow company dancer who had also died of AIDS and whose nickname was D-Man.

Bill T. Jones was an artist who challenged cultural hegemony and racism. In this remarkable dance work he did so as well, a fact that becomes especially clear in the film when a group of dance students reconstructs the piece under the guidance of a member of the original company and of Jones himself. The encounter between the original generation of dancers and the contemporary one once again raises social questions, including the growing politics of identity, the persistence of racism, and the struggle with AIDS then and now.