Paul Taylor and the Legacy of American Modern Dance

Susan Yung

PAUL TAYLOR AMERICAN MODERN DANCE— 2018 KOCH THEATRE SEASON

he recent passing of Paul Taylor at age eight-eight marks the end of an era of male modern dance pioneers. Taylor had been making work for T the better part of six decades, along the way fostering a huge, enthusiastic following and creating a large, memorable corps of company alumni. With the instrumental work of Bettie de Jong as rehearsal director (and in recent years, longest-tenured dancer and Taylor standard-bearer Michael Trusnovec as associ- ate rehearsal director), even the earliest repertory has looked crisp and vibrant generations later.

Taylor’s death also renders the Paul Taylor Foundation’s newish performance model for its primary New York season practical and visionary. It is already three years into commissioning other choreographers to make work on the Taylor Company, and inviting other companies to perform modern dance icons. Thus, even as the Paul Taylor Dance Company has grown older, it has become more modern. It now moves forward without its founder, but under the leadership of Michael Novak, thirty-five, who was only recently appointed as artistic director designate.

I will discuss the topic of legacy in modern dance later, but will first look back at the Taylor enterprise’s final Lincoln Center season (2018) during Taylor’s lifetime. Paul Taylor American Modern Dance, a three-week annual New York season, comprises Taylor repertory, new commissions by other choreographers, and revivals by modern icons. (The name Paul Taylor Dance Company refers to the group, founded in 1954.) Until the establishment of PTAMD in 2015, the company’s repertory season was slightly more predictable. Taylor typically created two new dances a year (for 2018, one), performed with sixteen-to-eighteen repertory works. Each performance was a different line-up (that is unchanged), and

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00453 by guest on 30 September 2021 each slate a balance of a lively opener, a dramatic or thought-provoking middle, and an exciting closing work, often a “classic” such as Esplanade.

With the advent of PTAMD, the mix changed with the incorporation of modern dance classics by other creators—Martha Graham danced by PTDC; Jose Limón and Trisha Brown danced by their respective troupes; and Donald McKayle by Dayton Contemporary Dance Company—plus two or so new commissions by other select choreographers. While many 2018 programs comprised works solely by Taylor, more often than not other artists’ work could be seen on a slate.

2018 PREMIERES AND GUEST PERFORMANCES

The juxtaposition of Taylor’s work with other choreography can serve to magnify the strengths of Taylor’s classic repertory. When viewed after Bryan Arias’s mel- lifluous if amorphous commission, The Beauty in the Gray, a canonic work such as Esplanade reads like a master class in structure, dynamics, and pacing. Still, comparisons can be drawn between the dances. In Beauty (with music by Nico Muhly and Olafur Arnalds), Arias employs silhouettes of dancers as background textures, echoing a favored Taylor device; pairs and trios imply relationships. But it pales in comparison to the incisive middle “family” scene in Esplanade in which the dancers interact but never touch, a cushion of air between hands and bodies implying unbridgeable distance. Arias’s choreography at moments evokes the geometric modernity of Jiri Kylian (he danced with Nederlands Dance Theater), but myriad hand gestures accrue to superfluity.

Half Life, a commission by Doug Varone, opens with a recurring motif of two dancers “skating” side to side. Varone’s lush, organic style suits the Taylor dancers. Santo Loquasto designed the daring set—rows of hue-changing light tubes positioned like a ceiling that gradually descends. Julia Wolfe’s music sets the tone—spiky strings and tetchy notes that quaver and skitter, and costumes (by Liz Prince) are mute-toned separates. An omnipresent tension exists between the dancers, who interact by pulling, pushing, and exploding apart. Even stasis is fraught; frozen poses seem to store energy to be released. The prime dynamic is a coursing restlessness, but there are sections of contained movements by a group that appears to spin cyclonically as one organism. The dancers form columns and burst out of them; hands shoot up, out. They form a human chain; the last person is whipped about. The harsh lighting turns yellow, and the dancers col- lapse as the descending ceiling threatens to crush them. They barely eke offstage before the lights flicker off.

Concertiana, Taylor’s 2018 premiere, turned out to be a parting gift to his newer dancers, on whom he simply had less time on which to set roles. Newer is relative:

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00453 by guest on 30 September 2021 Heather McGinley joined PTDC in 2011 and is still under-seen. In Concertiana, she has long solo passages to display her serene, unmannered bearing and elegant line. Novak (she joined in 2010), a doppelganger for a young Taylor, has a powerful solo filled with stamping, chest slaps, and a drawn-bow gesture. The ensemble floods on and off to facilitate cast entrances, and in a nod to the aforementioned motif, they cross upstage in dim light, silhouettes creating a backdrop. The dance feels suffused with the idea of mortality and being earth-bound: the men pull themselves along on their stomachs, and there’s more full-body floor work than usual by Taylor, as well as moments of stillness. Unceasing kineticism gives way to pensiveness, light fades to dark, analogous to a career—a life—coming to an end. Taylor usually choreographed in part by demonstrating things; his mobil- ity was compromised when he created this, which is reflected in the weightier vocabulary.

Season guest performances included New York City Ballet star Sara Mearns in Dances of Isadora, a suite of solos to Chopin that ranged from simply standing to exuberant jumps and sautés with extended legs. Duncan’s bounteous freedom has found a kindred spirit in Mearns, one of today’s most expressive ballerinas whose abundant ability transcends technique. The Trisha Brown Dance Company brought Set and Reset (1983), a slice of downtown cool with contributions by Robert Rauschenberg (set, costumes) and Laurie Anderson (score), and Brown’s inexorably flowing phrasing performed by seemingly boneless bodies.

TAYLOR REPERTORY

Taylor’s classic dances in this year’s line-up include Aureole, Arden Court, Esplanade, Promethean Fire, Cloven Kingdom, Runes, and Mercuric Tidings. The latter two, which haven’t been performed in a few seasons, were gratifying to revisit. Runes, in which the men wear small fur backpacks and time is marked by the moon’s arc, is a hypnotic meditation on ritual and mortality. Mercuric Tidings remains one of Taylor’s fastest and most challenging formal exercises in which the tempo is breakneck and the mood elated. Sean Mahoney danced the featured solo in the poetic Aureole, showing a tree-like balance and gracious humility. In a change, leads alternated in some of the more demanding roles. I saw both Michael Trus- novec and Novak in Promethean Fire, and while the first Michael, paired with the lush Parisa Khobdeh, remains sublime, the second—with Eran Bugge, silky and radiant—emitted striking magnetism.

The season’s strongly romantic dances included Roses and Eventide. The company reads as a tight-knit community in these works, in which dancers pair off and relate with intense familiarity and tenderness. Piazzolla Caldera, taking its aggressive emotional temperature from the passionate tango music, brings bodies

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00453 by guest on 30 September 2021 together out of romance or for pure animal release. Trusnovec sparks and flashes through his brief opening solo, slicing through space with controlled passion. Newer dancers who impressed throughout the season include the radiant Mad- elyn Ho; Alex Clayton, a plush and powerful mover; and Lee Duveneck, who substituted in a number of featured roles.

LEGACY

Time passes; what was once a revolution can become an institution. And so it is with modern dance. In the mid-twentieth century, Paul Taylor made radical statements against the establishment, famously setting a pair of still performers in 4:33, the duration of the silent “score” by John Cage. He went on to create a body of diverse work that can be divided into subgenres of formal/musical, dramatic, social commentary, joyous, dark, and just plain sui generis. Even after decades, some works still shock—Big Bertha (1970), with incest and murder, and cause consternation—Oh You Kid! (1999), the costumes for which include KKK hoods. In the recent past, Taylor has represented American Modern Dance; it’s no coincidence that he chose this moniker for a living archive of the genre.

Current dancer and artistic director designate Michael Novak of the Paul Taylor Dance Foundation, which oversees the company and PTAMD. Novak said:

Over sixty-four years, Mr. Taylor built an incredible legacy and we are determined to continue this legacy with utmost pride and devotion. I stand firmly behind Mr. Taylor’s plan for our future: to preserve the important historical works of our past; to commission the next generation of modern dance choreographers; and to bring the vast Taylor repertory to audiences all around the globe. These three components allow us to celebrate our past and simultaneously support the dancemakers who will expand the power and poignancy of our art form. It is a beautiful vision to guide us forward into the future.

Executive director John Tomlinson noted that with the 2018 season, PTAMD has implemented all elements of Taylor’s vision for American Modern Dance, while looking ahead to the project’s continued growth.

Taylor’s modern peers—Martha Graham (for whom he danced), Jose Limón, Merce Cunningham, and others—founded companies that performed their work while they were alive. The 1960s postmodernists, whose locus was the Judson movement, reacted to modernism’s formalism with a pedestrian vocabulary and conceptual exercises. In both cases, the artist-based company model has prevailed by default. But as they matured, it became apparent that these companies would

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00453 by guest on 30 September 2021 Paul Taylor Dance Company in Half Life. Photo: Paul B. Goode.

Heather McGinley in Concertiana. Photo: Paul B. Goode.

Michael Novak, Madelyn Ho, and Jamie Rae Walker in The Beauty in the Gray. Photo: Paul B. Goode.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00453 by guest on 30 September 2021 not automatically self-pilot once the founders passed, along with the realiza- tion that new dances would not be created. Alvin Ailey was among the first of his generation to die; his company has more or less thrived since, framing its repertory around a core of his dances, primarily his opus, Revelations. But less and less of Ailey’s repertory is included in seasons, and more by younger artists, including its current artistic director, Robert Battle, who, as a dancer and then choreographer for ex-Taylor dancer David Parsons (interestingly carries Taylor’s dance DNA), and talents such as Ronald K. Brown and Camille Brown.

Merce Cunningham’s company disbanded after his death in 2009, which dealt fans two huge losses at once. While his work will never be performed with the same high level of technique that his dancers attained through training and repetition, it lives in pieces. The foundation overseeing his estate licenses select dances to companies and universities, taught by appointed dancers (akin to the Balanchine Trust). A big celebration of Cunningham work is planned for his centennial next season, with dozens of performances and related events. Under artistic director Janet Eilber, Martha Graham Dance Company is maintaining a core of Graham repertory and commissioning other choreographers who are creating pieces for MGDC that connect to Graham, either directly or subtly. Such recent creators include Annie-B Parson, who riffed brilliantly on a Graham dance, and this past season, veteran dancemakers Lucinda Childs and Lar Lubovitch, who set new formal works on the skilled Graham dancers.

Somewhat surprisingly, and gratifyingly, the Trisha Brown Dance Company continues to perform a year after Brown’s death, and several years after the choreographer’s last full involvement with the company. According to executive director Barbara Dufty: “We have been concentrating on our new performance model, Trisha Brown: In Plain Site. In this model we work closely with presenters in creating a specific program for sites they select, with emphasis on audience engagement and providing a more intimate experience for people less familiar with modern dance.” While TBDC gave what was billed as the last proscenium program at BAM in 2016, happily, demand ensued. “There were continued requests from presenters to see Trisha’s proscenium works, so in 2017 we put together a program for Jacob’s Pillow Anniversary season and for a season at the Joyce,” said Dufty. Add these to the warmly received performances of Set and Reset with PTAMD last season, performances of smaller-scaled conceptual pieces at BAM this fall, and the company endures—for the time being.

For years, William Forsythe worked in Germany—first in Stuttgart, then at Ballett Frankfurt, and then with The Forsythe Company. His output is incredibly wide- ranging and encompasses ballet, neo-classical ballet, and dance-theatre works

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According to Alexandra Scott, executive director of Forsythe Productions, at pres- ent twenty-six of his ballets are in repertories of companies around the world. While it is heartening that Forsythe’s repertory is alive, albeit dispersed and largely being performed by dancers not nurtured by him, what will most likely never be restaged is a core of large-scale, conceptually ambitious dance-theatre work he produced in Germany, including EIDOS: TELOS, Kammer/Kammer, Three Atmospheric Studies, Sider, and others. This also underscores the historical importance of a shared language; in this case, ballet, which is far more readily communicated than sui generis styles.

One cannot accuse Mark Morris of ignoring mortality. Unique among his peers, he is currently working on an unspecified number of dances to be performed after his death, in a project called Dances for the Future, in tandem with a Mark Morris Archive. It is indicative of a practical streak: Morris has a raft of ideas, but only so many dances can be presented in a season. The move is also a deft fund-raising tool, and sets his supporters’ sights beyond his lifetime. Not only that, it makes us wistful for what we may never witness.

In the wake of seeing the many different iterations of legacy planning by dancemakers, it seems that choreographers are being pressed into grappling with their legacies earlier than ever, no doubt encouraged by boards and supporters who wish to see the work live on. Many of the modern dance renegades whose bodies of work do live on have cultivated smart administrators and development teams. And yet it begs the question: is there a finite pool of money to support modern dance? When one dollar goes to a large, established name, is a burgeoning artist denied that buck? Companies such as Taylor by option, and Ailey and Graham by necessity, in commissioning work by younger choreographers, channel hard- won capital into new art.

The recent passing of Paul Taylor will put to the test his foundation’s bold plan. It most likely was not easy to essentially divert resources away from Taylor’s own work toward that of his peers and to new choreographers. But the foundation has handled the inevitable admirably and the structure may inspire others to

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SUSAN YUNG is senior editorial manager at BAM, where she co-edited BAM: The Next Wave Festival (2018). She has also written freelance about dance and culture for publications such as the Brooklyn Rail, Ephemeralist .com, Dance Magazine, and Ballet Tanz.

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