NYC Dance Happenings- Paul Taylor Dance Co.

Still Changing...

Last Tuesday, March 10, I was fortunate enough to sit in the orchestra at NY City Center and watch Paul Taylor Dance Company take over the stage.  I myself find it surprising that I had never seen this company perform live.  Throughout Taylor's 3-piece evening, "LE SACRE DU PRINTEMPS (The Rehearsal)" (1980), "PRIVATE DOMAIN" (1969), and "CHANGES" (New York premiere), I was brought back to 2005 technique class at OSU.  The onetwothrees of over-curves and under-curves came back to my body rhythms.  Loopy, exact arm placement itched in my limbs, and the easygoing cleverness of what I remember from my Taylor technique class came alive on stage. 

Choreographed by Taylor, and the only premiere of the night, the last dance was highly anticipated "Changes".  Taylor describes the inspiration for the piece in the program:

"We remember the Sixties as being defined by the demand for radical change.  Rejecting politicians' fear mongering and their disastrous war in Vietnam, young people questioned authority and embraced liberation movements.  While this era seems singular, in fact it was not.  The more things change, the more they stay the same." 

Rock on.  I arrived to City Center at 8:05.  Running through the doors, I got to my seat as the public orchestra doors were closing.  Ushers impatient, I had no time to read my program. During the first intermission I read about "Changes" I barely managed to contain my excitement.  Reading the music credits  (John Phillips, The Mamas and The Papas, John Lennon/Paul McCartney, John Hartford) made me giddy- as if I got a chance to go back in time. Taylor has the uncanny ability to take his audiences for a joy ride into the past.  Because of his groundbreaking material and place in modern dance history, Paul Taylor's old age only adds to his demure position and clever point of view.  He has time on his side, enabling wisdom and age phrases to visually come true.  

I have been waiting and waiting for a choreographer to compare and reflect what went down in the 60's and what is going down now.  Most modern day modern choreographers aim to do this, but execute some abstract, defeated air bubble of time in a very obscure way; mouthing the words but never really shouting them.  Taylor is blunt, honest, and manages to maintain his integrity through a topic now so cliche and overplayed in the NY arts scene.  Seeing the two time periods come together (note the easy usage of a Beatles song) in front of varying degrees of generations in the audience made me feel alive and present.  I am here in this world, at this time, and I will remember it forever.  Older audience members heard music that was on the radio in their day, and I heard music that's on my laptop today.  Radical barriers that were broken many moons ago are questioned on news stations today.  I felt like I could relate to the 55 year old woman sitting next to me.

It was truly a pleasure watching the company sway, smile, and groove on stage.  The joy and energy the dancers were emulating was so catching I wanted to run on stage and prance in a circle with arms wide open.  The dancers were in Woodstock, on their happy trip, or listening to their favorite band.  They seemed so immersed in their element, at home in their bodies, and mentally at peace- all the while extending sharp legs with the contradiction of smooth arms.  Taylor dancers are in tune with one another, reinventing and reminding us why they're a "company". They dance together, bringing a serene-ness to unison phrases.  Emotions were appropriate, neither under or over stated.  They relayed tumultuous times with the despair of what is happening/was happening over seas without being dramatic, saving us all.

Dressed in costumes straight out of "Dazed and Confused", the eleven dancers moved gracefully in their bell bottoms and wigs.  Michael Trusnovec, Taylor's current puppet, wore a long blonde free-spirited wig- "California Dreamin'" can't even describe it.  Annmaria Mazzini, another brilliant muse, demanded the stage.  Striking poses of elation and protest, she skipped and carved through space beautifully.  When watching these dancers, the atmosphere turns into a displaced swing from an urban landscape.  The ups and downs of the dancers bodies are never jarring, and always bouncing off a unheard of musicality.  When there's a pause in the music track, a dancer will pull up an eyebrow or flex a foot; During a completed sequence of instruments, dancers use each other as piano and guitar strings, constantly playing with the energy and pace of everything in their atmosphere.  

The only thing missing was the protesters on the street and the smell of incense in the air.  Why do we have to be in a theatre to re-live this atmosphere?  We should take a note from Taylor and his dancers and try to take their energy to the streets.

Please visit the Paul Taylor Dance Company website to find more about company tour dates, history and inspirations.