Conjuring Art from the Quotidian

Lisa Borres & Devon Louis in Fibers. Photo: Ron Thiele

Words alone have meaning, but only when strung together do they truly mean something.

That’s the takeaway from seeing Paul Taylor Dance Company’s program on June 14 at the Joyce. Artistic Director Michael Novak has smartly programmed some of Taylor’s early dances, such as Fibers and Images and Reflections, in which the choreographer experimented and sketched out seminal shapes and ideas to form an essential vocabulary from which he drew to create paragraphs. These precede later major pieces, also performed—Profiles, Aureole—which assembled these motifs in dazzling phrases to make an incomparable body of modern dance.

The program differed greatly in feeling from the company’s recent spring stint at City Center’s Spring Dance Festival, which featured mostly romantic or classical dances—soothing in a time of chaos, but not wholly representative of the choreographer's breadth. (Taylor, who died in 2018, often included one crunchier dance, either a psychological study or social commentary, in an evening of three pieces.) The early works seen at the Joyce are mostly shorter, or excerpted, eschewing the three-dance-per-evening formula (be it tried and true). The four Taylor dances bookended a premiere by Michelle Manzanales, a reminder that while rooted in Taylor’s oeuvre—ever more distant with each passing year—the company must continue to look ahead.

Taylor collaborated often with designers, including well-known artists. Rouben Ter-Arutunian created the fantastic contraptions and garments for Fibers (1961). The mens’ are the focus—colored and white straps encircling limbs and torso, hockey goalie-type face masks concealing the face, thus redirecting attention to the whole body. The women’s faces are painted white, to match the white unitards with blue details. While the piece forefronts the movement’s drama, enhanced by the costumes, it drops key shapes and moves that emerge in Profiles and Aureole.

John Harnage in Images and Reflections. Photo: Ron Thiele

Robert Rauschenberg contributed costume designs for Images and Reflections (1958). The first two evoke underwater creatures, especially in the dark lighting scheme—John Harnage, whose lucidity has emerged even further alongside confidence and strength—sports a long white mane on his unitard; Kristen Draucker wore a skirt of fin-like pink panels. Devon Louis (busy guy, in all but one dance on the slate) wore silver panné head to toe. The dancers made clear shapes, moving from pose to pose, or between short phrases, which were detached from the Morton Feldman score. Lyrical, arcing arms could be spotted in Aureole; explosive jumps in Profiles, to follow.

Madelyn Ho, John Harnage, Alex Clayton, Eran Bugge in Profiles. Photo: Ron Thiele

Profiles (1979) is a brief but daring study in extreme partnering. Beginning in his flat, Greek vase style—in profile—it evolves as the two pairs do what looks to be impossible. A woman, assisted by her partner, leaps onto his shoulder like a cat, or bounces high off of his chest. The two pairs form a lattice, the women balancing on the mens’ thighs. Profiles shows the potential of partnering beyond a pretty lift, and the steely strength required not just of the men, but the women.

In Aureole (1962), Taylor seemed to have taken all these striking shapes and strung them together with fluent connecting phrases, set to melodic Handel. Gone are the arty costumes, replaced with classical, crisp white leotards and dresses. Taylor’s new classicism took root in Aureole. However, it wasn’t a total break from the conceptual experiments into which Taylor had delved, nor the high drama of his days as a dancer with Martha Graham. He would also pursue these threads in his widely varying body of work, which still defies easy definition.

Hope Is the Thing with Feathers. Photo: Ron Thiele

Manzanales choreographed a premiere, Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, a suite set to a range of songs about birds. It’s fun, jaunty, and the dancers seem to be enjoying themselves. It is no cakewalk to be juxtaposed with prime examples of Paul Taylor’s choreography, but she acknowledged a debt to his influence by inserting Taylor quotes now and then—the arced, flowing arms, certain shapes and leaps. Then again, he created so many dances, and so many kinds of dances, that his influence can be found if you simply look for it in much of the work created in his wake. Even just walking down the street.

Concurrent with the PTDC Joyce run, Gladstone Gallery ran two shows of early work by Rauschenberg (and one at Mnuchin, which I missed). As is often the case in New York these days, the shows were of museum quality. Many of the works are made of cardboard and found objects—tires, paper bags, bikes, furniture, muslin. While watching the early Taylor work, I couldn’t help but think how, in the right hands, the simplest materials or human shapes ordered a certain way can become enduring art. How providential to catch displays by these collaborators at the same time.

Paul Taylor Company—0 to 60 and Back Again

Cloven Kingdom, the perfect gala dance. Photo: Paul B. Goode

Paul Taylor opened its 60th season last Tuesday at the Koch Theater, but there's little time to celebrate this momentous milestone. Yesterday at a press conference, the company announced plans to restructure, and by this time next year we should be seeing Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance performing its first season. 

This reincarnation of the current Taylor company anticipates the choreographer's eventual (but not currently planned) retirement. Work by other modern choreographers will be performed alongside Taylor's impressive oeuvre; the alien works—commissions and existing rep—are sure to be acquired slowly, so the programming probably won't be radically different at first. The release says: "To best showcase masterworks, they will be danced by legacy companies or artists trained in the signature techniques of the choreographers show pieces are being presented." Taylor was reluctant to name companies (and to speak, in general; if he were not a man, he'd be a clam), although Martha Graham popped up, and Merce Cunningham in the context that it might not be possible to perform his work.

Another interesting tenet says that live music will be used "where intended by the choreographer," and/or when possible. This addresses the one consistent criticism of Taylor's six decades of seasons, including by the union—the use of recorded music, which is an understandable compromise, faced with survival. What this means in practical terms is, again, yet to be determined. But in an impoverished dance climate, it is heartening to think of opening up this one-artist institution as a repository for modern dance, while maintaining Taylor's oeuvre.

To help finance this transition, four Rauschenberg artworks in Taylor's personal collection will be auctioned off in May, to raise an estimated $10 million. A representative from Sotheby's was on hand to speak about the specifics. One piece is a mixed media "combine" from 1954; another, Tracer, from 1962, includes a bicycle wheel and was made for the Paris Opera Ballet. Two additional 2D works round out the sale. You can't help but think about the trend of cultural organizations considering the sale of artworks to prolong the life of the institution. But in this case, apparently the Rauschenbergs have been in storage, and might never be seen otherwise. And it stems from personal relationship wrought in the nascent modernist movement of mid-20th century New York—reaping what was sown.

Sunset. Photo: Paul B. Goode

As for the current season, the company looks sharp, with some relatively new faces. Cloven Kingdom (1976) remains one of the gems in the rep; it opened the run, and was included on the gala program last night in a shrewdly sardonic bit of scheduling. As the tux and gown clad gala-goers took their seats, the curtain raised to reveal a parallel universe of fancily dressed women with shiny accessories (albeit mirrored objects on their heads) and men in elegant white tie tuxes behaving alternately like pouncing beasts and society swells, moving to a potent mix of classical music and tribal rhythms. The fact that it was being performed in the David Koch Theater, with its namesake in attendance, only contributed to its pungency.

Sunset (1983) followed, a gentle, if bittersweet paean to a bygone time of chivalry and military service. Each element fits perfectly within the whole—Alex Katz's mint-fresh set, Elgar's lilting string music augmented by the sound of loons, and Taylor's reductive, lyrical mode of movement in which even difficult feats are made to look effortless. Its undercurrents of war casualties and muffled male romance emerge, but never weigh down the mood. Guest artists Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild danced a duet from Airs (1978). As you might expect, they added some speed and height to the more technical elements like jumps and hitting shapes, and rendered it with a far lighter—airier—touch than the grounded Taylor dancers. 

Piazzolla Caldera (1997) is an oddity in the repertory, with its stylized interpretation of the tango tied to Kronos Quartet's interpretations of Piazzolla's tunes. It dawned on me that in two programs, I hadn't yet seen one of Taylor's "pattern" pieces, often set to classical music, but that Piazzolla Caldera actually contains a fair amount of group traffic exercises and patterns that bind together a series of solos and duets. Michael Trusnovec slices and slips his way through his opening solo and duet with Michelle Fleet, making the tango feel truly dangerous, and in a section with Rob Kleinendorst, the contrast between a warm Eran Bugge and the cool Laura Halzack clicked nicely.

On Tuesday, the company performed Dust (1977). Made a year after Cloven Kingdom, but lacking its sociological and kinetic incisiveness, it features the visual punch of Gene Moore's set—a thick, twisting column, like Jack's beanstalk—and costumes, flesh-hued unitards with blobs of color. Black Tuesday felt like a retort to Cloven Kingdom, with its Depression setting and roster of characters either succumbing to poverty and loneliness, or finding the brighter side. The absence of Parisa Khobdeh (out with an injury) and her current role as the company comedienne and daredevil was felt strongly here. Christina Lynch Markham handled the "Big Bad Wolf" solo ably, while Heather McGinley continues to make her mark as a memorable presence (flame-colored hair doesn't hurt). The season continues through March 30.

Trisha Brown's Astral Converted at the Armory

Astral Converted, performed in inner space. Photo: Stephanie Berger

The name Trisha Brown immediately conjures upright choreography, a deceptively plush style with ample leg brushes, twisting upper bodies, and rapid direction shifts. Or perhaps, her early, action-oriented pieces, involving wall walking or leaning. But watching Astral Converted (1991) at the Armory last week was to revisit the rigorous Valiant period of her career. Of particular note are the knotty still floor poses where the shoulders and head are treated as equal support elements to the limbs, the dancers' bodies folded into blobby pyramids, morphing into abstract sculptures. 


The collaboration with Robert Rauschenberg (visual presentation) and John Cage (sound score) might suggest that the piece was created earlier, since they contributed elements to dances decades before. There is an odd temporal tension between the Judson swag (push brooms) and the taut, formal choreography in which they're used. There's none of that shaggy incidental aspect here; everything is deliberate, designed, constructed. 


Rauschenberg's rolling towers are brilliantly economical, compactly serving the functions of set, lighting, and sound. He assembled auto parts in a metal framework, powering the headlights with car batteries, and employing car stereo systems and sensors for timing and triggering. The directional lighting amid the yawning dark of the Armory evoked images of midnight dancing in a parking lot lit by parked cars.


He garbed the dancers in silver unitards with contrasting silver panels; the womens' had sheer panels between the legs, like bat wings. Cage's score was fairly tame for him, sustained brass notes and bleats that felt somewhat distant due to the speaker locations. From time to time, a dancer would roll a tower to a new location, once more shifting the aspect.


Momentum built as time passed. Rather than loose-knit groups, Brown used straight lines of four dancers, or neat pairs. A late trio featured careful, yet daring, partnering, the men swooping a woman from the floor and flipping her rotisserie-style, with her leg and torso as a spit. Leanings did appear in sections, which when combined with the brooms, braided Brown's past with a more modern, stringent period. It's humbling to realize these were but a couple of genres within this inventive choreographer's creative output. While Astral used the Drill Hall's spectacular vastness less than previous productions, it did take on an otherworldliness from the void, like a glimpse of a beautiful, intelligent alien civilization.