Paul Taylor's Ever Lively Dance

In posters and on billboards for each of their Spring seasons, PTDC flies off the page. In person, the they do a similar trick.

Francisco Graciano and Michael Apuzzo in Paul Taylor's "Gossamer Gallants,"
once more on the program on March 29th at 2pm.
Photo by Tom  Caravaglia.

Paul Taylor Dance Company always seems to be in motion, just off and above the stage. Theirs is an energetic force. PTDC is always propelling through air.

The momentum is intellectual as well as physical. A Paul Taylor dance is well-thought out and intelligent.
Taylor, in fact, is a man of many parts-- an author with a nice sense of humor, a dance maker with a great sense of humor, irony, and a vision all his own.

There are 8 performances left to the PTDC Lincoln Center Spring at this writing, and we urge you to catch
at least one of our favorites: tonight at 7pm, "Mercuric Tidings" and "Sunset" are on the bill with "Fibers" and "Troillus and Cressida (reduced)." On Wednesday, March 26th, go see "A Field of Grass." Friday, March 28th at 8pm brings a chance to see the new "American Dreamer," and Saturday at 2pm, "Marathon Cadenzas" premieres again; these are numbers 139 and 140 in the Paul Taylor oeuvre. "Piazzolla Caldera" is  on the final program for this season on Sunday, March 30th at 6pm.

You can purchase tickets and view the schedule here and follow PTDC on FB.

Paul Taylor's most recent book are the essays in "Facts and Fancies" published in 2013.

The Taylor Spring is Here (At Last)

Michelle Fleet and Robert Kleinendorst in "A Field of Grass"  
choreograhped by Paul Taylor, set to songs by
Harry Nilsson with costumes by Santo Loquasto and
lighing by Jennifer Tipton. First performed in 1993.
Photo by Paul B. Goode

It's spring-- at least it is a Paul Taylor Dance Company spring. The weather outside the David H. Koch Theatre at Lincoln Center, where the season lasts from March 11th through 30th, may still be iffy, but you can count on the warmth and good humor of PTDC to welcome you once inside.

Poster for "Airs" by Paul B. Goode.

Paul Taylor's vision is often edgy and a bit cockeyed, but it is always intelligent and interesting. For Paul Taylor, dance is social commentary or sometimes just social observation. He is often caustic, sometimes pointedly so, sometimes more genially. Paul Taylor sets the ordinary askew in his little jewels of invention.
His sharp insight into the human condition was well on display in the weekend programs we saw.

"Gossamer Gallants" took a place as a favorite when it first presented in 2011. This weekend, it had competition from a new work, that is new to me,  "A Field of Grass," first performed in 1993. In the interests of transparency, it is important to reveal that this reviewer has many favorites in the PTDC repertoire-- from "Company B" to the transcendent "Aureole," and on and on. "A Field of Grass" just happens to be a proximate fave.

Photo by Tom Caravaglia.

Leading a hippie circle-- yes it is that kind of grass-- that includes the outstanding Michelle Fleet, Robert Kleinendorst goes from joy to a little bit of a bummer and back again in "A Field of Grass." The lively songs of Harry Nilsson accompany the ensemble, which on this occasion also included the splendid Aileen Roehl, Sean Mahoney, Francisco Graciano, Heather McGinley and Christina Lynch Markham.

Photo by Paul B. Goode

For "Sunset," set to Edward Elgar's Serenade for Strings and Elegy for Strings, the mood is appropriately more elegiac. The cast puts aside its bell bottoms (designed by santo Loquasto for "A Field of Grass") and trades them in for shirtwaists and crisp khakis (set and costumes designed by Alex Katz.)
Both dances are more balletic than we've come to expect from Paul Taylor, and very beautiful to watch. In "Sunset," the men's movements have a Gene Kelly quality.

Photo by Paul B. Goode

"Airs," a classic out of the PTDC repertoire first performed in 1978,  is danced to Handel. It's formality is belied by the the short gowns and leotards worn by the men and their bare chests (costumes by Gene Moore.) On the same bill, "Dust," set to Francis Poulenc's Concert Champetre, is amusing and lively, but the pièce de résistance on this day's program is "Piazzolla Caldera" (1997).

"Piazzolla Caldera" breaks down the tango. There is the tango for one, a solo that seems impossibly sad in the context of this very sexy dance. A same sex tango relies heavily on horseplay and a tango a trois plays up the aggression that is also germaine to the genre.The music is by Astor Piazzolla and Jerzy Peterburshaky with costumes by Santo Loquasto.

Going forward into the searon, you can see "Gossamer Gallants" on March 22nd at 8pm with "Sunset" and on March 29th at 2pm with other works. "Piazzolla Caldera" reappears on March 21st at 8pm, and with "Dust" on March 30th at 6pm. "A Field of Grass" is on the program on March 26th at 6pm. and "Airs" repeats on the March 29th performance at 8pm.

For more information on Paul Taylor Dance Company, visit www.ptdc.org. For a schedule of the Spring season, visit the David H. Koch Theatere website.

Summer is for dancing: a couple of out of town Festivals

What’s 80 years old and extremely modern? Well, yes maybe also your ultra-hip granny but we’re thinking more along the lines of ADF.

The American Dance Festival, founded in 1934 in Bennington, VT, and now located in Durham, NC, is a summer home for an international community of dancers, choreographers, critics, musicians, students, and scholars joined in a supportive environment for creation and presentation of new works.

 

LeeSaar-MassMoCA. Christopher Duggan

Featured artists for the week of June 30^th through July 7^th include LeeSaar The Company which is bringing an ADF-commissioned work for their premiere performance called “Grass and Jackals.” The dance and light piece by the company, founded by partners Lee Sher and Saar Harari in 2000, explores movement and theatricality in a dynamic contemporary form.

Also on the stages at ADF is Kyle Abraham with Abraham.In.Motion, bringing his new work, “Pavement,” an exploration of the hard road black America has had to take during the past century.

The extremely popular Musician’s Concert is back on July 3^rd this year at 8:00pm as are dance and bodywork classes at ADF’s Samuel H. Scripps Studios for adults while ADF Project Dance, under the direction of Gaspard Louis, partners with Kidzu Children’s Museum to offer two free movement classes for children during the third week of the Festival.

In contrast to the long-established ADF, the Cape Dance Festival will be holding its inaugural event on July 27^th in Provincetown, MA. The brainchild of performing arts professionals Stacey-Jo Marine and Liz Wolff, the Festival includes Paul Taylor Dance Company, Project Moves Dance Company, CorbinDances, Lady Luck Burlesque, Lorraine Chapman the Company, and Yesid Lopez. As a throwback to an ancient tradition, the Cape Dance Festival is being held outdoors in an amphitheater, the Province Lands Outdoor Amphitheater, to be precise.

Among the many works on hand, will be "Paean," a solo choreographed by the late Christopher Gillis, a member of Paul Taylor's troupe. “Paean” will be danced by Michael Trusnovec, a senior dancer in the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Christopher Gillis died from AIDS complications in 1993. Ticket sales for all Festival performances will go towards raising funds for the AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod.

Visit http://capedancefestival.com/about/ to learn more about Cape Dance Festival.

To learn more about the American Dance Festival, visit http://www.americandancefestival.org/

It's Ailey Season In The City

Dance is a sort of go-to during the holidays. For some of us New Yorkers, it's Ailey Season.

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, at New York City Center through December 30th, is a sort of alt-Nutrcracker-- not that there is anything wrong with the profusion of Nutcrackers around town.

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater company in "Revelations." Photo by Manny Herhandez. 

The uplifting, "Revelations," an Ailey-choreographed piece that has stopped the show all over the world since its creation in 1960, continues to be the crown-jewel of the AAADT.

Artisitic Director Emerita Judith Jamison in "Revelations" from the company archives.

 Going to church with Ailey is always a special privilege. At the performance we attended, the music was live, conducted by Nedra Olds-Neal, and the AAADT company was joined by Ailey II and Students of the Ailey School to make up a cast of 50.

Cast of 50 for "Revelations." Photo by Christopher Duggan.

Ailey's dancers are among those who can be entrusted to do justice to the Paul Taylor cannon. Indeed, Taylor directed them when they introduced his "Arden Court" to the repertory last season. AAADT's style meshes well with the work.

AAADT in Paul Taylor's "Arden Court." Photo by Paul Kolnik.

The pomp and circumstance of the music by William Boyce has a processional grace. The dancing is at once majestic and down-to-earth. The muscularity of motion is fluid and easy. For Taylor, dance is play for adults.

AAADT's rendering of "Arden Court" is joyful and fun. 

Robert Battle, who took over as the third Artistic Director in AAADT's history in 2011 from Judith Jamison,

does not want his choreography to dominate the repertory. His "Takedeme" offered a brief (at just 5 minutes) but powerful and amusing addition to AAADT programming.

Yannick Lebrun makes a leap in Robert Battle's "Takedeme" seem so easy.  Photo by Andrew Eccles.

 The score, "Speaking in Tongues II" by Sheila Chandra, scolds in jibberish. The dance is complex, based on Indian Kathak, and the dancer, Yanick Lebrun moved muscles he could not possibly have had in isolation.

The afternoon's highlight, however, was Garth Fagan's "From Before," (1978) which enters AAADT repertory as a company premiere this season. Set to "Path" by Trinindadian composer, Ralph MacDonald, the dance starts out with African inflections, moves on to the Caribbean, and from there becomes jazzy. The Fagan-costumed cast in silken unitards, their bodies sleek in vivid colors. The steps are as lively as the vibrant melodies and rhythms that accompany the movement.

AAADT in Garth Fagan's "From Before." Photo by Paul Kolnik. 

For more information about Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and a schedule of programming, visit http://www.alvinailey.org/citycenter