The story goes that the 22-year-old Zane was immediately enamored of Bill T. Jones (a freshman studying dance and theater at SUNY) when he spied him across campus in 1971.

[4] Welk's improvisational workshop stressing the physical interdependence between dancers, fascinated Zane and sparked his passion for dance.

[4] The three (Zane, Jones, Welk) collaborated and formed the American Dance Asylum which was heavily influenced by the work of experimental dancers of the time, namely Yvonne Rainer and other members of Grand Union.

They created the trilogy Monkey Run Road, Blauvelt Mountain (both 1979), and Valley Cottage (1980)[5] (for which Helen Thorington composed the sound scores).

Zane and Jones also collaborated on Ritual Ruckus (How to Walk an Elephant) for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1985.

After a 1989 performance of Absence, writer Robert Jones described the piece as "a shimmering, ecstatic quality that was euphoric and almost unbearably moving."

Tobi Tobias, dance critic for New York, said that the work took "its shape from Zane's special loves: still images and highly wrought, emotion-saturated vocal music.