Paul Taylor Dance Company's Fall 2025 Koch Season

Speaking in Tongues. Photo: Ron Thiele

Two of Paul Taylor’s stranger, more intriguing dances were performed the first week of the company’s fall Koch season. Speaking in Tongues (1988) is a dark drama with ominous undertones, personified by Lee Duvenek (“Man of the Cloth”), who stands in the shadows with his feet resolutely planted apart. Congregants dance gleefully, patrolled by his gaze. A couple pairs off, a man tries to fit in but can’t, a woman lets loose with two guys. Duvenek emerges from time to time to stride among his followers, or stand above them in surveillance and unwavering judgment.

Taylor often enlisted language to support and refine what he put on stage. Reading the names of some of the characters in Tongues is a case in point: “His Better Half,” “A Mother,” “Her Unwanted Daughter,” The Odd Man Out.” The work is supported by Matthew Patton’s mixed soundtrack of sounds and eerie declamatory voiceovers; Santo Loquasto’s textured panel backdrop, pendant lamps, and everyfolk costumes; and Jennifer Tipton’s moody lighting scheme. It feels downright operatic and relevant in a time of domineering tyrants who appeal to a perplexing populace lost and ready to be led, no matter the outcome.

Kenny Corrigan and Lisa Borres Casey in Scudorama. Photo: Ron Thiele

Scudorama (1963) feels like a quilt of different swatches from Taylor’s canon, represented in the costumes/sets by Alex Katz. There are daily life characters, such as the man in the patchwork jacket; nun-like women in black unitards with white collars; other in wildly colored unitards. Then there are the colorful native blankets that cover dancers, moving like grazing buffalo. The era when Taylor created this work bridged his early conceptual pieces with more dancey modern ones; it’s like a primer on Taylor in one enigmatic dance.

Emmy Wildermuth and company in How Love Sounds. Photo: Steven Pisano

The contemporary commissions in the season provided variety, mingled among Taylor repertoire. Hope Boykin’s premiere, How Love Sounds, held some interesting moments and spatial experiments, such as when two columns of dancers sandwiched center-stage performers. While her musical choices represented eclectic taste, the lack of a cohesive thread felt somewhat chaotic. It also seemed as if the movement vocabulary is a fluid work in progress, drawing from modern, jazz, and other forms.

Elizabeth Chapa and John Harnage in stim. Photo: Hisae Aihara

I have wondered why contemporary dance is not truly permitted to use the vocabularies of the great modern masters without being criticized as plagiarism, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel each time. Such rich troves exist in Taylor, Graham, Cunningham, and others; no doubt the inclination is to create one’s own language. But admirably, it seems as if Resident Choreographer Lauren Lovette has chosen to incorporate some of Taylor’s signature moves into stim, her premiere that vibrates with the nervous energy implied in the title. Iconic Taylor shapes pepper the piece, with elegant set pieces (pewter banners that fly up and down; rust-hued panels forming a backdrop) and luxe costumes (gem-hued unitards with embroidered yokes) by Taylor design stalwart Santo Loquasto.

Elizabeth Chapa stands out in a lengthy solo showcasing her strength, fluidity, and classical technique. She repeatedly vibrates a hand in front of her face, as if to shake herself awake or test reality. Lovette adds playful moves such as backbends and C-jumps into her blend of modern. Women sometimes lift men, and all have equally athletic and passionate passages. A puff of fog represents the return of whatever demons haunt Chapa, before a calming male solo ends the work. This dance feels as if it belongs in the Taylor canon, replete with quotes of his vocabulary in tribute.

Patrick Gamble in Under the Rhythm. Ron Thiele

Robert Battle, after leading Ailey for years and taking time off for a brief span, is now a Resident Choreographer at Taylor, and it seems like a fine fit. His Under the Rhythm brings sizzle, snap, and technique to the Taylor dancers, who are like Olympians ready to race, and whose skills are not always tested by guest choreographers. It begins with 13 of them in a chorus line, all dressed in white shirts, suspenders, and black pants which lend an old time feel. Devon Louis slashes and arranges his arms in semaphores, sweeping his waist-high arms right to left, and grabbing his neck. All the dancers join in, reminding us of the joys of a chorus line in tandem.

Various solos and duets ensue. Madelyn Ho spins low to the ground, her clarity and radiance projecting far. Alex Clayton and Lee Duveneck, in bright red tails, sizzle through an extended playful duet to Ella Fitzgerald scat singing. Toward the end, a line of tightly spaced dancers chugs on, heads bowed and elbows angled, taking a 90º left downstage. While it’s reminiscent of vaudeville and even Fosse, it still feels fresh on these versatile Taylor dancers. Battle has craft, and here imbues it with joy.

The company looks fine, capable and energetic and hitting all the marks. No surprise that it feels different since Taylor's death in 2018, when the company underwent a generational change, with a number of long-time dancers departing, and replacements hired. For decades, it seems as if the dancers carved out their individual niches within the repertory, and established their distinct personalities indelibly. While certain body types and styles of movement continue to wind up in specific roles, the turnover is higher, and perhaps in part due to that, the personalities feel less established. There always seemed to be a woman and a man who were the jesters, who did prat falls or made funny faces. Perhaps it's also the repertory that is being performed — less of the jokey pieces, more of the rest of it. And of course, the commissions, which are taking up an ever larger percentage of time, as it must be. The one constant remains Taylor's work.