In today’s virtual world, I’m tempted by dance every day. On a hilltop miles away from the city I love, I can take an online ballet class, see parts of the many performances that had to be canceled because of Covid-19, or watch videos streaming from a dance company’s vault. Some times I’d have to make an appointment; sometimes I’d have to pay. (Meanwhile, excuse me a minute, I’ve been advised to … [Read more...]
Taylor Made
Paul Taylor American Modern Dance at Lincoln Center, March 6 through 25. When Paul Taylor’s Roses premiered in 1985, fake petals drifted down onto the City Center stage just before the lights went out on his sweet-tempered choreography. No such sprinkling occurred on the second evening of Paul Taylor American Modern Dance’s 2018 three-week season at the former New York State Theater. Would … [Read more...]
The Pleasures of Taylor
Paul Taylor American Modern Dance at Lincoln Center, March 7 through 26. If Paul Taylor were a visual artist we wouldn’t be so hard on him. Picasso could paint a fish plate and serve lunch on it, and no one would fault it for not being as memorable as Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. It could even get broken or never make it to the table. A Taylor dance involves a set, costumes, music, … [Read more...]
The Old and the New Dancing Together
Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance continues its Lincoln Center run through April 3. In a program essay by Susan Yung for the Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance season (through April 3), guest choreographer Doug Elkins mentions that Taylor’s Esplanade was the first dance he ever saw on PBS’s “Dance in America” and acknowledges its influence on him. Not that you’d guess it at the opening … [Read more...]
Paul Taylor’s Dancers on an Adventure
Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance presents it New York season, March 15-April 3. Last year inaugurated the transformation of the Paul Taylor Dance Company into Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance. During that season, Shen Wei’s Rite was performed by his own company, and the José Limón company danced Doris Humphrey’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor. During the company’s current two-week … [Read more...]
Opening the Door, Inviting Visitors In
Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance Lincoln Center season invites other companies to share programs with Taylor's works. Beginning in the late 1920s, American choreographers, especially those pioneering what came to be called modern dance, built companies around themselves that featured their own works only. In the past decade and this one, we have seen a variety of ways in which … [Read more...]
Paul’s Worlds
Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance is inaugurated at Lincoln Center (March 11-29). Programming Paul Taylor’s new-to-New-York Sea Lark between his profoundly beautiful Arden Court (1981) and the equally gorgeous Esplanade (1975) during the Taylor company’s Lincoln Center season seems hardly fair to a piece that has little more in mind than a beach romp. You almost want to inquire, “Who let … [Read more...]
Taylor’s Treasure Trove
The Paul Taylor Dance Company celebrates its 60th anniversary, March 11-22. Paul Taylor made his first piece of choreography 60 years ago and went on to create 139 more. Some are among the most beautiful or the funniest or the most terrifying dances you will ever see. His company is performing twenty-one of them, plus two new ones, during its two-week 60th anniversary season at Lincoln … [Read more...]
Documenting Dance, Part 1
New York's Dance on Camera Festival 2014 premieres two documentaries: Miss Hill: Making Dance Matter and Paul Taylor: Creative Domain. We’re old hands at documentary films about major figures in the art world. That is, we pretty much know what to expect: we’ll glimpse the artist at work and hear him or her talk about it—alive or in grainy film clips. Various soul mates, friends, colleagues, … [Read more...]
A Nightmare Turns Fifty
Wishing Happy 50th birthday to a dance like Paul Taylor’s Scudorama mightn’t be a good idea. The cake could blow up in your face. You have to be a bit crazy to love this dance. Made the year after Aureole, which lives on in an indestructible springtime, Scudorama cringes and crawls and hides from view. The current revival dates from 2009. Scudorama’s 1963 premiere at the American Dance Festival … [Read more...]